Bethany Cosentino and Bully’s Alicia Bognanno seem in our Fall 2023 Issue with cowl stars Scowl, Yves Tumor, Poppy, and Good Charlotte. Head to the AP Shop to seize a duplicate.
Bethany Cosentino and Alicia Bognanno, the voices and minds behind iconic indie bands, Best Coast and Bully, sit facet by facet in Cosentino’s LA dwelling. Industry misfits turned staples, their friendship is undergirded by a mutual respect earned over the course of years spent in the music enterprise. After assembly on tour circa 2015, the 2 grew to become buddies over a recreation of arcade basketball, for which Bognanno took the crown. But as indie music entered the popular culture enviornment in the early aughts, and have become topic to the feuding of bands fronted by ladies, Cosentino and Bognanno maintained an adoration that wouldn’t come to fruition till years later in their careers.
Now, towards the backdrop of Cosentino’s gallery wall of paint-by-the-number canine portraits, buying and selling Starbucks orders (iced espresso with slightly little bit of oat milk and sweetener and matcha) and misremembering the drink of alternative throughout their arcade basketball days (Corona-ritas or Jägerbombs), there’s an earned camaraderie. The pair have been introduced nearer over the past years by the shared lack of their pets Snacks and Mezzi — symbolic and lyrical fixtures of their music — administration adjustments, and the idiosyncratic expertise of being a girl in indie music.
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The factors of intersection in their work are as nuanced as they’re apparent. The songwriters behind their respective music tasks, each skirt themes of angst, love, loneliness, and rise up. Pulling on the similar thread with diversified depth, Cosentino wraps pop-punk melodies round her finger, whereas Bognanno frays the hem, letting the entire thing unravel with a grunge-inflected ferocity. And as Cosentino is taking management forward of her first solo album, Natural Disaster, Bognanno is releasing it, handing over the reins on her final album, Lucky For You.
There is a shared sentiment that some issues are out of their fingers. The two find beauty in disaster as not solely imminent however anticipated — pure. Confronting the uncertainty of such magnitude, the one tonic is change itself. In Natural Disaster’s polished pop-rock manufacturing, Cosentino enters a brand new chapter. Self-reflective lyrics and triumphant melodies run by pop-rock manufacturing by means of Nashville producer Butch Walker. With youthful angst nipping at her heels, her new report traverses advanced themes of local weather change, grief, freedom, and management.
“Life can change on a dime. Anything can happen. You could literally walk out the front door and not come home later because some tragic thing happened, especially the world that we live in,” Cosentino says. “It would have been very easy for me to go in [the] deep black hole of, ‘Nothing fucking matters,’ but instead it really inspired me to actually want to live my life.”
In a dialog between two iconic ladies in indie music, an “introverted extrovert” and an “introverted introvert,” the duo have as a lot to show one another outdoors of music as inside it.
BETHANY COSENTINO: I really feel like each of the data we made are fairly bold.
ALICIA BOGNANNO: We each took large leaps.
COSENTINO: We actually have been one another’s pep discuss system. Pretty a lot every single day, all day. We’ve identified one another for a very long time. I really feel like we didn’t actually change into that shut till after each of our pets died. Because it’s such a particular degree of grief. It appears like dropping a baby. I believe for each of us, our pets have been with us a lot by all of those completely different phases of our life, from beginning our bands whereas rising up.
So after I came upon that Alicia’s canine had handed away, it was perhaps a pair months after my cat died. I despatched flowers as a result of after my cat died, I felt like I needed to present up and be supportive as a result of it’s simply next-level grief. Then I really feel we actually began to attach in a unique method than we had earlier than. We additionally occurred to each be making these data, taking dangers. We actually needed to be one another’s cheerleader.
BOGNANNO: We have been each going by administration adjustments, which is a fairly intense relationship. I imply, I used to be with my earlier supervisor for eight years…
COSENTINO: Oh, my God, I used to be with mine for eight.
BOGNANNO: It’s a giant relationship shift as a result of they mainly know all the pieces about you and have entry to all of your stuff. It’s a extremely fascinating dynamic, nearly like a breakup. But that is additionally Bethany’s first solo report, and this was my first time significantly working with a producer, the place I used to be collaborating in a method that I by no means had earlier than. Usually I am going right into a report cycle, and I’ve all the pieces demoed out to the T, and I’m simply going in and having it engineered. So in that method, we’re each doing very unfamiliar issues, and it was very nice to have a help system. Those three issues on their very own are fairly life-changing.
COSENTINO: In this trade, the quote-unquote issues of a working musician are so particular that it may be onerous to know to your buddies outdoors of the trade. If you discuss to them about being overworked or doing press all day or you must go on tour, lots of people nonetheless have a look at you want, “But you’re living the dream.” We are very lucky to make a dwelling off our artwork, nevertheless it comes with quite a lot of issues — stuff that impacts your psychological well being.
BOGNANNO: I might say that’s the largest factor. It’s the psychological well being side of making one thing so private and susceptible, after which placing it out for everyone else to resolve the price of it. I do know that we each have the same mentality that each one you are able to do is genuinely the very best which you could. Create one thing that you simply love. From there, you’ll want to do all this work on accepting the way it’s going to be obtained and never letting it validate you.
COSENTINO: We know that that’s the rational strategy to it, however I believe most artists battle with a worry of being not obtained effectively or getting dangerous opinions or any of these issues as a result of it’s a really susceptible factor. Everyone desires to be liked and accepted for who they’re. But I believe that although we each know this and would inform this to one another on a regular basis, generally it’s simply actually useful to have to inform any individual else as a result of while you hear your self say it, you’re like, “Oh, I have to apply this to myself.” We would say that to one another forwards and backwards over Voice Memos. Like, “Remember bitch, you gotta let go.” We “Jesus take the wheel” one another so much. That’s one among our favorites. That and YOLO. We’ll textual content one another, “YOLO, babe.”
BAGNANNO: Mine is YOLITA.
COSENTINO: But significantly, Alicia and I met many, a few years in the past, and each of us have grown a lot. When you’re in the general public eye, even at our degree — we’re clearly not Katy Perry well-known — however when anyone has entry to you and your life, it’s actually onerous to evolve. I generally tend to actually establish as what the general public perceives me as, so I actually wished to make this report as a result of I received so bored with being perceived as one factor. At this level in time, I’ve to decide on myself and do the factor that I wish to do. I believe we’re each experiencing that by means of completely different circumstances.
We’re very related in quite a lot of methods, however we’re additionally so completely different. I believe you’re much more introverted. I’m an introverted extrovert, the place I may be very “on.” I understand how to work a room or play the sport, however afterwards, I would like to go away for my alone time.
BAGNANNO: I’m introverted introverted. I’m method worse in social conditions. I don’t have a capability to show it on. I’m not good at networking or social media. It’s actually exhausting to me. When I drank, I felt like I used it to faucet into being like all people else. I might escape from being in my head, nevertheless it by no means received simpler. I simply needed to settle for that I’m actually not going to be that particular person.
COSENTINO: I believe we each battle with that, like impostor syndrome. I typically really feel like I’m undeserving of the eye that I get. I always inform folks I don’t know the way to play guitar. I’m not a guitar participant. I don’t know any of the technical stuff. I’m not a musician. But none of these issues really matter. So now I’m proudly owning all of that. On this report, I’m actually singing and actually prepared to be like, “I am a singer.” I began singing actually younger. I took opera classes, and I used to be at all times hiding. As I received older, I actually began considering, “Wait, I might actually be a good singer.” [On] this report, I used to be actually asking myself, “Why am I trying to pretend? Why am I insecure?”
BAGNANNO: That’s type of the evolution of vocals while you begin a rock band.
COSENTINO: Well, additionally indie rock. I believe [in] indie rock, there’s this concept that you simply’re not imagined to be singer. So I believe I used to be imagined to have a cool indie voice. But this was my first time actually doing my very own factor, not having to run it by one other particular person. It was simply me and Butch, my producer, and a few session musicians. In phrases of the inventive, too, simply having the ability to make my very own selections has been very crucial for me and my progress as an artist, however [as] a human being, too.
One of my largest anxieties is folks feeling like I’m abandoning Bobb [Bruno] or Best Coast. It was very onerous on me, and I like him a lot. I’ve identified him since I used to be actually 16 years previous. It was a really intentional choice to hold all that up. I don’t know the way lengthy it’s going to be. Maybe it received’t ever come again. Maybe it’ll come again subsequent 12 months. I don’t know. I’m very lucky to have a collaborator and buddy in Bobb Bruno, who helps me by that. I really feel like quite a lot of my worry stemmed from a misogynistic viewpoint of girls can’t select themselves.
BAGNANNO: That’s why I used to be in a quote-unquote “band” for therefore lengthy. Everyone was like, “How dare she be the only one?” That was the rationale to come back out and be extra like, “It’s been me the whole time.” I nonetheless get requested about it, however no one else has ever written for Bully. I believe it’s primarily as a result of it’s rock music, and I don’t use my identify, nevertheless it’s me.
COSENTINO: I keep in mind getting shit from folks to mainly cover how a lot I contributed, nevertheless it’s simply eager to be the peacekeeper. Bobb and I actually did collaborate, however do you suppose a man was writing these songs about “I wish you were my boyfriend”? It was very a lot a collaborative factor between me and Bobb, however I used to be the only songwriter. So it was at all times my tales and my lens taking a look at life and my experiences. So I made the choice to be like, “I’m gonna walk away from this and start performing music under my own name, make my own record, and do a totally different style of music.”
I wished it to be mine. I actually wanted a brand new canvas. I had all these experiences by the pandemic that made me actually reevaluate my priorities. That was the primary second I noticed life can simply change at any second. You can actually stroll out the entrance door and never come dwelling later, particularly in the world that we reside in the place there’s shootings and political upheaval and chaos on a regular basis. It would’ve been very simple for me to enter a deep black gap of, “Nothing fucking matters.” But as an alternative, it actually impressed me to really wish to reside my life.
BAGNANNO: I received fairly into Dharma talks years in the past, so I positively already had some moments of being in the current as a result of that’s all there’s. It’s simply acceptance of impermanence.
COSENTINO: I noticed that I didn’t relate to that id anymore, of Bethany from Best Coast. I had outgrown myself — that’s so painful. That’s why the report is known as Natural Disaster. It’s additionally a commentary on the state of the world and local weather change. But I additionally really feel like I skilled my very own type of pure disaster. I felt like my core and my basis was breaking. But it’s all offered in a method the place it’s catchy. You can sing alongside. I don’t wish to stare down into darkness for too lengthy as a result of then I really feel I simply change into the darkness. So I hope that folks can hear it and really feel impressed to permit themselves to evolve.
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