Song Exploder - Best Coast - Feeling Ok

Episode Date: August 27, 2015

In this episode, Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno of the band Best Coast take apart their song "Feeling Ok," from the 2015 album California Nights. They trace their process and their influences, from the movie "10 Things I Hate About You" to the video game Rock Band. Plus, we'll hear from producer Wally Gagel. This episode is sponsored by Hover (use the offer code BESTCOAST), Simple, and Lagunitas Brewing Company.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hurway. In this episode, Bethany Costino and Bob Bruno of the band Best Coast take apart their song Feeling OK from the 2015 album California Nights. They trace their process and their influences from the movie Ten Things I Hate About You to the video game rock band. Plus, we'll hear from producer Wally Gaggle. Special thanks to Piquetto and the Line Hotel, who hosted the live song Exploders. event in Los Angeles where I recorded my interview with Bethany. Now, here's Best Host on Song Exploder.

My name is Bethany Costantino. When I wrote this song, I wanted there to be a positive sort of vibe behind the song lyrically and melodically. So when I sat down to start working on it, I think that was like the thing in mind was like, okay, stay positive, or as positive as you can be, because I'm not always the most positive person. I have a couple different guitars that I use at home when I'm writing. I don't play very intricate guitar parts, so I like a guitar that is

lightweight and easy for me to hold and, you know, I don't need anything super fancy because I'm just playing power chords. With this song, and, you know, with pretty much every Bestco song, I'll record it until it feels strong enough that I can send a to Bob and say, hey, this is what I'm thinking of what I want the rest of the song to be. Can you fill in those parts? My name is Bob Bruno. I play guitar in Best Coast. That whole guitar intro, that was me trying to do an arpeggiated, like 80s kind of synth part,

but to play it on guitar. That kind of thing happens a lot on the California Knights record. I got really into like Andy Summers from the police. If you basically listen to like every breath you take, it's like that's the whole guitar part. And that came out of from playing, I play rock band a lot. There's something about the game when,

because the actual tracks are kind of parted out for the gameplay, the mixes in the game sound a little different than what the actual recordings are. His guitar parts on the police songs that I was playing in that game, they just stood out more in the mix while I was playing, and so I just, in the back of my mind,

it's like, oh, that's a cool thing. And again, like, while not trying to make this, like, an 80s synth pop song, I still wanted to have, like, something that kind of conveyed that feeling. It's just kind of like, you know, our messed up version of that, which is pretty much everything in Best Coast

is our messed up version of something. For me, when I listen back to my own lyrics, When a song is done, I'll kind of look at it and then think, okay, now I know what this is about. Leaving some of my more kind of childish immaturity is behind. Not that I have 100% left any of those in the past. I'm still for sure working on that. But I think that to me, that was sort of like giving myself some motivation and saying, like, take your own advice. Because I give advice to a lot of my friends all the time where I'll say,

well, don't do this and don't do that. then you won't have this problem, but then I don't take my own advice. So I think it's like me telling myself, like, give up on whatever you're doing wrong, you know, and take your own advice. I took my own advice for once. I gave it up. I gave it up. I know some do you find it where I least expected. I really wanted to have a song that had like a very evident kind of like booming chorus.

I wanted everything to sort of have a vibe of sort of like 90s movie soundtracks because when I was growing up all the movies that I loved like Clueless and Ten Things I Hate About You and She's All That and that kind of genre of film. They had these very like definitive like great soundtracks with these really, really great songs from that era. I feel like a lot of 90s songs had that, and here's the chorus, and now it's gone, and then it comes back, you know?

To me, that was a big influence. The one that stuck out the most to me was cruel to be kind by letters to Cleo. This one is funny, because I remember telling Bob that this was an influence, and he wasn't very happy about that. He was, like, letters to Cleo, and I was like, you weren't a 15-year-old girl

when 10 things I hate about you came out. This meant something to me, you know, and at 28, it still does. So. I'm Walla Gagle. I was a producer on California Nights. When the chorus happens, it kind of opens up without it being complicated. And I think Bethany also keeps her vocals very purposely simple so that the harmonies that come in, she really does know, like really in her head. She has so many great ideas. Like, it's really second nature to her. Like, it's, it's a actually pretty incredible to watch in the studio. You know, most of the time it's like first or second take. So it's awesome when she's done to hear them all layered.

There's just a real like easiness to it. In other words, like the lyrics all seem to make sense and there's like a great melody that you remember right after hearing it once and the chords don't even really have to change too much but you feel movement throughout the song. Bethany is so melodic and she's really great at this kind of real basic songwriting that most people can't do. You know, she's really got a gift on it. To actually have the ability just to kind of write that way is it's a lot harder than it seems. When I write lyrics, it's very much like what I remember doing when I journaled as a young girl. And I just sort of follow those feelings.

and I think that this song to me was a statement of reaching a point in my life where I felt very content. I felt content about myself. I felt content about my friendships and relationships with people around me. And I didn't feel amazing about them, but I was trying to become a lot more positive at the way that I looked at things. For me, it was a realistic way of looking at this idea of like, yeah, when I get down, I get really down. But I was trying to tell myself, like, I want to get away from that and sort of stay more at this, like, medium level of contentness. And now here's Feeling Okay by Best Coast in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.net for more information on Bestcoast, including links to buy this song and the footnotes for this episode.

I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product.

of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzoukis, Josh Malene. Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band.

The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikesh.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Next time on Song Exploder, American Football. You can find Song Exploder on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and you can get all the past and future episodes on iTunes or on SongExploder.net.

I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. Radiotopia.