Best Coast & Wavves

California Nights is a brighter, more sparkly, more sophisticated, more psychedelic Best Coast album across the board, embodying the rich lightness and stinging darkness of a California state of mind. The love stories Bethany spins on California Nights all detail the highs and the lows of relationships, similar to the juxtaposition of a the band's native Los Angeles – a place tinted by candy-colored palm trees and pale blue skies while existing within the loneliness and desperation of waterless place. More than that, there is a literal meaning to the record's title – Cosentino is a well-documented insomniac whose creativity spirals out in the early hours of the morning, allowing her to write, undisturbed, the finest album Best Coast has made to date.

BETHANY COSENTINO on CALIFORNIA NIGHTS:

If you have ever lived in California, you know what nighttime here feels like. You know what the sky looks like when those epic sunsets begin, and you understand that feeling and the way things change when the sun finally sets. In LA, or maybe just personally to me, when the sun sets – I feel like there is a large sense of calmness in the air, and I feel like everything that happened to me prior in the day, whether crappy experiences or good ones, at night, it all goes away and I sink deep into this different kind of "world."

When we decided to name the record California Nights, it just felt right because there is not only a song on the album – one of the biggest, most different songs we've written – with the same name, but because I do so much of my thinking and creative work at night. It also ties in with the idea that, as natives of LA, Bobb and I know a lot of spots and places within and around the city that a lot of people don't really know or care to know. There is a grittiness to Los Angeles that isn't seen via "E! Live At The Red Carpet." There is a darkness in this city that you don't see unless you know where to look. I think that to an outsider, California, or more specifically Los Angeles, seems like it's this amazing place with perfect weather and sunny skies with just the right amount of clouds and tall palm trees. And let's face it, it kind of is – but there are also a lot of other things here — crime, homelessness, and some of the most spirit-crushing elements of the entertainment industry that outsiders never see. That's a theme we very consciously decided to explore and play with when making this record. We related to the idea that things may LOOK or SOUND fun and upbeat, but they may not actually always BE that way – much like our songs.

Writing this album, for me, was a way of taking myself though a step by step journey of learning so much about myself and the world around me. By the end of it, I got to a place where I was able to come to terms with just how much I can control, and how much I can't — with the dichotomy of fun vs. dark; happy vs. sad; crazy vs. sane; anxiety vs. calm; perfect vs. screwed up. I realized that I am, more often than not, the creator of my own anxiety and my own stress, and throughout this album, I talk to myself about that and challenge myself to cut the bullshit and just be okay with being okay.

I have definitely been the cause for a lot of my own problems in life, and this is something that I am 100% able to own up to and admit. I may not have been able to admit that 5 years ago, when I started this band at age 23, but I can see it now and I can address it, so I decided to try and build a record around that idea. I understand that no one and nothing will ever be perfect, but I also realize that THAT is okay and it's just a part of life.

A lot of the writing for this record consisted of me getting to know myself again and remembering where Bethany ended and Best Coast began. I took a much needed step back and I was able to breathe deep for a moment and really focus on what I was doing. The end result of all of that, is California Nights. It's about a journey, it's about self acceptance, it's about learning to let go, it's about accepting the things you have no control over, it's about dealing with life like an adult and at the end of the day reminding yourself that there really is no reason to be sad, and you have every right to feel okay.


Inspired by their personal experiences with agoraphobia, sleepwalking, teeth grinding, time wasting, night terrors, toxic relationships, Web MD, and fucking up while trying to be better people, Wavves' fifth full length studio album V sees the fuzzy LA noise pop outfit move into more mature, slightly hopeful territory, as they recognize that the momentary nihilism caused by their wicked hangover will soon end, thereby creating room for more and hopefully less wicked hangovers. "It's not happy music, not at all," singer Nathan Williams assures, "but it's inspired by learning to be happy about the shittiest lows, trying to express a realistic optimism in the knowledge that nothing is ever going to be perfect, and there will always be some fucked up shit in your life...but you can have a positive outlook on it, if you want." Hook-heavy and scrappy as ever, V is watershed album for Wavves on both a personal and musical level, wearing its bruised -- but humbled -- heart very much on its sleeve. Featuring the previously released "Way Too Much" and "Flamezesz", the 11-track LP was recorded in Los Angeles with the help of producer Woody Jackson (Daniel Johnston, Primal Scream, Tenacious D, Money Mark and Beck), who took the band's trademark distorted no-fi into crisper, even more visceral territory while still remaining true to their 90s influenced roots, which stem back to 2008 when Williams created two albums' worth of work using '80s Tascam cassette recorder and Garage Band software. The last seven years saw Wavves grow from bedroom experiment into Billboard Top 100 ranking four piece featuring Alex Gates (guitar, backing vocals), Stephen Pope (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Brian Hill (drums), all of whom contributed to the writing of V, which is set for an October 2nd release through Ghost Ramp/Warner Bros. V marks the high point in an exceptionally busy year for the band-2015 has seen an LP collaboration with Cloud Nothings' Dylan Baldi, a GZA collab with Williams' side project Sweet Valley called "Planetary Energy", and releases by Courtney Love and Spirit Club (his side project with brother Joel Williams and Jeans Wilder) on Williams' Ghost Ramp label. The band's first solo album since 2013's Afraid of Heights, the songs on V were inspired by a dark and epic Waiting for Godot-esque idle stretch of around eight months that occurred in between the end of the Afraid of Heights tour and the recording of V. Caught in a creative and emotional stasis, the band had "way too much time on their hands", leading to the kind of bored, compulsive partying that was no longer about having fun, but about "just drinking, straight drinking," with 100 beers and two bottles of Jameson the per night band norm. Bassist Stephen Pope developed a mild agoraphobia, and became scared to leave his bedroom. "I would order pizza almost everyday and hide in my room and pee in a bottle like in 'The Aviator'". Williams tried to cut back on his drug and alcohol consumption, but fewer beers per day resulted in night terrors, as he adjusted to not being drunk every night. "I
get a two day hangover if I do drugs now, and you have to think 'is this worth it?' I feel like that romanticized druggie alcoholism lifestyle is a sham." Then came the paranoia about his health. "You can just ruin your own life by spending too much time on Web MD, convincing yourself you have cancer," he said. On top of all that, he was going through a breakup-no surprise, failed relationships are a major theme on the record. The song Heart Attack, for instance, is about "doing anything for a girl, making decisions that you probably wouldn't normally make in an almost masochistic way. It's like putting yourself in harm's way, which I tend to do physically and emotionally. Sometimes that means I find it hard to think the best of people, although I am softening more over time." All The Same is about a loose series of negative events that occurred in Williams' life and acknowledging that sometimes "shit doesn't work out, but in the end the people that you love around you are what's the important part". Pony's chorus, "it gets better and better", reiterates the 'light at the end of the tunnel' narrative that emerges, perhaps for the first time in Wavves career, in V. By the time they got into the studio, the band members had gone through so much personal upheaval that it was a relief to start working again. The energy of the sessions was "a lot lighter and not as drunk" as on prior records, as Vbecame something of a conduit for the kinds of feels that they wouldn't usually feel comfortable talking about. The album artwork -- the five of cups, the Tarot card of greatest loss -- sums it up, the cloaked figure mourning the three spilled cups, while two are still full behind him. The message is clear: don't cry over spilled beer, because there are two more right behind you. "We've never talked about this stuff in front of each other, outside the music," admits Williams. "'Cause guys are afraid to talk. It's not like we say "Dude, I'm feeling sad today." You know? That's lame, dude."