The Coast Are Tense

"We bought a van right before we left — like a big 15 passenger van — and we just found out it’s got a crack in the gas tank,” says Ben Spurr, singer of Toronto’s indie pop-rock quartet the Coast. "We bought it used, so I guess that stereotype is true about used car salesmen.”

Out on the roads of North America for many months to come promoting their first full-length record, Expatriate, the Coast haven’t exactly had the best of luck when it comes to things being flawed. Luckily, though, not every rough patch they’ve hit on their way to being one of 2008’s artists to watch has slowed them down as much as a gas tank that can only be filled halfway.

"When we first started the band I think we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could do this,” says Spurr. "We’re not the best musicians, but we’re trying to cross over that path.” After some initial new-band growing pains, the Coast are dealing with bigger issues. They’ve hit a couple of snags along the way — mainly whether or not to keep the band together or not — but the foursome has managed to turn their problems into great pop-rock songs.

"Before this record we were kind of fighting and wondering what to do with the band,” says Spurr. "The remedy for that was, instead of ignoring the problems between us, to incorporate those problems into the band and into the songs themselves. So there’s a lot of personal stuff in the songs, and some of the tension of the band is in the songs on this record.”