Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.

THE COMA KIDS are
Daniel Love - Guitar, lead vocals
Mike Roy - Drums, vocals
Jose Garcia - Bass

For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to (insert band/artist name here)? How long has the band been around?

Daniel (that's me) was a part of one other band in high school that played maybe two shows and recorded a single shitty garage demo. It was fun but amounted to what 99% of every other high school punk band does. Jose's been in a couple before this, a prog rock band and school marching band, he's probably the one out of all 3 of us with the most formal training. For Mike, it's actually his first band, which is impressive both because it means he found his live chops pretty quickly and learned how to play as part of a band in record time, and also because it's rare to find a drummer that hasn't already cycled through a dozen other bands.

What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?

We're actually named after a Motion City Soundtrack song, "The Coma Kid." In addition to just sounding pretty cool, the singer, Justin Pierre, talked about how the song was about someone who constantly wanted to start something but never got around to it, like a fatal kind of procrastination, something that I really related to in terms of making an honest go at music. Fun fact, he's actually heard our songs. He called it "The Get Up Kids MEETS Hot Water Music. That's meant to be a compliment."

Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?

I write the songs, and I think the main theme is just reality. I write about the things I go through as a person. The songs on our new EP, "Lovely," are about a lack of self-worth, struggles with depression, the feelings that come from a lack of closure. I can only write about myself, and I tend to be pretty miserable, so most of the songs, for better or worse, follow those mindsets.

What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?

Mike and I really love a lot of the punk bands that have been working with Will Yip lately; Title Fight, Citizen, Turnover. He's a fan of the 2010s pop-punk sound and I tend to really love wall-of-sound shoegaze-esque music, and most of those bands find a good middle ground between the two. I think our song "Air / Love is Destructive" is kind of a love letter to those, or it tried to be. Of course there are veteran bands we love, too, Brand New was a good talking point when we first started playing together. Jose tends to lean more toward indie stuff though, like The Killers, which helps even us out. 

Lyrically, though, I always tend to look toward bands outside of the genre. The Antlers, Pianos Become the Teeth, Neutral Milk Hotel, lots of bands can use really good wordplay, but those are bands that can really find the right words to make everything devastating. It's something I wanna be able to do in my songs someday. I'd much rather have emotionally poignant lyrics than super catchy choruses.

Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?

As a 16 year old I really liked mid-2000s emo/punk bands like Senses Fail, Matchbook Romance, Versus the World, The Matches, stuff like that. I'd practice all their songs on guitar in my room and I tried to write songs like that because they were the most important thing in my life. Music was the only thing that never really turned on me so that's what I turned my attention toward, it's how I vented, it's what I made, and I figured something that made me that happy should be something I put my energy toward.

What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, ect …

I have a mini nervous breakdown and worry about forgetting all my parts or losing my voice. Does that count as a ritual?

What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?

We're gonna be opening for The Matches at the Masquerade on June 17th for 500 people. I don't know about the other guys but that band was one of my biggest influences as a teen, and playing a show with them seems like this big symbolic coming-of-age thing for me as a musician, and if it actually helps us pick up some momentum as a band then it'll kind of be like a visible jumping off point for where we started to really to make moves.

If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?

I think as a whole for us the safest answer would be Brand New. The atmosphere of their shows always seems so one-of-a-kind, and being immersed in that seems like a dream. Not to mention getting to watch them play every night would be a lot of fun.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Go pre-order our new EP, "Lovely," out June 10th over at https://thecomakids.bandcamp.com 
Or stream them at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn6GWdtT9yUgJLJzvrKmzyw I know music downloads are kind of trending downwards so we're trying to make cool little videos for all of our songs so that people can stream them or have some sort of imagery to go with it when they check us out.