COIN is an indie pop band that formed in 2012 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. Band members Chase Lawrence, synth and vocals, Joe Memmel, guitar and vocals, Ryan Winnen, drums, and Zachary Dyke, bass, make up the quartet. COIN released their first self-titled album back in 2015, with the song “Run” as a breakaway hit.
With their recent hit release “Talk Too Much” charting and even holding down the #1 spot on Alt-Nation for some time, COIN is poised for a huge 2017. I talked with lead singer Chase Lawrence about the things to come, upcoming shows, and the new album.
An interest of mine is how bands reach a point where they decide on a band name, and how to brand it. One thing you initially notice is that COIN is always capitalized.
Chase explains, “This is going to sound really dumb, but we just really hated the way lower case I’s looked on typography. We just didn’t like how it looked.”
Back last May when “Talk Too Much” was released, I remembered hearing it and thinking to myself how different the tempo and sound was from the self-titled album.
I asked Chase about that process. He says, “We we’re coming off a co-headline tour with Colony House and playing that album that had songs in the 180-190 bpm spectrum. They are very fast songs and we found ourselves leaving the stage exhausted. So as we started preparing for the next project we listened and looked at albums from INXS, Bowie, and Talking Heads. We wanted to focus on keeping the energy and tempo up, but also strong melodies. These songs are around 80-100 bpm, only one song on the album is at 150 bpm, big difference. “Talk Too Much” came together after about 3 hours.”
One of the iconic items since the release of “Talk Too Much” is the cake pictured on the artwork, and in the music video (see below). “There have actually been several versions of that cake at this point”, says Chase. “One was strawberry, but the one in the video was vanilla, it was delicious, and it’s the only one I’ve ate.”
Currently COIN is on an 8-stop February tour, so naturally we had to know what fuels the band and wanted to know what music they are road tripping to.
“Coffee is the first thing we have to have every day”, states Chase, “We’ve been listening to a lot of punk music. Also bands like Harriet, PREP, and this new band Joan. I really love that ‘Take Me On’ track.”
We are here because we believe in empowering the fangirl. I asked Chase who he would/does fangirl for. “Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend and David Burns of Talking Heads for sure. If I met them I wouldn’t know what to say, I’d be speechless.”
Finally, I asked him about what COIN was looking forward to the most this year. “Finally releasing this album and following that up with a full headline tour. This is definitively an album and we can wait to play it for our fans live.”
You can catch COIN at Hangout, Bonnaroo, and Forecastle this summer or on tour this year. COIN is also hoping to release a new single soon and their new album this Spring via Columbia.
Listen to them, follow them on Twitter, and keep up with their tour dates.
Watch their video for Talk Too Much:
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