Quincy-based band Coral Moons stopped by 88.9 WERS to play a live mix for Wicked Local Wednesday. After their performance, the group talked to WERS’ Lily Doolin about their latest EP Quarter Life Crisis, some of their first songs that are now “forbidden,” and how the band was almost called “Cold Waffles.”
My first question is about the new EP. How excited are you for it to finally see the light?
Carly Kraft (lead vocals, guitar): Oh man, we’ve been working on this EP since January. It feels like a really long time, even though in the recording world, it’s really not.
Manuel Camacho (bass): We’ve been working on it the whole time we’ve been together.
CK: It’s our half-life. That’s how long we’ve been working on this EP.
Justin Bartlett (lead guitar): We started in January and we only put six days in the studio. We worked on it so hard in those six days and it was so cool. We’re so excited for it to come out.
CK: We did it in chunks, too. The first two days, we were there [in the studio], and then we took like a two-month break. Then, we went back for two more days, took another month-and-a-half break, then came back for a day. Our producer, Sam Kassirer, he’s a really awesome guy. He owns a studio up in the middle of Maine, in the middle of nowhere.
Kevin O’Connell (drums): His company is Great North Sounds.
CK: Great North Sounds, yeah. Super, super rad studio. He actually produced Lake Street Dive’s Bad Self Portraits there. He’s super rad. It’s exactly what you’d want from a getaway studio. It’s an old house ranch in the middle of nowhere in Maine. It definitely played a big part in how it turned out.
What was the recording process like for you?
CK: Yeah, guys, what’s our process like?
KO: I mean I think having someone like Sam being involved as a producer and an engineer, a well-versed and seasoned musician, is really important and valuable for us. We would get into the studio and start on pre-production and he would just always be pushing us forward. He’d say, “Yes, let’s layer that, let’s try that, let’s switch this verse or let’s change this chord progression.” Having Sam as the fifth deciding factor was really cool. And he’s got an incredible space and lots of knowledge.
CK: And so many instruments!
JB: So many toys. Lots of fun things to play with.
CK: Yeah, I would say every decision we make is a decision together. I don’t think there was one decision on the record where we all weren’t like, “That’s 100% what we want to do.” Everything we did was because of the thing before it. Everything transformed after that. We all played off each other and I think that’s the best way to be in the studio, to put down what you’re feeling and just keep going from there.
Remind me of the name of the album?
CK: It’s Quarter Life Crisis.
You talked [during the Live Mix] about how a lot of this album is writing from the experience of growing up in your twenties. Were there any moments in your life that stood out and that made you say, “I need to write about this”?
CK: Yeah, I guess the song “Dive In” is a big one for me. “Quarter life crisis/it’s okay, my parents want to prove/so I lie.” It’s like a lot of pressure about how you go to high school, to go to college, to then get a real person job, and selling that to someone you love is really difficult, and just saying, “Hey, I just don’t want to do any of this, I just want to do music.” I sing that song to my boss all the time. He’s like, “Okay, Carly, counting down the days ‘til you leave and quit your job.” But yeah, that song was a big factor in the album. Our producer was like, “Okay, Carly, this record is about you being this age and not knowing what you wanna do. How can you encapsulate that in a title?” We were playing around with lots of things that were said, and then Manuel was like, “Why not just Quarter Life Crisis,” and we were like, “Yeah, duh.” Manuel’s the brains of the group.
I saw in your bio on your website that there are some retired, “unspoken of” songs. What’s up with those?
CK: I started writing [music] a year and a half ago after learning how to play the guitar. Most of my songs at the beginning were really bad. I just had to get five or six songs out of the way.
Naturally! Most of everyone’s first writings are pretty rough.
CK: Totally! But Manuel and I are feeling very inspired to revisit them and see if we can fit them into our sound. That’s like a natural songwriting way, though, to write a bunch of stuff and totally ditch it and be like, “Okay, I did that, now let’s write good music,” based on stuff we’re talking about, like in Quarter Life Crisis. “Dive In” actually started as a song about my Honda CR-V. (Singing) “I drive a Honda CR-V.” There’s a lot of really bad songwriting of mine that makes me say, “We really don’t need to do that!”
KO: Like songs about Sundays, days of the week.
CK: Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.
Coral Moons, where did that name come from?
CK: No one’s ever asked me that!
Well, I wanna know!
CK: I went on bandgenerator.com and found it. Kidding. But oddly, everyone always thought my name was “Coral” growing up instead of “Carly,” which is really weird and a strange coincidence throughout my life. That really resonated with me. Then, I actually went hiking, like a year ago, and there was this beautiful waterfall called “Moony Falls,” and that really stuck with me. I was like, “How can I incorporate that?” One morning, I just woke up and I was like, “Coral Moons!” and everyone else was like, “Absolutely not.” That’s what made me really say, “That’s it.” That was the first time everyone said no. The first band name I had was “Cold Waffles.” That one did not go over well.
Do you have a favorite memory of playing here in Boston, or in the Boston area?
CK: I was going to say Aeronaut Allston.
KO: Yeah, that was a fun show.
CK: Yeah, there was a lot of people there and I was really nervous but we didn’t mess up and I was like, “It’s fine!”
MC: It was pretty close to flawless. As close as we’ve probably ever been.
CK: I feel like, where we’re at in our time as a band right now, at every single show we learn something new about each other and playing. That was a show where I really felt progress with us playing together. It felt really good, and there was a lot of great people there. There was a lot of good energy coming from the crowd, so it was easy to feel comfortable and play music good.
KO: Yeah, the way we play these songs is relatively the same every time, but there are a lot of little nuances that change every time and are different. We’re just continuing to navigate and see how that unfolds, and leaving it open for more is really fun. When there’s a lot of people looking back at you, you have more of a platform to try stuff that you haven’t tried before.
CK: Yeah, we love to jam live a lot, too. Justin rips some guitar solos, I play rhythm guitar.
KO: Sadly, no space for drum solos yet.
CK: There was kind of a drum solo at Aeronaut Allston!
KO: Really? (Sarcastic) Probably unintentional.
CK: We’re working on it!
Any pre-show rituals?
CK: None.
Really? Not one?
KO: Nope.
JB: I mean, we have pre-studio rituals?
CK: Cracking a beer exactly at noon in the microphone. Don’t tell anyone though!
MC: Sometimes we have harmonies, but that’s the closest I think we get to a “ritual” before a show.
CK: We’re really just trying to warm up more, Kevin’s been pushing us to warm up.
MC: Some random people sometimes record us while we’re doing that. We try to be in the back of an alley and hide but it doesn’t work.
JB: Yeah, they’re thinking, “Who’s this barbershop quartet?”
CK: Yeah, we don’t really have anything, but we will. Maybe like, “one, two, three, team!” I played sports in college, so I’m thinking about some team stuff.
