In an exclusive interview, guest writer, Nick Quantrill, talks to Jeff Caudill, frontman and main songwriter with California’s Low Coast, about his band’s debut album, Existing The Dream, which came out this month. “I’ve been chasing the idea of a band like this forever,” Caudill tells Say It With Garage Flowers.

Sometimes making a dream reality takes a while. Sometimes it takes longer than you’d expect, but the journey and the end result is the pay-off.

“I almost feel embarrassed by how long I’ve been talking about this,” says Jeff Caudill, Low Coast’s frontman and chief songwriter. “But it’s finally here and I’ve been chasing the idea of a band like this forever. I’ve always wanted to be in the Heartbreakers – the kind of band that can do anything.”

The band’s debut album, Existing The Dream, takes that wish to be one of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, but mixes it with classic Americana touchstones, such as Whiskeytown and early Wilco, but adds something contemporary to the mix, via the sound of bands like The War on Drugs and Death Cab for Cutie.

Spending his youth playing pop-punk before releasing a series of solo records, it’s a change of gear for Caudill, the former frontman of Californian band Gameface, and an exciting new start.

“With Gameface, it was, we do what we do and there was a pretty narrow scope of what it is, or what it should be,” he says. “We never wanted to alienate an audience. But with this band, our spectrum is a lot broader. This band has elevated anything I’m capable of. It’s lifted it so much. I feel so fortunate to have made this record.”

It’s not just Caudill who has musical pedigree stretching back through the years. The rhythm section of Mike Fratantuno and Terence Yoshiaki played with a nascent Black Eyed Peas and are complemented by Dave Hemann on lead guitar and Brian Lapin on keyboards.

“They don’t come from the same punk scene as I came up in,” Caudill says. “I met Mike because our kids went to the same school. He played some bass on my Reset The Sun record, so I always wanted to bring him in to do something more real and more official. Mike was responsible for bringing Terence along on drums.

‘This band has elevated anything I’m capable of. I feel so fortunate to have made this record’

“Dave is a cool guy who’s played a lot of guitar on records and he’s an incredible lead guitarist. To have him come in and do a lot of the heavy lifting because I’m more limited on the guitar is incredible. I had four or five songs written and the original idea was that they’d be for a solo record, even more stripped-down and stark. That was the direction. But once I started playing with the band, I knew that the songs were my big opportunity to blow it up. There was an opportunity to see where these songs could go and that was exciting to me. It was fun and liberating to bring the songs in and share them. There was lot more experimentation than in my solo endeavours.”

When the world came to a halt in 2020, it was a moment for the band to hit pause –  something they turned to their advantage.

“The idea was to approach it like the old days by going into the studio for a couple of weeks and really hammering it out,” says Caudill. “We’d got basic tracks down and thought we had the songs ready to go, but we suddenly had time to really listen to the songs and break them down get into the separate parts – really think about it.

“We were able to take each song and focus on one at a time, rather than looking at it globally. We even had the songs mixed one at a time. We rerecorded everything and got it right before moving on to the next song. It was a pretty long process, and I don’t think we’re going to record like that again, but it had its benefits.”

Existing The Dream is released by Seattle’s Spartan Records, an independent label Caudill has had his eye on for some time.

“At the start of the recording process, we only had a song or two in the can and I reached out. I’d always loved their aesthetic,” he says. “I thought they were a real class act in the way that they present themselves, and the bands that they sign are great.

“I sent a couple of songs and it seemed pretty amicable from the beginning. From the get-go, they were who I had in mind for the whole time and luckily they felt the same way. It felts like we were in good hands, just seeing what had been done with other groups made us feel confident handing it over to these guys. They’re very, very capable. It made sense to trust a good label with a good reputation.”

The independent streak dies hard, though. As with solo projects, Caudill has taken the lead on the band’s artwork and visual representation. The video for lead single, Hard to Believe, was a lockdown project fired by pain felt in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and the need to feel a connection again.

The song is a brooding indie number that builds into something more urgent – a perfect introduction to the album. The video, featuring over 100 faces from around the world – family, friends and fans – resonates and sets the tone for the album’s lyrical content, a clear need to engage with the world and look outwards rather than inwards.

It’s an approach that sits hand in hand with something more old school and straightforward. “Because we’re men of a certain age, where it’s really at for us is playing live,” says Caudill.

“The goal is to get out and play wherever we’re wanted, but we have to find where that is. We’re going to figure that out as we go, but we definitely have intentions of being a live band, maybe not with extensive touring, but nothing is out of the question.

‘I hate to sound like we’re in a mid-life crisis, but it’s great to have that feeling we had back in our twenties, when we felt like we were creating something brand new’

“We want to be a band that can show up and play. Of course, I’m more realistic about what can and is going to happen now. At this stage of our lives we are looking for that creative spark. I hate to sound like we’re in a mid-life crisis, but it is great to have that feeling we had back in our twenties when we felt like we were creating something that was brand new.

“Even when we stated recording, I wasn’t sure how much of a real unit this was going to be, but everyone right now is on the same page and equally invested. There are hypothetical plans to make another record. It certainly won’t be one album from the band. We’re going to keep writing and pushing things forward.”

Existing The Dream is out now on Spartan Records.

Info here. 

Bandcamp.