How Coterie’s Modest Start Shaped Them Into Festival Regulars
From former bricklayers to festival regulars, Coterie are enjoying life
In Partnership with Nando’s
From former bricklayers to festival regulars, Coterie are enjoying life.
When I last spoke to the band of brothers – Brandford, Conrad, Joshua, and Tyler Fisher – they’d just released their “Slice of Heaven” remix alongside the legendary Sir Dave Dobbyn, and were about to release their latest single to date, “Paradise”.
You’ll know them from other singles like “Cool It Down” and “Where We Began”, their collaboration with Dunedin’s Six60 on “Always Beside You”, or perhaps you caught them live at a summer festival over the last few years.
Before their ‘Lush Leopard’ coastal regional tour, which ran from December-March, Coterie closed out 2023 with a new mantlepiece decoration, taking home the Best New Artist award at the 2023 Panhead Rolling Stone Aotearoa Awards. They weren’t done there, being named Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards.
“It’s a wild ride bro. We’re still just making music in our garage, it’s hectic,” Conrad says.
Coterie’s rise to the top may seem quick, but it’s actually the result of years of hard work. In our interview last year, they revealed they were “doing stadium tours with Six60 on the weekend, then flying home to lay bricks [on] Monday morning.”
Now, the Coterie boys are roughly 18 months into being “full time musicians.”
Coterie at Nando’s Chicken Shop Sessions
On one hand, they’re one of the most touted bands on the live music scene in Australia and New Zealand; on the other, they’re just standard West Coast Drive locals addicted to the beach.
“Nothings really changed, bro”, they insist. “Proximity is definitely a thing. [As a signed artist] you get to meet interesting people that you may not get to meet otherwise, but it’s not like we signed a deal and now live in an 8-storey mansion on the beach. We’re local boys who just live on the coast.”
Coterie’s most recent tour saw them perform over 20 shows throughout Australia and New Zealand, hitting stages in Nelson and Torquay and everywhere in between, not to mention festival slots sprinkled throughout the run. (Coterie performed at Rock The Bowl with Katchafire and Ocean Alley.).
“It was nonstop and it felt like there was a million shows, but I’m not complaining,” Conrad laughs.
The boys also headed to Europe and the UK, supporting Lime Cordiale and The Cat Empire on their respective tours, while doing their own shows and festival slots at the same time.
Next month, they’ll support Tones and I on her national arena tour, and they also have a new single on the way together too.
Is being a support act a less strenuous touring experience? Not so, according to Coterie.
“It never stops,” says Brandford. “You literally play, fly, play, fly, play, fly. Between planes, hotels, green rooms and the stage, it never stops. It’s been hilarious bro – we used to be tradies on site at 5am, and now we literally live on planes and in hotels.”
Now, they’re rubbing shoulders with the artists they used to blast during their 9-5 days.
“We were sitting backstage at a festival – we’d just come off stage. Macklemore just randomly walks past and says hello and we’re just thinking, ‘Man, I was just playing your tunes at work,'” they reveal.
I’m catching up with Coterie as they prepare to fly from Perth to Melbourne to perform at Nando’s inaugural Chicken Shop Sessions, which arrives at the ideal time.
With big festivals like Splendour in the Grass and Groovin’ the Moo falling by the wayside, Nando’s new micro-festival is a positive development during a depressing time for the music industry.
Coterie at Nando’s Chicken Shop Festivals
An initiative like Nando’s Chicken Shop Sessions helps Coterie to stay optimistic, despite the industry going through a major shift. It also gave the boys a chance to play a more intimate set, something they haven’t been doing too much of lately.
“We don’t actually do too many pop-up things like this, so it’ll be interesting. You can’t really mess up in a small room because everybody hears everything,” they say.
“Who thought it was a good idea to play a concert inside a chicken shop?” laughs Brandford. “We live off Nando’s half the time, so I’m definitely keen for the food.
“We’ll probably play some bangers, some old ones. But we’ll probably play the new song we’re releasing in August as well.
“Honestly overall, I think Australia is in a new season for festivals and live music. We literally just played Blues Festival with over 25,000 people in the crowd, and it sold out within five days. Promiseland coming up in October is huge, then you’ve got Hidden Fest and others all across Aussie and NZ. I think things are just changing.”
Coterie might be bigger than ever, but they still do something specific before each show to remember how lucky they are to be where they are.
“For our ritual before each show we huddle up and say to each other that whatever show we’re about to play is our first show we’ve ever played. Then we just go hard,” reveals Brandford.
Aside from being fully booked up on the touring front in 2024, they’ve still made time to record; according to the boys, it’s almost new music time.
“We’ve got a bunch of music. I don’t know if we’d call it an album yet, but we’ve been writing and recording every day. We’re in the studio every week, whether it’s here on the West Coast or in Aotearoa. We’re gearing up for this summer, we’ve got a bunch of new tracks coming, with some features too.
“We’ll be doing a lot more festivals this summer, instead of last summer where we did, I don’t know, 50 shows.” Coterie are really just getting started.
