Relaxing in her Los Angeles home before the duo embark on their US tour, Bethany Cosentino divulges the reasons why the band, which includes multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, decided to forsake the summer fun of their debut, for a solemn album about the singer-songwriter’s experiences since they broke through in 2010.
The cover art for their second album, The Only Place, displays a bear hugging the duo’s home state of California. The opening title track is, of course, an ode to their native state, but from here on, the album exposes darker times for Consentino, with themes of homesickness and heartbreak.
The lead singer also opened up about what influenced the record lyrically, “there are elements of it about my experiences as a touring musician, I don’t know if others have experienced it as I have, but for me as a high-anxiety, stressed-out person it was definitely a difficult thing for me to pick up out of nowhere and to start travelling. To consecutively be touring for two years was very difficult and I think it made me become very introverted… I thought a lot about myself and about the bad habits that I picked up.”
The album is also a testament to how Consentino has grown since the success of debut album, Crazy For You. Calling The Only Place, “more grown up” she details the transition from being a young adult to a woman. “I think as a person I mellowed out more than I was. The first record I was insecure, I was young and going through this ‘does he like me, I like him’ phase and with this record it was like ‘oh fuck, I’m growing up and life is really shitty and hard sometimes’.”
Best Coast left the small studio they recorded Crazy For You in, to craft their second album in the legendary Capitol Studios, enlisting Jon Brion as producer, a man who has worked with the likes of Kanye West and Fiona Apple.
“I think his main goal was really to enhance our sound sonically and sort of take us from that black and white lo-fi sound and enhance it into colour,” Consentino remarks, “take us into technicolour and make us this bigger, broader sounding band.”
Brion not only assisted in elevating their sound, but enabled the frontwoman to show her potential as a vocalist, “I wanted to genuinely make a record that showcased my vocals. I wanted sing a lot more ballads and a lot more mid-tempo songs.”
“As a singer, when you’re writing really fast pop-punk anthems with my style of singing – that I’ve been trained to do throughout my life – it’s more difficult to sing at the best of my ability when I’m singing fast and speeding through the lyrics really quickly.”
Consentino cites Stevie Nicks as a huge influence, the duo covering her track ‘Storms’ for a limited edition release. “I’ve been a big of Fleetwood Mac for a really long time,” she confirms “and Nicks is definitely someone that I look up to, not only as far as fashion, and aesthetically I think she has such a great look and stage presence; but I think vocally and stylistically as a writer she has this very keen sense of telling these very personal stories in her music. I think ‘Storms’ is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. She sounds like a very confident woman as far as her vocals go and what I really sought to do on this record was just to sing very confidently.”
While the album doesn’t have the same pop fuzz as Crazy For You, the duo aren’t worried about upsetting their fans. “So far the response has been very positive” Consentino offers, “I know that there are people out there that are going to dislike it and are going to wish that it’s lo-fi… that it was all pop songs. I’m well aware that those people out there exist but I think the true fans are seeing that we’ve grown as a band and we’ve grown as song-writers and musicians.”
“I think that for me the important thing is that for each record that you make it’s supposed to be a growth in one way or another, you’re not supposed to make the same record over and over again. With this record we did grow and we did change but we didn’t ditch the sound, there are still elements of Best Coast to this record, I think that they’re just a little bit more stylistically enhanced from the first record.”
For Consentino, the importance of personal song writing shines through on The Only Place. Songs like ‘Why I Cry’, ‘Do You Love me Like You Used To’ and ‘My Life’ reveal intimate details of her existence in the past two years. “As a writer,” she adds, “it’s very important to make sure that I’m making songs that are relatable to people and that people can listen and think ‘oh I feel like that exact same way and she’s this person that is on this platform of success and she’s a professional musician but she goes through the same issues that I go through’ and I think that’s genuinely why people connect to Best Coast so much, because the songs are just very relatable.”
The song ‘How They Want Me to Be’ exemplifies the singer’s willingness to write about personal experiences, no matter who they’re about. “All of my friends stick up their noses, ask me where my money is,” she sings; and how have her friends reacted to this? “My friends and family don’t go that in-depth, they’re just like ‘oh you have a great voice and you write great songs’ and they’re just on a level where they’re happy with it. I’m sure they wonder in their heads ‘what is she talking about’ but I think they’ve learnt at this point not to ask me because I tend to get a little irritated.”
The song continues displaying her frustration with her own mother. Consentino recalls how, “she was listening to the record yesterday for the first time and I was sitting with her. I don’t particularly like to be around when people hear my music, but she was listening to it and started asking me questions which was really funny cause ‘How They Want Me to Be’ came on and there’s a line that says ‘even my own mother asks me a lot of questions’ and we started laughing.”
Best Coast’s second album, The Only Place is released on May 15th, with Consentino adding that the pair would “definitely be back sometime soon to tour this record.”
– Corey Tonkin
