About this Event

It’s almost unheard of for a British band to fill a venue 3000 miles from home before they’d released their debut album, but that’s exactly what Coasts experienced when they headlined New York’s Bowery Ballroom earlier this year. Their progress is a blend of the old with the new: their devoted and ever-growing fan-base has emerged from simple word-of-mouth instigated by their phenomenal popularity across social media.



“We were really surprised to sell that show out,” says vocalist Chris Caines. “To sell 600 tickets in a city that you haven’t really focused on before is testament to the Internet’s ability to allow people to discover music from all over the world.”



That gig is just one element of the Bristol-rooted quartet’s already enviable list of accomplishments which include a rapturous reception at a packed tent in Coachella; a series of London shows which expand in size every time that they return, including Heaven and KOKO; Radio 1 and XFM support; a social media following of over 120,000; a #1 HypeM with Oceans which reached over 4 million plays on Soundcloud and Spotify without any airplay; an invite to perform on Made in Chelsea; and even a famous fan in the shape of Jake Gyllenhaal.



Glastonbury, Reading, Leeds, Isle of Wight, T in the Park and a major Toronto event with James Bay and George Ezra are all on the schedule.



As with many life-changing experiences, the Coasts story was almost over before it began. Caines, guitarist Liam Willford and bassist James Gamage first met at university in Bath. Together with drummer Ben Street (“He’s our Keith Moon,” laughs Caines) and keyboardist David Goulbourn, they’d skip their own classes to raid the university’s music rooms for unauthorised jam sessions.



Eventually the quintet evolved into something more focused and Coasts were formed. They all moved into a house in Bristol and started a collective schedule of working dead end jobs all weekend and playing music the rest of the time. After soon establishing a local following, they strived to reach the next step. Their best paid gig at that stage – albeit for a modest £150 – represented encouraging progress… or at least it did until the drive home.



“I was driving us back and the wheel almost came off our van,” winces Caines. The cost of being towed back far eclipsed the money that they’d made that night. It was a reality check: how could they continue while hemorrhaging money? “The next day we got a royalty payment through because we had a song played on an advert. It was for the exact amount we had to pay to get home. It felt like an epiphany.”



More challenges would also arise: Street was almost paralysed in an accident in Nicaragua, but returned ahead of schedule – and against medical advice – to drum while sporting a neck brace that limited his movement, and a series of industry showcases failed to result in a deal. Disappointed but undeterred, Coasts’ final role of the dice was to self-fund a low-budget album with producer Eliot James (T