The road to Coach Party’s debut album KILLYJOY has been a short time coming for fans and a long time for the group. Since 2019, the four-piece band from England’s Isle of Wight shared several EPs, a slew of bopping singles and held their own playing huge festival stages, including a stop at Glastonbury in June.
KILLJOY’s final single “Be That Girl” debuted this week on BBC 1 Radio as the “Hottest Record in the World.” The band describes the track as an epiphany, complementing the record’s five other singles, including “Born Leader,” “What’s The Point In Life” and “Micro Aggression.” They even worked past nerves and played support for Queens of the Stone Age during the Josh Homme-led crew’s return to the UK this summer.
Now Beyond The Stage has had the chance to speak with Coach Party’s vocalist and bassist Jess Eastwood to discuss KILLJOY, the need for thriving local scenes in all English towns and gorgeous French mountains. Coach Party has been on the BTS radar since summer 2021 when they released the After Party EP. Jess provides a peak behind the curtain to reveal the band’s work that can be appreciated. Read the full interview below.
BTS: It’s been really cool to follow along and see Coach Party blow up. Now you’re getting ready to release your debut record. How does that feel for the band?
Jess Eastwood of Coach Party: I feel like the organic growth has been nice. It feels right that we should be doing an album. We’ve been together since 2016. And that was not “Coach Party.” We started as me and Steph (Norris), our guitarist, and we made a band with both our names called Jeff. By 2019 we had like one or two songs out and it wasn’t a serious thing and we were just doing it for fun. In 2019, our manager heard them and said “This is really cool.” He said, “I love your music but I don’t love the name Jeff. Can you please call yourself something else? Can we delete everything? And just like start again?” We figured, what have we got to lose? So we did and that’s how we became Coach Party.
BTS: There are a billion ways to hyper-generalize rock bands nowadays, but there is a variety on KILLJOY. There are times when this record slows down or has an ‘electronic’ feel. Does Coach Party label themselves a certain way?
Jess Eastwood of Coach Party: I think it’s so difficult, isn’t it? I guess any sort of interview that you have to do, always starts with “Coach Party is an indie rock band or ‘shoegazers.’” It’s different more or less every time, but why? We listened to so many different types of music. I grew up on pop punk, emo, that type of vibe. Now I just listen to pop music. Guy Page (Coach Party’s drummer) is big into 90s nu-metal. Steph listens to 2000s indie bands. Joe Perry (Coach Party’s guitarist) listens to Queens of the Stone Age. I listened to KILLYJOY and I can’t pin it myself. I’m like, oh, well, this guitar also must be rock. But what does that mean? Labels are not a thing anymore, so let’s get rid of them.
BTS: Your bandmates are fans of Queens of the Stone Age, so that must have been a fun time supporting them in June. What was that experience like?
Jess Eastwood of Coach Party: It was wild. We are all fans but Joe has lived and breathed Queens of the Stone Age since he was like 12-years-old. So you can imagine we were a bit nervous the first night. Then Josh Homme just came barging into our dressing room with a big bottle of tequila and said “Friends? Cool. Let’s have some fun!” I was like, “alright!”
BTS: Were those some of the biggest crowds to see you play?
Jess Eastwood of Coach Party: We played our biggest show last year in May to 97,000 people. We’ve had other festival shows, our own tours and supported others. We feel like we’re quite used to some good crowds at this point.
BTS: KILLJOY comes out September 8 and then you begin an EU/UK tour the next night. There’s going to be a bit of buzz. Are you excited to play a fresh record for audiences all over the continent?
Jess Eastwood of Coach Party: Yeah, yeah, it definitely gets old playing old stuff. We gig so much. We love doing what we’ve been doing, playing hundreds of gigs a year. Playing the old stuff has kind of gotten a little bit dusty. So it will be really nice. Like, we’ve been playing this new stuff now for about three or four months. It feels good, but to play it all will be so good.
BTS: Coach Party is from the Isle of Wight, and you’ve gotten to play all over. Are there special moments you’ve all had on the road, and do you enjoy going home?
Jess Eastwood of Coach Party: We were in France of couple of weeks ago and there was this humongous lake that overlooked mountains and it was warm. It was like a movie. I remember all of us there kind of just having a bit of a moment. We thought, “Wow, we’re here.” I think we don’t stop and think about those moments enough, especially when you’re traveling so much. I’ve been in London for a few months but am moving back to Isle of Wight to get a house with the band.
BTS: What’s the scene like there?
Jess Eastwood of Coach Party: There’s definitely a huge scene. It’s kind of great at the minute. It’s really lively, which is nice. It’s nice to go back to that. I just think we need to have like a few more live venues there to showcase that because we only have one. I think we could do with another one.
Coach Party’s first-ever full-length record comes out Friday, September 8 via Chess Club Records before the band plays all over the EU/UK for several months. The tour dates are below.
COACH PARTY – 2023 EU TOUR DATES
Sep 9 | AAA Records, Newport, UK
Sep 11 | Rough Trade East, London, UK
Sep 12 | Rough Trade Bristol, Bristol, UK
Sep 13 | Rough Trade Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Sep 14 | The Jacaranda | Liverpool, UK
Sep 26 | Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
Sep 27 | The Cluny, Newcastle
Sep 28 | The Caves, Edinburgh
Sep 29 | Stereo, Glasgow
Sep 30 | Gorilla, Manchester
Oct 4 | Castle & Falcon, Birmingham
Oct 5 | Thekla, Bristol
Oct 6 |Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Oct 7 | Hangar 34, Liverpool
Oct 8 | Bullingdon, Oxford
Oct 11 | Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Oct 12 | Scala, London
Oct 13 | Patterns, Brighton
Oct 14 | Poppodium 013, Tilburg, Netherlands
Oct 24 | L’Aeronef, Lille
Oct 25 | Trix, Antwerp
Oct 26 | Rotondes, Luxembourg
Oct 28 | Vera, Groningen
Oct 30 | De Helling, Utrecht
Nov 1 | La Cartonnerie, Reims**
Nov 2 | Stereolux, Nantes
Nov 3 | Cafe De La Danse, Paris, France
Nov 4 | La Laiterie, Strasbourg
Nov 6 | Kesselhaus, Wiesbaden
Nov 7 | MTC, Cologne
Nov 9 | Private Club, Berlin
Nov 30 | Roisin Dubh, Galway
Dec 1 | The Workmans Club, Dublin
Dec 2 | Voodoo, Belfast
** Special Guests to Inspector Cluzo
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