“A lot of times you make something and you kind of have a funeral for it when you release it, and this has been almost like a celebration,” says Chase Lawrence, lead singer of alt-pop band COIN. On this early Friday morning in late September, Lawrence talks through Zoom while on a walk at the park where he and his wife’s first date took place, and is joined on the call by the group’s lead guitarist Joe Memmel. Exactly a week prior to our conversation, the band released their sixth studio album I’m Not Afraid of Music Anymore, a collection of 14 songs that served as a rebirth of sorts for the group nearly a decade since their debut.
The band’s frontman speaks with unmistakable excitement about the new LP and their I’m Not Afraid of Tour Anymore run of shows across the states this fall and early next year, which is scheduled to commence roughly a week after our conversation.
Originally formed as a foursome in Nashville, Tennessee, Lawrence, Memmel, drummer Ryan Winnen and bassist Zachary Dyke broke onto the scene with their 2015 single “Run” from their full-length self-titled debut. Two years later, songs such as the guitar-forward romp “Talk Too Much” and the languidly sentimental “Malibu 1992” emerged as fan favorites from their second LP How Will You Know If You Never Try. These songs, and their sophomore record as a whole, continue to garner acclaim from fans years later. Comments such as “‘Malibu 1992’ needs to be on the setlist because it altered my brain chemistry at 14 so like please,” can be found on the band’s TikTok posts, in addition to the likes of, “If there is a higher being they are in this song.”
The three-piece group (Dyke left the band in 2018) have woven themselves into the vibrant tapestry of contemporary alt-pop with each consecutive record. I’m Not Afraid of Music Anymore follows 2022’s Uncanny Valley, a project that the band describes as a “spillover” record consisting of songs written during quarantine that highlighted the increasingly digital and isolated nature of life in those early days of lockdown — a popular theme in music at the time.
Near the end of their 2022 tour for Uncanny Valley, the band’s longtime producer Gabe Simon, who has worked with the likes of Lana Del Rey, Noah Kahan and Dua Lipa, attended a show and told the band afterward that they seemed almost robotic onstage. Though the feedback may have been jarring for the group to hear, they realized that a change in how they both made and performed music was in order.
“Each of us were kind of isolated on the stage, in our stations, and we weren’t really playing music; we were just being pieces of a little machine that were just running,” Lawrence says. “We saw [this album] as an opportunity to not treat this as a mechanism.”
The advancement of their sound and creative process is what Lawrence calls a “lack of evolution,” a kind of back-to-basics, if you will. The group spent time reconnecting as friends, rather than bandmates and by extension, business partners. “We really cleared out a lot of communication channels and were able to write about a lot of real stuff,” Lawrence says. “To experience anything new as a band after 10 years of doing this thing is the only key to continuing to do this.”
Many artists gained a newfound sense of productivity despite the challenge of making music during lockdown, but there came a point when the band realized they had to prioritize their humanity over the digitized, isolated state of being so many had naturally become used to. “It became novel to be human,” Lawrence says. “I’m sure it’s an inverse reaction to what we had been through for the past four years [involving] that isolation.”
A few weeks before our chat over Zoom, the band began rehearsing for their tour as a three-piece without any additional production elements. As Memmel plugged in his guitar and warded off a faint sense of dread over having to “re-learn” the group’s music for the stage, he says the first notes that rang out of his instrument sounded just as they do on the album. “I didn’t even have to try, it’s, like, right there,” he says. “I had this moment where I was like, ‘Oh, wow, this is the most natural thing,’ because this is the most COIN thing we’ve done.”
The process of writing, recording, mixing and mastering music can sometimes result in a product different than the artist’s initial vision, and can flirt with sounding contrived at times. The band says that bringing these songs to the stage will be more of a more natural progression than ever before, considering the studio recordings themselves encapsulate the human touch and natural feel that the group aimed for. According to Lawrence, the guiding principle for much of this new era has been to not “ reinvent the wheel, just keep it rolling,” which is something that Simon encouraged the band to do. “To me, when I listen to this [album] I see us,” Lawrence says. “It’s such a celebration of a life lived.”
With an impressive catalog of albums and extensive touring experience, the group is determined to make their latest trek their most authentic and memorable to date, stripping back the theatrics and putting the music centerstage. “We always kind of wanted to hide behind fog and backlights, and this show is so much [more] about us,” Lawrence says before reassuring, “but the production’s still insane, it’s like our greatest production ever.”
Nodding to the title of their latest LP, Lawrence beams that, “I’m not afraid of music we’ve made anymore,” essentially, “because all [of] the music we’ve made has made us exactly who we are today.” This newfound sense of appreciation and love for their catalog, rather than looking back and wishing they could tweak things, will especially be a treat for longtime fans who have yearned to hear some lesser-played cuts live. “I love that we’re touring this album and we’re going to play a ton of songs from this new album because we love it so much and it brings us so much joy,” he continues. “But at the same time, I think it’s huge for us to also play some songs that maybe we wouldn’t [usually] play.”
The core of the band’s excitement with this tour is to recapture the magic they felt when making it. “I’m excited to encapsulate myself in the energy in which I was surrounded by when recording the record,” Memmel says. “I’m truly so grateful to be able to go to a different city and feel that same thing I felt in RCA studio A.”
Two weeks after our conversation, COIN takes the stage at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom in front of a crowd spotted with blue dad hats emblazoned with the band’s logo. Underneath the venue’s whimsical ceiling painted to depict a night sky, the band stays true to their word and delivers a performance filled with indisputably electric energy that demonstrates the kind of liberated, human quality that they’ve used as their guiding principle.
Just five songs in, three light panels hung above the group — which float up and down, framing the top of the stage with beams of colored LED light — begin to descend closer to the band’s heads than intended, and Memmel ends up getting whacked by one of the faulty panels mid-song. Without missing a beat, the group continues to perform “Asking For A Friend,” but becomes increasingly hyper-aware of the malfunctioning set pieces that continue to gain a mind of their own. The show eventually pauses for five minutes to allow lighting engineers to remove the rogue fixtures from the stage.
Returning with a performance of “Valentine” from 2020’s Dreamland, the group remains cool and largely unphased by the malfunction. Lawrence shakes off the technical mishaps with a light-hearted embrace of the spontaneity that comes with live music, and assures the crowd that really, the evening is about the music itself, not some unruly lights.
Throughout the show, Lawrence dances around the stage while Memmel and his guitar also roam freely. Both consistently engage with their bandmates and the audience. Near the end of the show, Lawrence jumps into the crowd, greeting fans and embracing them in all of their shrieking excitement. As COIN took their final bows, it was abundantly clear that they really aren’t afraid of music (nor set malfunctions) anymore.
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