Via Coma
Austin, TX // SXSW
Interviewed by Jordan Fischels
Q: Is this your first time playing SXSW? How has the experience been treating you? How does it compare to other shows/festivals you guys have played?
A: Yes, first time. It’s awesome! It’s really, really fun. All of the fans are really supportive. It’s a festival for people to discover music as well as for people to see the bands that they know already. It’s a great opportunity for bands like us, and ultimately, I think it’s just a really cool city! I love the fact that it’s full of food and people. It’s just cool. I’m just enjoying it.
We’ve played a couple of festivals up in our area. We’re from San Francisco, and we played a festival called BFD which is a local radio station’s big festival. In comparison, that’s just a one day thing, so it’s small in relation to this. But, I think this focuses more on fans. Warped Tour and Bamboozle you’re out in the heat all day, sun beating down on you, waiting forever, trying to figure out where to go. Whereas here, I think, it’s catered more toward the city and the people that are here. You get to walk around at your pace, discover new bands or whatever, and go have a drink and take a break when you want to. The down side is loading into every place, obviously. There is a lot of improvisation every trip. But, because of the fans, it is way cool.
Q: Is there anyone you’re excited to see?
A: There were a couple that we wanted to see. We were told about a band called Civil Twilight that we got to catch and actually got to meet them. They were really good, incredible. They were probably one of the ones that stuck out the most. We have a bunch of friends in a band that play that we wanted to see and there are a lot of new acts that we hadn’t seen before. Too many to list that I had an opportunity to see and to even meet. I had a chance to meet Andrew McMahon, talked to him, super cool guy. It’s just like what we were talking about earlier, it’s so big that a lot of national acts can come and play, but it’s also small that you can go around and talk to people.
Q: How did you guys meet?
A: We formed around three years ago. We released our EP in 2009. Prior to that Rob and I (Jesse) went to school together. Nic and I met through various means and kind of started playing together. Then outside of high school, we got together and knew we wanted to work with each other because we are in the same vain of music and all. We’re kind of good at what we do. It’s kind of arrogant, but you know what I mean. So musically, we all get along. I think personally we all get along too, which is another reason. We are all really best friends. We had a 28 hour drive down here and we don’t hate each other yet. So that’s pretty good. But we’ll see how the 30 hour drive home goes. [Laughs]
Q: I know you designed a logo to visually represent your band name – how did you come up with the name Via Coma, how’d you tie the logo in to represent it?
A: The name basically came from an interim period between my last band and this current band. I was working graveyard shifts in San Francisco, and it was just this constant state of like in between sleep and being awake. And, if you take Via Coma and translate it from Latin, it’s through endless sleep. I did a lot of thinking at that time, and I jut thought about my mom kept telling me that I needed to get my sleep, told me that I need to take care of myself. I just kept thinking about it and a name like Via Coma just kind of clicked in my head.
It’s this endless state of in between sleep and reality that is sort of this endless growing phase, which is sort of where we tie in the logo. We went through so many revisions and trying to think what best represented our name. At that point Jesse sat down and drew in his sketchbook for months. We made the logo, and really got attached to it and then kind of created the meaning behind it, I think more than anything else. But, the main idea is it is kind of like a power symbol, but there is a tree growing out of it, but it’s a dead tree. So, it’s the idea that through power, there is growth, in this case sleep, but through growth, there is inevitably death. So it’s kind of like the idea of rebirth everyday. I think it’s very much something that is unique and personal to each of us. We plan on doing this for a while. We’ve all been in previous bands and we all really wanted to make sure that we took the first step forward as seriously as possible, even though we’re not very serious with people. But as a band, we want to make sure that we have maybe what the other bands didn’t at the time, which was not only a name to represent us but also a logo and a symbol to represent who we are as opposed to every other band and just using our faces. We still use, of course, we want to know who we are, but sometimes that shows up instead of us.
Q: I know you guys just started recording an album to be released later this year. Is there anything you can tell us about it?
A: Sort of… It’s kind of in between release stuff because we have our own recording studio. We’ve over the years amassed a bunch of gear and so we have the luxury of being able to record and produce ourselves at our own leisure and not to spend a whole lot of money. We are working on new material. We don’t really have a set release date in mind yet. But, new material is coming sooner than a lot of people think. Given that we just released our full length CD Figures under a year ago, we started playing shows and when we weren’t playing we were writing. We went right back to the drawing board with stuff that we think is very relatable and accessible for everyone to listen to.
Q: What has been the “Highlight” of your career? Personally and collectively.
A: I had a day where we played a festival up in San Francisco, and I took the day after we performed to go around and try and get our material to the other bands performing. When I meet bands, I like to express my appreciation for what they’ve done. I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for them. So I had a chance to go up and meet some of the most important musicians that have influenced me in my career. I always grew up listening to Blink 182, and I got to meet Tom DeLonge. I got to meet Butch Vick, who worked with Nirvana and Foo Fighters.
I met a lot of people that day; that day will always stick out to me. And I think just in general this year has been awesome, and it’s hopefully going to continue getting better. We started the year with a two week tour, but we played more than once a day almost every day. And then we had the South By trip. Big Picture Media and our booking agent, Aaron, just like made everything happen with this trip. It definitely hasn’t been a South By trip in vain. It’s been a perfect first trip, and I think this year is going to hopefully be a really good year for us.
