By: Josh Kitchen / June 14, 2024
L-R: Tim Darcy, Ben Stidworthy, Evan Cartwright. Photo by: Amy Fort
Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy of Ought and Evan Cartwright of U.S. Girls began writing music together right before the pandemic. In 2021, Ought disbanded, and Cola was born. They released their excellent debut record, Deep In View, in 2022, having recorded it before ever even playing a show together. Today, the band released their second album, The Gloss, and it's a testament to a band that gets better and better because of the their collaborative writing style and the results they achieve from the trust they have in each other. It's filled with great hooks, lyrics that are honest and confessional, and familiar but altogether exciting and fresh playing from Darcy on vocals, Stidworthy on bass, and Cartwright on drums.
I saw open for Snail Mail at the Troubadour in February, and was completely blown away. While the new record hadn't been announced yet, they played singles like the sleek and bouncy "Keys Down If You Stay," and the frantic "Pallor Tricks." Cola just wrapped a tour in the U.K. and Europe, and will be on the road until November. I caught up with Evan and Ben and took a deep dive into their songwriting process, the way Tim describes "Pallor Tricks" as "the self-consciousness that can arise when a camera is rolling," and the way community can be found in live music.
You guys just wrapped a tour, I think in the U.K. How were those shows?
Evan
Yeah, the U.K. and Europe. We had a great time over there; it was a smash.
Ben
We had such a good time. To me, emotionally, it felt like the culmination of a lot of relationships just bubbling into great friendships with some of the people we’ve known for quite a few years, and especially our time in London, it felt so special because we played three shows in a row. It was kind of mini London residency.
I feel like what makes going to shows so special is that while you might not know whoever is standing next to you, they’re there to see the same thing as you, and you already have that shared connection. You’re there for the same reason. Can you talk about that as a band?
Ben
I love that idea, and I definitely agree, I feel like also a lot of the places where shows happen, oftentimes have such beautiful history, and that becomes a part of it. I was talking with a friend, who's a musician and artists in Montreal, who told me that he views touring as creating a revolutionary network. I don't disagree with that. Although, that wouldn't be the first thing I would say about it. I feel like the connections, the energy, and the sharing of touring and playing shows together is really special and highly motivating. What you're saying resonates me in terms of just creating that atmosphere of a shared experience, especially when you see people, for example, sing along. When people think to themselves, this is my song, like, this song is about me. That's so amazing, and it' amazing that that can translate kind of through time and space.
Evan
Something that was very memorable about this tour is that in the UK, we made so many friends. Just people who came to the show and chatting with so many amazing people. I think what you were saying about when you're at a show, and the person next to you, is into the same music as you, so they're easy to talk to. It's kind of the same with us. When we're traveling or playing shows, it's so easy to chat with people who are at the show, because clearly, we are on the same frequency. We just had so many great chats with so many sweet people. It was great.
Photo by: Craig Scheihing
Your new album, The Gloss, is out on June 14, and you’ve released a few singles for it. Tell me about the new record.
Evan
The title refers to what's written in the margins, the marginalia or commentary on a piece of text. Primarily, that's kind of what we were thinking. It's our second album. We recorded with Valentine Ignat at Mixart Studios in Montreal.
Ben
So we've never really talked about what we want to sound like, or our influences. It’s not really the way we worked for the first album. For the second album, I just remember us all talking together in a room saying we're just going to keep on this path. Whatever this is, let’s just keep doing it and not overthink or rethink, or have a reinvention or anything like that. Obviously, this is the second record, so that makes more sense than if it were the tenth. The songs came together really naturally, and were mostly written in between periods of touring, which was kind of a nice thing, although it was a lot of work. We work quite quickly. Also, Evan contributed a lot more to the songwriting this time around, which I'm very grateful for.
You mentioned the new record having a similar sound to the first record, but what I love about this record is that even though you’ve found your sound as a band, each of these songs are sort of their own thing. A song like “Pallor Tricks” is a lot different than “Keys Down If You Stay,” and I think that’s what make your music interesting. You’ve figured out who you are and the kind of music you create, and now it’s fun to see the different directions you can take it.
Evan
I think you're on to something. And I think something that was different about writing this record, was that on the first one, we were working on it as we were forming this band. We hadn’t played any shows or done anything. We hadn’t figured out our sound, per se. Since we worked together in the past, we knew what everyone was into, but I think with LP two, you know what band you’re writing for in such a more concrete way. You know everybody’s voice on their instruments in a deeper way. And with this record there were a lot of songs where one person didn’t like and two people would like a lot.
Photo below: Amy Fort
How do you get past that, and make those decisions as a band?
Ben
Coercion!
Evan
A big one is patience, and letting something really, really, really develop before saying you have an uneasiness about it. Patience, and sitting with the uncertainty you have about a song, wondering if the way this song is going will reach something I like. But so often something happens in the rehearsal space, where someone is jamming and changes one little thing and then all of a sudden we’re set.
As a listener, there are so many songs that I consider some of my favorites where I didn’t really like them the first couple of listens. It’s interesting to hear that perspective from sort of the way a song develops in that natal stage.
Ben
There’s a lot of trust. If someone's not feeling something, but willing to just push and push, either the moment Evan described happens, where something just clicks, and you’re like oh, isn’t this amazing? Or maybe it’s a process of just learning to love it, and seeing the joy that other people experience in it. From my side, I sent a couple of demos, at least one – “Bitter Melon,” where I was like, this is an absolute throwaway. This is a weird thing, and they’ll listen to it and think, that’s cool, but we’ll move on. And then everyone said, we should play “Bitter Melon.”
Why did you send it if you thought it was a throwaway?
Ben
We have a deadline. We try to send a new song every Friday. Sometimes the juices aren’t flowing. I work in spurts, and sometimes I’ve got nothing. But I can always record something, so I might as well just push it along and see what happens, and then Tim and Evan really liked it.
On “Pallor Tricks,” Tim has said, “I was thinking of the kind of self-consciousness that can arise when a camera is rolling.” Do you think about that when you perform, or even in interviews like this? How much of yourself do you feel like you have an obligation to present to the listener, or an audience?
From Tim via an email response:
Lyrically, the song cycles through a lot of imagery from a film set. I was thinking about persona and layers of performance, sure. And yes absolutely, when we show up to any kind of stage, where a literal one or in something like an interview, we present, with varying degrees of intention and self-awareness, a cultivated or intensified or obscured version of ourselves.
Evan
At a show, I really like that when a performer is on stage, there's this whole world they can access between reality and their sincere selves, whatever that could mean. And then, just theater. I appreciate in performances that it’s a whole spectrum. I find that when I’m inside that on stage performing, I don’t even know where I am on that spectrum. There are things I like to do and moments where I might get caught up in something. I don’t know if that’s me losing myself or what. I have a friend in Toronto, Alex Lukaszewski, who's an amazing songwriter and performer, and he’s known for his really wild shows he did in the 90’s. We were with him in this venue he used to play a lot, and he pointed at the door and he said, you know I used to play here sometimes and get so spun out. The shows would get so wild and then I’d go home and feel these feelings of confusion and shame, and not really know what happened. He pointed at the door and said he wanted to be the same person that he was when he walked out the door he’d be the same person that he was on stage. That’s something I want to hold on to. I want to be the same person, even if I’m accessing something more theatrical while I’m doing it.
Ben
When you were asking the question, I was thinking a good way of maybe getting at it is comparing playing a festival with playing like a club show. In a club show, generally, the people have come to see you. I try to concentrate on playing well first, which I think has a little bit to do with kind of an inherent shyness when I'm on stage. I'm also not singing and so maybe I shirk a little bit of responsibility. It doesn't really feel natural to me, to kind of engage the audience in the kinds of ways you see other bands do. Sometimes I think, I wish I could do that. But then I have to remember that’s just not me. In playing well, I’m thinking when a group of friends come, it’s like their night. I want them to experience the kind of euphoria of live music, and that special feeling. And its funny, because that special night has to happen every night, and for us, it’s just repeating.
It feels like a lot of responsibility when you say it like that.
Ben
Then on the flip side, a lot of musicians I know hate playing festivals for a number of reasons. And that’s pretty much all the reasons you can kind of think of, many which I don't disagree with. But one thing I absolutely love about playing festivals, is meeting all the bands who are playing, some we may know, some we don’t. They get to do their thing, and then we get to do our thing, and we get to really rep ourselves. A lot of people at that festival don’t know who we are. It’s kind of like a competition, not trying to be better than any other band, but you get to do what you do, and we get to watch it, and then we’re going to do what we do, and we’re going to just support each other. I really love that kind of energy that comes from playing in a festival setting.
I love that idea of a community of bands supporting each other in that way. That goes back to sort of what I was talking about, the way live music can bring people together. In the spirit of that kind of support, I want to end by asking what you’re listening to. Who are some of your friends you want to shout out?
Evan
One of my best friends, Luka Kuplowsky, just dropped a double LP called How Can I Possibly Sleep When There is Music. All the tracks are translations of poems, some of them custom translated for the for the record. What Luka is doing is great, and the band he put together has so many amazing voices, and it’s really worth listening to.
Ben
I want to big up the Belfast band Junk Drawer. Their last release was an EP called the dust has come to stay. We’re playing Dublin in November, and they live in Belfast, and I sort of wanted to ask if they'd open for us. I sent the music to our booking agent, and he wrote back a week later saying it was confirmed. Apparently, they knew our band, and said absolutely we’ll do it. I was like, oh, praise the heaven’s because I really just want to see them live.
Cola will be back in Los Angeles to play the Zebulon on October 11.
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