Cameron Parrucci-
From tributes honoring 1970s psychedelic masterpieces, to writing an album about the drag of living a nine-to-five lifestyle, to playing and booking over a hundred shows in one year, Tom Lescovich of The Coax is no stranger to the intricacies of music, and his band wonderfully reflects that.
The Coax, if they were to be defined, are a Minneapolis-based psychedelic rock band.
“The original band started back in 2013. We performed under a different name, Jack and the Coax, and it worked for that moment in time,” Tom reflects on the origins of the band. “We were playing a lot of shows we weren’t ready to play, and never really had a lot of time to develop our sound, or even knew what we wanted to sound like. [Then] we finally found that sound. We always wanted to buy into a sound and not be all over the place. And basically, we dropped Jack off; Jack wasn’t really the guy for us anymore.”
Labels and history, however, are arbitrary in comparison to what the band produces. According to Lescovich: “For me, it’s always who’s influencing me at that moment in time… I don’t want to buy into one sound forever. It’s very situational and for where I am, geographically, mentally.”
Lescovich continues his journey of musical self-discovery to explain who he makes his music for.
“We’re making the music for ourselves. It’s what we love; it’s what we’re interested in,” he said. “We want to be constantly evolving creatively, and I think we’re going to be making albums for a long time.”
The Coax’s upcoming record, “Total Drag,” is due this March. “It starts out chaotically, and falls into ‘Total Drag’ the title track of the record, and the message for the whole record. It’s a total drag, you know? Selling out, working for the man, getting up for a nine-to-five, working and going to bed… We have a great, five-song medley in the middle of the record that tells a story, too.”
The album draws from psychedelic rock, punk and even surf rock, with Lescovich attributing the concept of nirvana – a Buddhist understanding of spiritual transcendence – as his biggest inspiration for the record.
Like The Coax? Interested in “Total Drag”? Check out the show on the MSC terrace on February 9, at 8 p.m. with The Happy Children.