“‘Killjoy’ was the only name that all four of us didn’t wanna fight each other over,” laughs Coach Party’s vocalist and bassist Jess Eastward of the playfully nihilistic manifesto that titles their debut album, set for release on September 8, 2023 via acclaimed indie label Chess Club Records. It’s a mission statement that encapsulates the attitude at the heart of the band – completed by guitarists Steph Norris and Joe Perry, and drummer and producer Guy Page – who’ve spent the time since 2019 debut single ‘Oh, Lola!’ documenting life’s trials and tribulations in increasingly incendiary fashion. Sure, you could get bogged down in dissecting the whys and wherefores, or you could just suck it up and understand that, in Jess’ words, “people are just dicks sometimes, and that’s the moral of the story!”
Coach Party aren’t casting judgement; in fact, as on 2021 fan favorite single ‘Everybody Hates Me’, they know that often the problems lie within. But for the steadily building tribe of fans who’ve seen them rise from regional newcomers to a breakthrough success story capable of selling out shows, igniting festival mosh pits and, next month, supporting Queens of the Stone Age (handpicked, no less), Coach Party represent a refreshingly honest break from the social media perfection that infiltrates our everyday. As Guy summarises: “We want to be there for the people that are having a bad time.”
‘Killjoy’ marks the culmination of four years of constant graft including three EPs (2020’s ‘Party Food’, 2021’s ‘After Party’ and last year’s ‘Nothing Is Real’) and a subsequent slew of tours supporting Wet Leg, The Amazons, We Are Scientists and more. In 2022 alone, the band played 120 live shows including a mind-boggling night at the 97,000-capacity Stade de France supporting Indochine; along the way, they’ve been heralded by The Observer, The Independent, Notion, DIY and Dork among others, with radio support from BBC 6 Music and a BBC Introducing Track of the Week shout on Radio One.
Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the four friends have been hard at it for even longer. Meeting naturally, as everyone in the Isle of Wight’s tiny music scene eventually does, even from the earliest days of Coach Party back in 2017, the quartet would hop on the ferry and play wherever would take them to get experience and broaden their horizons beyond the island. “A band from Bristol could probably go a whole year without leaving the outskirts of Bristol, but we were forced to be sociable and play in other places,” explains Guy.
“It helped the writing because we’ve developed so much where, now, we’ll do it all together,” Jess picks up. “Touring and being together, traveling 24/7, is the most beneficial to writing ‘cos you get to know each other so well. Now, one person writing on their own won’t have the same effect as the four of us all chipping in.”
Growing closer, discovering their own unique interpersonal alchemy and leaning into the live side of their sound have become the keys to Coach Party’s kingdom. Building on the more indie roots of their first material (Jess cites The Big Moon, Alvvays and Snail Mail among their early influences), as the quartet’s shows have become more rowdy, so have their new songs responded in tandem. “We did Dot to Dot Festival and The Great Escape last year and, in a short period of time, suddenly we were a band that had mosh-pits. We just fed off of that so greedily,” grins Guy. “That was when we were just about to start writing for the album, so retrospectively I’m sure we were thinking that those moments were so good, let’s make more music that people can mosh to.”
Writing for the album would, too, become a process ingrained within their giddy touring schedule. Penned throughout the last year in snippets of time snatched on the road and on rare days off, ‘Killjoy’’s energy reflects the whirlwind period that it was born from. Some tracks, like the more intricate, insidious creep of recent single ‘Micro Aggression’ were developed over multiple months, honing and refining it until they reached the taught, nasty-sounding result they were seeking; others, like hedonistic album opener ‘What’s The Point In Life?’ came “within ten minutes”, buoyed by a sense of urgency and infectious immediacy. “I couldn’t even tell you how the album came together, it just did,” Jess laughs in summary.
If sonically, the record marks Coach Party’s heaviest body of work to date – particularly on the short, sharp, 90-second shock of ‘Parasite’ – then the quartet are still finding a sense of playful fun within the fervour. They might be drawn to the more fucked-off spectrum of feelings, but ‘Killjoy’ – ironically – is far from a downer. “I feel like we’ve always been known for having negative lyrics, but the vibe is still pretty good!” Jess notes.
Take the album’s aforementioned opener. On the surface, ‘What’s The Point In Life?’ could seem like an admission of defeat, but here, amidst insatiable hooks and almost pop-punk nodding riffs, the band reimagine the sentiment as a gateway to freedom. “It’s just saying, ‘Do what you want’. Everything that we do is constructed by humans and there’s no real way to live. We just have this society of, ‘We need to do this’ and ‘We need to earn money’. And while you do need to do that, yes, it’s like well, what is the point in life? Just go and have some fun,” says Jess.
‘All I Wanna Do Is Hate’ might wear its self-lacerating heart more firmly on its sleeve, but beneath the lyrics that lash out at the world and themselves, the track’s needling guitars and fists aloft chant are made for moments of thrashing crowd camaraderie. ‘All Of My Friends’ questions societal norms (marriage, house, 2.4 kids) and comes out with an anthemic Cribs-like chorus that suggests that, deep down, Coach Party know the alternative is far more fun. Meanwhile ‘Parasite’ revels in its unashamed thrash. “It’s literally a minute and a half so you don’t have any time to stop and think during it,” Jess shrugs. “It just is what it is and it’s an angry song!”
There are moments of introspection to be found on the dreamy ‘Be That Girl’ – which battles mental health issues to try and retain a sense of self – or the “fantasy song” of closer ‘Always Been You’: a “delusional manifestation of a relationship that hasn’t happened yet”. “They’re much more about yourself and your inner thoughts, when you need to make sense of it in a calm way,” notes Guy. “You don’t need to shout to hear yourself.” But even when they’re at their most sedate, Coach Party are still a band to tell it like it is and spare no punches. In a world that often forces you to smooth off your edges, Coach Party are a spiky, sparky antidote to any of that.
“‘Always Been You’ ends on the lyric, ‘It’s always been you / Has it always been me for you?” says Guy. “It’s like a cliffhanger where it says, ‘Do you wanna listen again?’” Jess laughs: “First track on Album Two will be ‘It’s never been anyone…’”
