COACH PARTY

“I just remember my eyes filling up and thinking this is so difficult,” begins Jess Eastwood. “But at the same time I knew it was going to be such a good thing when it’s out on a song. That was the first time I ever felt like that.”

The Coach Party bassist and vocalist is reflecting on the cathartic, empowering experience of purging the pain and inner turmoil that inspired their new song Georgina, a standout track from the Isle Of Wight band’s upcoming second album Caramel.

It’s a raw, unvarnished account of her time in therapy, and of her therapist, that’s as much of a cry for help and trying to regain control as it is an acceptance of the void. But while evocative lines like ‘I can’t see a way out / I miss myself / I want to get back’ and ‘I’m locking my doors again / I’m pushing away my friends / They’re grieving’ highlight feelings of isolation and desperation, they didn’t come naturally – lyrics had to be drawn out by guitarist Steph Norris, who was mining her best friend’s psyche for the right words, leaving no stone unturned.

“As friends in a band you’re trying to encourage people to be brutally honest,” adds drummer Guy Page. “Not just because you want to know what’s going on with your friends, but, from a selfish point of view, you know it makes a fucking good lyric.” This brutal honesty with one another forms the backbone of Caramel. With Guy acting as producer, there was an accepted and encouraged openness with each other in the creative process, with everyone contributing songs about their own lives – from guitarist Joe Perry taking the lead on Medicate Yourself, which deals with numbing yourself (mentally and physically) just to get by, to Fake It, from Steph, which reckons with the effects of hiding your true feelings and simply plastering on a smile.