Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino calls us from L.A., a week before the band starts their Summer is Forever II Tour with Wavves and Cherry Glazerr. The 29-year-old vocalist/musician is handling all her “responsible adult things” — i.e. going to the doctor, stockpiling travel swag from Target — before she hits the road. She chats Seinfeld, thrifting and the unfortunate hashtag coincidence of #BestCoast. What do you like to bring on tour with you?
I always try to take a good collection of DVDs. I think touring is difficult because you just had that one outlet you can turn to to remind you of being at home and you can tun out what you’re doing day-to-day for your job. I’ll bring a million “Seinfeld” DVDs, even though I’ve already seen them a million times. Which character do you relate to the most?
Elaine! She’s probably my favorite fictional character of all time, though I don’t see her as being fictional because she seems really real to me. I met Julia Louis-Dreyfus once and I totally fan-girl-ed on her. I talked about all these Elaine-specific things and she was like, “You know I’m on other shows, right?” Do you watch “Veep”?
I have yet to watch all of “Veep,” but I’ve been catching it on airplanes because it’s always on the [in-flight] TV programming there. I just came back from Ghana and I was flying home across New York, then New York to L.A., and I wanted to stay up so I could go to bed without jet lag. I ended up watching eight or nine episodes in a day. It’s really smart and funny. What are you listening to lately?
Honestly, I feel like for the most part I’m always listening to the same stuff. It’s like, Fleetwood Mac or Drake — opposite ends of the spectrum.
But those two flow pretty nicely into each other.
Yeah, they’re both pretty mellow, emotional stuff. And when I’m in my car, I’m into this record by Widowspeak called “All Yours.” Then also Beach House’s “Thank Your Lucky Stars.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about band names that are difficult to Google. Do you run into that problem with Best Coast?
I try not to [Google], to be honest. I try to stay away from Googling myself or reading interviews after they happen. But my parents are very into Googling “Best Coast.” I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a Google alert set up. I know on Instagram though, you’ll be searching for our tag when I’ll try to find a fan photo from one of our show to put up and that’s really difficult because you just pick up people in California at the beach and a lot of weed photos and medicinal marijuana. Oh that’s weird but I guess it makes sense.
Yeah, Best Coast is very California-centric lingo. For me, it’s a 2Pac lyric, like “West coast is the best coast,” but I forget it’s a thing. SoWest coast rappers or weed stuff comes up when you search for us. You’ve done fashion collabs in the past — do you think you’d do it again?
I would definitely do a collaboration again if the right person or a line I really respected approached me. I love clothes and style, and my mom is a designer. For her, it was a labor of love, but now it’s something she focuses on something 100-percent. My parents were always supportive of us havingour own style and we’d go to thrift stores together. What city has the best thrifting?
My mom lives in Omaha and whenever I go to Nebraska, I shop because they have great stores. You find stuff and it’s like, “You’d never find this in L.A.,” and if you did, it’d be $115 in a thrift store. If you go: Philly New York
Boston
Feb. 19-20
Royale
279 Tremont St., Boston
royaleboston.com
Feb. 17
Electric Factory
421 North 7th St., Philadelphia
electricfactory.info
Feb. 18
Terminal 5
610 West 56th St., New York
terminal5nyc.com
Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino fan girl-ed out when she met Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Janell Shirtcliff
