Bubble Tea and Car Chats with Coast Arcade
Bubble tea interviews in a car: 3/4 of Auckland-based, Coast Arcade! From L-R: Bella Bavin, Nate Tims and Chris Tims. (Thom Boynton was at Glastonbury the time this interview was done, we missed you, Thom!)
On Friday, I caught up with three out of four of young and very talented, exceptionally hard-working, Auckland-based Coast Arcade to talk about their new song, Tattoo, Rockquest and who they would love to play with in a dream line-up. We had an unconventionally fun car interview, topped off with Bella’s favourite, Gong-Cha bubble tea! It was great to get to know them more and the interview was an absolute blast. Read on to get to know more about your new favourite band.
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How are you guys all going?
Bella: Yeah, we’re good. We’re just chilling… In the car.
Chris: Having fun.
You just released your new single, Tattoo, last week! (A week and a half prior to the publishing of this interview).
Bella: Yeah, we did. Tattoo is out into the world now.
Nate: Very exciting.
How are you finding the feedback, has it been pretty positive?
Nate: Yeah, I’ve been telling all my friends at school - showing them and telling them to listen to the song and to watch the video. They’ve all said it’s good. Positive.
Bella: Heaps of positive feedback from people, we’re really lucky that our support network is quite large, so we’re just watching the streams and things go up and sitting there excitedly waiting for it to hit certain milestones.
Has it hit any milestones so far?
Bella: We hit 2k the day before yesterday, so pretty quickly, which was really cool. It hit 1k within the first day or the second day, so we were kind of stoked with that and our music video is nearing 1k, it’s not heaps, but it’s heaps for us. We’re happy.
The video is really cool! So, you made that homemade?
Bella: Yeah, so we kind of got the car…
Chris: Yeah, we got a mates car…
Bella: We got this really cool vintage red VW Beetle and I was determined that we were able to do it ourselves, I was like, “it can’t be that hard, it really can’t, we’re shooting a summer song in the middle of winter, can’t be that hard…” so, we planned out all the shots and my Dad works in film, so he’s got a bit of background knowledge in that. He doesn’t work behind the camera, but you know, he’s got a rough idea of how things should go and so, we kind of set up the tripod and stood in front of it, he made sure we were all in frame and we just rolled with it and that was it. It was a bit intense, trying to dodge the rain.
Chris: The tripod was the real hero.
Bella: The editing was the least fun. Things kept coming out of sync, it was a nightmare, but we got there in the end.
It’s so cool, I love it. It makes you feel warm, because obviously it’s cold outside and it’s a warm video and a fun song.
How long was the recording process for Tattoo? Did it take quite a long time?
Chris: I think we had about four recording sessions in total with our recording producer. I mean, that took over a month just because everyone has their own things and we’re all a little bit busy, so to find a day we were all free, it was pretty like, quick. I mean, last time we recorded the song with Rockquest, the drums took probably three or four hours…
Bella: They did, they took forever!
Chris: It was good because this time, I guess, after recording that song, we learnt from our mistakes.
Bella: We were less nervous. Like, Thommy, because he’s an amazing drummer, I think he just got a bit spooked having to play to a metronome, but keeping the same energy of like, a live performance. So, it was that balance of getting that energy and getting into the song and also playing on time. The recording process was fun, like, I wrote Tattoo the start of last year and from there, the song has become like, our song. It’s the song we always play last and it’s our go-to. Going into the studio, I knew exactly what I wanted for the song. I knew how I wanted it to sound and so, it was a fairly quick process in terms of recording, just because we knew exactly how we wanted it with the tones and Christian helped tweaked it here and there, just with adding more layers, but overall, the song has not changed at all since we wrote it last year.
You’re pretty stoked with it then, to not change too much about it, which is amazing.
Bella: I think there have been a few mild changes in the second verse and then just the bridge part and that was it. It was fun.
Where did you record the song?
Bella: Parachute Studios with Christian. Christian is really talented and we knew that he could deliver for sure. We were super excited about working with him and Parachute is such a nice studio.
I guess this is an individual question for everyone, did you always think you’d be in a creative field?
Nate: Not always. Since I only joined about 2 months ago, I don’t know… It’s just been so awesome and I get to join this band and we’ve already got a single out and stuff.
Bella: Yeah, for Nate, I feel like he is in a good spot because, obviously he is super talented and we’re really lucky to have him, but coming into the band, literally within the first week, he was jumping into the studio to record and so Nate has just gone straight into the stuff we’ve all kind of worked on for a year and a bit. He’s just living! He’s in gigs, studio, he’s recording, he’s in a music video… I think for me, I’ve like, I’ve always wanted to do music. I’ve been playing since I was 7, but it was always just guitar for me, I never wanted to be a singer or songwriter because I hated being compared to Taylor Swift, I love Taylor Swift now, but when you’re younger and you’re this little blonde kid who is kind of shredding on the guitar, just being compared to Taylor Swift was like “seriously?” but being compared to her now is actually very cool. For me, I’ve been in and out of bands since I was like, 11 and I think Coast Arcade is definitely, you know, got the potential to go somewhere and I’d really love to stick with it and make it a career - I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do with you guys.
Lots of band love!
Chris: I think for me, I kind of always wanted to be in a band, but I never knew where to go or never really had people to do it with. Because my brother would always be in a band, I was super jealous, he was always playing all these new songs and stuff, he’d be like the only person that I could practice with and so then, when I joined Coast Arcade, I was like “aha!”
Bella: That’s so funny, when I started Coast Arcade, it was Thom and I because my old band Ragaire had split and I’d been tutoring Thom in another band and I was like, okay… I know Thom is a good drummer and then I actually went to Nate first and I didn’t ask him to be in a band, I kind of said “hey, how’s your music going?” because I knew that Nate was a killer bass player and had been in bands, so I was like, he’s got experience, but I was like… Ooh, do I want two 16-year olds. Then, I remembered that Chris did play guitar and Chris and I had been at school together since we were like, 5, so we all know each other and we’ve all lived in Glendowie really close to each other for our whole lives and so, after talking to Nate just about his band and stuff, I was like “okay, cool” and went and asked Chris as I knew he had a friend who played bass and it’s so funny that now it’s worked out that both of them [Nate and Chris] are in it.
Chris: Yeah, it’s cool having the bro in it.
It’s come together really well then, eh.
Bella: It’s worked out weirdly well.
I think it was just meant to be for Coast Arcade.
Tell me more about your journey in Rockquest!
Bella: I guess Nate can’t really take that one. We got together basically for the sole purpose of doing Rockquest because it was my last year of Rockquest, I’d done it pretty much every year before and I was like, “I really want to do it this last year”, got to the national finals last year, it was almost like a test for myself, can I put a band together this quickly with people who kind of have zero experience playing in a band or in front of people and get to the national finals. When we got together, the vibes were just so good and everything just kind of gelled. We had to put in a lot of work, we were practicing eight hours a week, if not more and then, I think it was about six weeks after our first band practice we were in the heats and we kind of smashed the heats, eh. It felt really good. We went through to regional finals, again, practicing super, super hard because we had time to make up… All these other bands had been together quite a while and then, the regional final was fun, we came first, which was kind of cool, we didn’t expect to because the calibre of bands was super high.
Chris: A lot of bands that you look up to.
Bella: Some real tight bands and so we were stoked, we’d literally been together like a month or two. To get to that was fun. That’s where we played Tattoo, that was our heat song, that was our regional finals song, the video submission was… sketch.
Chris: It was pretty average. We watched it the other day to practice to it and it was so bad.
Bella: It was one of those days where nothing had worked out, I’d done a video submission before with Rockquest, so I knew what needed to be done… It wasn’t an issue with the songs, it was that we were brand new, playing these four songs in one go and I had laryngitis, so it was so bad. We’d get a really good take and then at the end, I’d just have a coughing fit and we’d have to start again. It took us all day. By the end of it, the boys were like, at each others throats and we were like, I don’t want to be here anymore, but we got it done and then we somehow got into the national finals with that video. It was quite the ordeal, but by the time we got to the national finals, we were like, this is so fun, this is so cool, we got some recognition from our friends and that, it was cool. We were like, we should just keep this going. There was no reason why we shouldn’t. We know we want to do music, so… That was kind of Rockquest for us. Rockquest have done so much for us as well in terms of just supporting us, so, 10/10, would recommend.
It’s good that we have that in the country because the younger artists coming out of High School or who are in High School, they need that. We don’t have opportunities for people otherwise.
Bella: I am 100% a Rockquest advocate, I have no shame in saying that, either. For me, I did Bandquest first when I was 11 and I did that 11, 12 and 13. It gave me this thrill of, oh my God, I get to play with this awesome gear and be onstage. We were awful, but it was so much fun. When I got to High School, I was like, I want to do this again and if I didn’t have Rockquest, there is no doubt that we would not be doing band stuff. You know, the support for it in the NCEA curriculum and our school being Glendowie, there’s not a huge amount of music and so, to support a band and teach them how gigs work and how sound checks work and the kind of gear that you should be using, you have to figure that out for yourself and Rockquest does a big portion of that for you. You can reach out to them and say, hey, we need help, how do we do this because this isn’t something we’ve been taught and we don’t want to mess it up. So, Rockquest, can’t recommend it enough. We love you, Rockquest.
As we were talking about before, Thom is currently over in Glastonbury, do you think if you got to that level of being able to play at Glastonbury that you would want to take that opportunity?
Bella: 100%! I don’t know who would turn down Glastonbury.
Chris: We all have our little dreams that we want to accomplish. I think, Thom’s would be to play Glastonbury.
Bella: For all of us… I don’t have a specific goal, I just know that I want Coast Arcade to be big enough to play at Glastonbury, you know what I mean?
Chris: Back when we first started [my goal] would’ve been to open for Mako Road, or for Mako Road to open for us.
Bella: We would love to jump on some festivals this year. We were supposed to jump on a couple last year, but obviously covid, so they canned a lot of those, especially before the line-ups came out and so that was a little bit gutting because we were so excited to be like, hey! We’re on this, we’re on that. It is what it is.
L-R: Thom, Bella, Chris and Nate! Photo provided by Coast Arcade.
At least you’ll have more opportunities to do that in the future and they’ll be bigger and better. That’s a positive way of looking at it. Who would be on your dream line-up to play alongside, apart from Mako Road?
Nate: Didn’t we write a list? I’d want to play with Spacey Jane, Bella really likes them.
Bella: Stop, that would be my top. I think we wrote one [a list] recently. We’ve played with The Beths before and that was a dream come true, I don’t know how that happened or how we were able to get that. I’d love to play with The Beths again, Spacey Jane I think for all of us, Mako Road… Obviously the big ones like Arctic Monkeys, Thom I think, would like to play with the Foo’s even though they’re kind of not quite together anymore. Obviously they’re big goals, but for us, Spacey Jane, The Beths, Mako Road, those are all the dream.
Here’s hoping that you’re on the way to achieving that!
What has been a highlight for each of you being in Coast Arcade so far?
Nate: There’s definitely releasing a song and I don’t know, it’s awesome to just go into a recording studio, it’s just unbelievable to me that we’re already there.
Chris: Yeah, for me, I’d have to say having a song on Spotify, it’s so cool because it’s there forever. You can show your kids and your grandkids and be like, guess who released this song? I just find it really cool that it’s like, yours. I quite like listening to music on Spotify and all the time, I’m looking at all these artist profiles and looking at the top song. Then, seeing our one that we’ve worked towards, it’s so cool seeing that.
I can definitely understand that would be a huge highlight!
Bella: For me, obviously having something I wrote in my bedroom out in the world and I think coming 26th June, our music video is going to be on MTV Hits in New Zealand and Australia, which is going to be awesome, you know, little things like that and then, my biggest highlight would definitely be playing with The Beths just because a year or two before, I had made that my life goal. I’ll know I’ve made it when I played with The Beths, so the fact that happened a year later, that was kind of insane. I’m one of those people who always have new goals, I’m satisfied with where we are, but I’m like, let’s see how much further we can take this. For us, it’s just a matter of how far we can push it, really. We don’t have a limit on ourselves or on our mindset on where this is going to end. It could literally go as long as it goes.
Nate: We all see the potential as well, just putting in the work into it.
Bella: If we can keep up our work rate…
Nate: I’m willing to make my mark on the band seeing as I’m new.
Bella: The great thing about Coast Arcade is that all four of us are willing to push ourselves as far and hard as we can. It’s not just a band thing, it’s also an individual thing, if one person isn’t putting in the same amount of work, it does affect everyone and if we’ve got things coming up and if we did manage to jump on festivals, you can tell when there is one person who hasn’t practiced and none of us are like that, we’re all equally as invested, which is why I think it works so well.
You can tell that as well, from the way you work and what you’re achieving and how people are closely following you, I can tell that you work very, very hard.
Where did the name Coast Arcade come from?
Chris: I’m pretty sure we were just like…
Bella: …Spit balling?
Chris: We were just sitting in the car like, okay guys, we need to come up with a name…
Bella: For Rockquest. That was for our audition form.
Chris: We had to do it a week from then, so we had to decide. We just sent random ideas to the group chat.
Bella: I was previously in a band called Ragaire and every time someone would butcher the name or butcher the spelling, I was like, guys, we need something easy to say, easy to remember if we yelled it at a gig, people could easily find it online and I had always wanted my old band Ragaire to be something arcade. Something like, Blue Arcade, I don’t know. I was going through a phase and thought arcade was very cool and it was edgy, but not like, super edgy. At the beginning, we wanted Coast Arcade to be a very beachy band, real kind of surf-beach kind of vibes. The more we wrote, the more we kind of went into more of this pop-rock with a little bit of surf, a little bit of punk in there. So, coast, I think was Chris’ word, in fact.
Chris: Then we were just like, oh, Coast Arcade.
Bella: I said coastal and you said coast. It was like, spit balling. It’s not the greatest band name invention ever. It looks good on posters and hats… Oh, what? Did you say that?
Pre-orders for the Coast Arcade x Scruffy caps are available NOW through until 1st July 2022. Pre-order here.
Is that something that might be dropping soon?
Bella: Soon. Everyone has asked us, all of our mates are like, we want Coast Arcade merch. It’s been the one thing they want. They’re like, we don’t care about music, we just want to wear a hat with your name on it or a t-shirt. So, we kind of thought about it and it’s definitely in the works. Hats are definitely on the cards.
That’s exciting though, having merch out there.
This is one of my favourite questions, if Coast Arcade was a flavour, what flavour would it be?
Chris: Bubble tea flavour.
Bella: I don’t know, I feel like Coast Arcade is something sweet, a little bit like, zesty. A peach or a peachy-lemony… It’s definitely sweet, fun and summery and light, but then it’s also got a bit of a tang. A little bit of salt. Peachy-lemony-salt. We’d be a peach lemon tea sort of vibe.
What do you love most about New Zealand music? Or being in the New Zealand music industry?
Bella: I don’t know. There are just so many aspects of being in the New Zealand music industry, there are so many parts of it. Obviously being a young band gives you quite a different perspective to a more mature band or to a band that is more established. I really love the youth scene, Flaxxies, Park RD, that kind of vibe. We are all quite supportive of each other. We all play gigs together, it’s just a really fun kind of vibe, There’s not a huge amount of competitiveness for us, we’re not competitive with anyone as we don’t see it like that. If everyone is involved and loves music, that can only be a good thing. So, yeah. I think that part of New Zealand music is really cool and obviously, we’re starting to get into that kind of, older scene, more mature, a little bit of the R18, we’re starting to work with producers and that’s quite scary, I guess because it’s unknown and as I’ve said, you don’t kind of get taught how to do any of that… You don’t get taught about splits and royalties, all of that. It’s scary, but exciting for us to be entering that kind of phase and coming from a school and an area that music isn’t really a thing… We’re probably the only band from Glendowie… Ever. There’s a few musicians here and there, but it’s definitely not an area that music is hugely supported, I guess and you know, we would love to see more music coming through NCEA. I’d really like to see the NCEA curriculum with music taking a bit of a shift personally. But yeah, New Zealand music is great and we’re really enjoying the journey through New Zealand music.
Awesome! Well, you’re doing so well. I genuinely love Tattoo. I couldn’t sleep last night as it was stuck in my head.
Bella: That’s a good thing!
The best of friends who are creating a whole lot of epic around the country at the moment. Photo provided by Coast Arcade.
Have you got anything else to add?
Bella: Stream Tattoo. Watch our music video. Follow us!
Thanks guys!
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I’d like to extend a big thank you to Bella, Chris and Nate for their time and allowing me to have some bubble tea with them in the car for this exceptionally fun chat! Coast Arcade are tearing up the music scene, so make sure that you are following them closely to not miss a beat: