On Feb. 14, local New Paltz indie-rock band, WRONG COAST, released their debut singles “SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DAY” and “DRINKIN’ TOO MUCH,” which can now be found on all streaming services (with the exception of Apple Music, where it will soon be made available).
The band, made up of Nathan Vermillion, Michael Hydos, David Stingle and Caleb Couri, started playing shows in 2022, although it has been a long time in the making. Guitarist Vermillion moved to New Paltz a few years ago from Southern California, and has been writing his own songs since before he moved. Upon coming to New Paltz, he spent some time living in the house show venue which was once known as Radioshack, where he got to know his fellow bandmates. The group soon began playing together regularly, and WRONG COAST was born.
Vermillion shared his originals with the band when they got together, which are heavily influenced by the music he was surrounded by in California. In fact, the reason the band is called WRONG COAST is because they play music similar to what Vermillion heard in his local music scene in California, but are based in New York. In terms of specific inspirations, he credits FIDLAR, Skeggs, Surf Curse and old school Green Day as their main influences for sound and style.
“It’s that kind of music but on the East Coast, that’s just kind of the whole vibe of it. It’s basically Southern California indie garage rock,” Vermillion explained.
The band may have released their singles on Valentine’s Day, but don’t get it confused — these are certainly not love songs. In fact, they are quite the opposite. They are angry songs and are a direct contrast to the popular Valentine’s Day culture of love and high spirits.
“They’re angry songs. They’re just about being angry. We dropped them on Valentine’s Day as a joke, because they’re not romantic songs at all,” said Vermillion. “They’re kind of like F*** you songs in a sense. There’s definitely a bunch of experiences that shaped the songs, but they’re not necessarily about one person. They’re kind of about a situation of just being stuck in bad habits.”
When it comes to the process of creating these songs, the two singles had highly differing backstories.
“‘SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DAY,’ I literally wrote in five minutes,” Vermillion said. “It was one of those ones where I was just feeling a lot of emotions. I was just on my guitar and it all came out in one go, and I was like, ‘I like that.’”
Even more impressive than the speed in which the song was written is the speed in which the band was able to put it together — the band managed to perform “SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DAY” just days after it was written. “We had our debut show in like four days. The rest of the band was like, ‘we have to play this for our debut show.’ I was like, it’s only four days away, but we whipped it together real quick,” said Vermillion.
On the other hand, “DRINKIN’ TOO MUCH” was written by Vermillion over a much longer period of time, and was the combination of two different song ideas he had been messing around with for a while.
“I kind of just mashed two thoughts together because the vibes just kind of worked well and they were about the same thing. It was written over the course of two years. It’s just supposed to feel angry and all over the place, just a lot of emotions and very reflective. It’s almost like a throw up of anger,” he said.
Outside of the release of these debut singles, the band has some exciting stuff lined up for the future. If you are interested in hearing them live, you can catch them at their release show at Saint Andrews on March 1. They also have an EP in the works, which will be composed of songs Vermillion wrote while driving across the country for several months, hence the presumptive title, “the Road Trip Tapes.”
You can expect to hear heavy Southern California punk influences on the EP, which is set to be released in June 2024.