Hello Jason, are you doing?
Fine thanks. I just got back from Hawaii on a photo shoot for work, so it’s hard to get back into the swing of things, but I’ll survive.

Where do you come from? And where do you live now?
I’m originally from Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, but have lived in Utah for 11 years now.

Can you introduce Coastal and its band members?
My wife Luisa (keyboards, backing vocals) is from Eastern Oregon, Josh (bass) is from Memphis, Tennessee, and Jim (drums) is from Utah, although originally from the same area in Canada as me. We all met while going to school at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

What was or is the general idea behind this project? Where does the name come from?
We’ve all been in bands before that refused to explore really quiet and mellow music. Coastal has been our opportunity to do that with no limitations. We take a very casual approach to the band. None of us wants to ‘make it’ as a musician. Even if the opportunity presented itself I doubt any of us would want that as a career. We place more priority on family—most of us have kids. We are all content with the stability of our day jobs. The band keeps us sane and is a nice outlet for creativity that isn’t always allowed in our work lives.

The name comes from a mixture of a Field Mice album, of which I’m a huge fan and very influenced by, and the imagery of a placid sea. The coast can be a very relaxing place to be at times.

Which have your first musical experiences been? From where does your interest for this kind of music issue?
I grew up as the youngest of six kids. Most of my siblings played piano, so as a family we would always get together and sing songs. We sang a lot at church too every Sunday. I suppose that’s where I learned to sing. I took up the drums in school. I have more formal training on that than guitar. I gravitated towards mellow music as a child because of the teenaged heartbreak music my sisters were listening to. I just thought vinyl was cool so I’d listen to whatever was on the platter at the time. So I’ve always liked mellow music. When shoegaze happened I was really entranced by the dreamy stuff a la Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, and the like. I was listening to some stuff that helped transition me into that music too, like The Smiths and even Depeche Mode.

Talking about “Halfway To You”… To what is this new album inspired? Which are the motivations, which have lead you to realise such album? Which are its musical contents? Which kind of atmosphere have you underlined most?
I guess we felt we had grown more as a band from our first record so we wanted to do a follow up that was more varied, but still Coastal. We released an album’s worth of material between this album and our last on e.p.’s and split CDs and in them we were able to experiment a bit with our sound. I’m not really interested in reinventing our sound though. Personally when I like a band I want to hear that same sound from them all the time. That’s what I like about a certain band is their unique sound. I get frustrated when that sound changes. Like Ride. I loved their first few albums, but by Tarantula I couldn’t even listen to it.

Other inspiration for the album was a few unrealized songs that I’d had in my head for years, some even before coastal came to be.

As far as the atmosphere goes, we tried to add some strings which is something we wanted to do on the first album, but weren’t able to. Diversify a bit more with different instruments and have a few more guest musicians. We’ve met some amazing people over the years that are very talented.

I always say it’s hard to make sad music when your life is relatively happy. I like the challenge though.

Differences with your debut album?
I wrote most of this album myself, so it has more of a personal feel to it, more intimate. Our first album was more a band effort. I sort of answered this question above.

Which are the instruments used in this album?
Guitar, more acoustic than the last album, which didn’t have any actually, less drums, strings, and bells. Not as much keyboard. I think the album in general is more minimal at times.

Can you describe the process you take in writing your music?
Well as I had sort of indicated we used to practice a lot together and write songs together as a band, but we don’t live as close as we used to so getting together is a challenge these days, so I write most of the song and leave the bass and keyboard parts for Josh and Luisa.

As far as lyrics go I don’t spend too much time writing them down. When I hear a melody or a partially completed song I’ll usually just stick with whatever lyrics come out the first time I try to sing something. That’s not to say lyrics aren’t important to me. I just like to leave things ambiguous and open to interpretation. I rarely write a song with lyrics first.

Which moods do you like to spread most to the listeners? And which emotions do you suppose the listeners will feel listening your music?
I have to say this is not a conscious effort. We just write songs and whatever people feel while listening to them is up to them and whatever mood they might be in at the time. We aren’t very calculated as a band. I know generally that our music can be sad and contemplative (that’s a nice way of saying depressing), but I’d like to think there is a lot of joy there too. Drift on the new album is a very happy song without being all the jangle and upbeat tempo of a proper pop song.

Who are the past artists who have formed your musical culture? While who are the modern ones you listen and prefer more?
Like I said before the Field Mice (currently trembling blue stars) are a huge influence, Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, Velour 100, Red House Painters, and such. Most people think low is our biggest influence, but they aren’t. We like low and have played a few shows with them and they definitely are an influence, but I think when people compare us to them it’s just lazy journalism. Low aren’t as spacey and atmospheric as we are.
That shoegaze influence is my doing. It actually bothers me when we get compared to low because I really don’t think we sound like them at all. It’s like as soon as you use a ride and a snare and go down tempo you are suddenly low. Or as soon as you harmonize and get sparse in your song structure. I mean yeah the similarities are there – we are both Mormons and sing with our wives and make slow music, so I guess I can see why people make this comparison. I think low is a great band. I’m just not trying to sound like them is all.

What was the most exciting experience during your work so far?
Ironically, after all this talk of Low, our most exciting experience with Coastal was playing a sold out show with Low in London to over 1300 people on Valentine’s Day.

How was it been working with Words On Music?
They have by far been the best label to work with. Very professional. They have grown a lot as a label since 2000. Many good bands have come on the roster. There was no question we would release our second album with them.

What are you listening to these days?
Sun Kill Moon, Iron and Wine, Timonium, Kings of Convenience.

A wish, a movie, a city, a nightmare, a book, a picture, a person of the past.
To not have to work. Napoleon Dynamite. Laie, Hawaii. Getting in a fist fight and not having any power behind my punches. Star Trek Memories – William Shatner. Rob Turner – the old bass player in my previous band who called me just last week and said he found an old tape of our band and cried because it was so good.

What's in the future for Coastal?
Thanks to Words On Music there is no pressure for us to crank out albums all the time. They don’t expect us to tour either, so we can pretty much set our own schedule for releasing stuff. There’s no reason for us to give up music and like I said we aren’t trying to make it big, so we’ll continue to release music when we get around to it :)

Is there anything else you would like to mention about you?
I have a black widow spider in a jar on my desk. I am scared to death by it.
I consider this a strange kind of therapy I guess.

Grazie per l'intervista.