Artist: SloCoast
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Latest Release: “What Are We Waiting For?”
(Answers by Trevor Jarvis)
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
There are seven of us in this group. Collectively, we all have a wide variety of tastes and influences, but one artist we all love in common is Alison Krauss & Union Station. I guess you could call that group our North Star for SloCoast. Good players, good songwriting, killer harmonies — the stuff we all love. Our band crush, for sure!
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
We recently played a show at a farm up near Sacramento. In the middle of a song, Mark [Cassidy] broke and replaced a string right when he was about to take a solo. The band just vamped while he was doing it and then we all came back into the song form together when he was done. It’s always memorable when something like that happens cause it’s like one big trust fall.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
A lot of life experience usually informs our writing — could just be a simple conversation that sparks some kind of idea. Going out to a show can also be really inspiring. Just hearing a good song can open up a lot!
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
Almost every time we write a song, there will be a flow period where everything writes itself, but then we’ll get stuck on one final line. Sometimes it takes hours (if not days) to finish that one line. This seems to be our process with every song — and it’s maddening.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
Honestly, we have more of a post-show/recording ritual than we do beforehand. After the show, or a long day of writing or recording, we usually sit in a circle with a bottle of Jameson on the table and talk/jam into the midnight hours. Just hanging out together is good for the soul and creates a perfect environment for making new music, too!
Photo Credit: Elle Jaye
