How are you today?

MC: I’m okay. My birthday is in 2 days and that’s always a kind of strange time. And this one is a milestone I guess, I’m turning 30. So lots to think about. How are you?

I can relate, a little. I’m turning 25 tomorrow.

MC: Nice, Taurus/Gemini cusp shit. So if the stars are true we’re both totally mental.

Two personalities. Both denying the existence of the other. Or something like that.

MC: The warring cosmos within us.

Coma Cinema. And, recently, you wrapped up a farewell tour for the same project. How does it feel to move on from all of that? At the end of last year, you released Loss Memory , the final album under your project,. And, recently, you wrapped up a farewell tour for the same project. How does it feel to move on from all of that?

MC: It feels good in a way. To say goodbye to a project that I started when I was 15 or 16; even though I didn’t release an album for many years after it began. It’s nice to be able to be in a place where I can organize a kind of experience that’s personal to me and to be able to dictate how the project ends is good. The album was really cathartic, and took as many years to make as the first album did, but for different reasons. I put a lot of myself into it, and I think in the years to come maybe people who know my music will be still be able to go back to that record and really understand who I am. The shows were amazing. Every venue kept telling me they’d never had a more considerate audience ever. Just people really focused and kind and listening to me sing those songs on a stage for the last time in whichever town I was in. I was very grateful to be given that kind of respect. I’m not the person who is going to shush a paying audience ever, so that they’d give me that attention without me asking is just really life affirming.

That’s awesome. I’ve listened to the album a lot and find myself either wanting to digest what is being said or driving down the highway singing along. There is a deep layer of personhood that just reverberates. I feel as though I am listening to you venturing on some odyssey back though your past, uncovering all the history left there.

MC: I think that’s what’s happening on the record for sure, and in that I discovered new feelings about things maybe I’d repressed and that was kind of intense. It lead to the record being in the works for a long time. Songs like “Tether” and “Ambrosia” I had shelved for being too personal, but things happened in my life that made me feel like I should say those things. I started to realize that while these were my experiences, I wasn’t the only one who had been through these things. I went to therapy for the first time in my life and learned about traumas, and how they effect us as we develop. That opened my mind too.

“Tether” is one of the songs I keep going back too. A tone in the album that just kind of stomps at your ears. If you had to say, was there an overarching message you were hoping for people to receive?

MC: Well for that song, it’s about relaying a difficult life and knowing that the person who is relaying it survived. Sometimes when I listen to Elliott Smith, I get very sad because he sang about all this pain, and you know the story ends badly. I wanted to relay some pain that was really personal, hoping the people listening would be able to see I survived it and they can survive whatever background they have too. Some of us aren’t going to make it and that’s just life. But for those of us that do, we should do what we can to help others get out of these hopeless situations. The album itself kind of has that theme too, which is to speak your truth and get it out there, and survive it. The last song “Sad World” I think could be interpreted as hopeless, but that’s not how I wrote it. When it says “so long sad world goodbye,” I mean it as moving on from the trauma. Saying goodbye to it not in a “fuck you” way, but more like “so long, I survived you, and I’m strong now so i’m leaving” kind of way.

It’s rather beautiful. When I think about now, it makes sense. It isn’t so much dwelling on the sadness of the past, but rather a reflection.

MC: For sure. One last look at it all and then goodbye.

How would you describe the difference between Coma Cinema and elvis depressedly?

MC: Well with Coma Cinema, I write all the songs. elvis depressedly, I mostly just do lyrics and melodies. My wife, Delaney Mills, is responsible for most of the music, sound design, and things like that. I do wish people wouldn’t put me so much in the focus of that band. I guess I have a bigger personality (not in a good way) and I’m louder. I don’t even use the elvis depressedly twitter, it’s 90% Delaney. It’s more so a partnership, a real band.

That’s cool you describe it as a partnership. When I was doing some research on you, I saw where you described her as “underrated” and how it would be what it is without her. I do agree that people put a lot of focus on the “frontman” of a band. One of the things I loved about seeing you last year was how everyone was in the spotlight, at least on stage.

MC: Was that with Turnover?

It was.

MC: That tour was really weird. Delaney stayed home and worked on music there, and it just never felt right. We definitely wanted to all have equal footing as a band, but going from what we were to just a rock band was a little strange. I think we did the best we could with it though. The audiences didn’t seem to vibe with it most of the time, but we’d get a few people we were able to make a connection with and that was cool.

I think people really enjoy that “lo-fi” sound, but personally, to see it translated live in the way you did was a true treat. Distorted guitars, yelling, and all.

MC: Yeah, the lo-fi thing is really funny. It’s lost all technical meaning. I have no idea what it means anymore really. I think it’s morphed into a genre descriptor, but all the bands under the tag sound like indie rock to me, same as ever.

I agree. It use to be songs in that vein sounded more personal to me. Now it seems contrived. A gimmick.

MC: It’s just the nature of all business I guess. Ideas get dredged up from the underground and commoditized too much so they lose personality. There will probably be a new movement co-opted pretty soon.

Loss Memory, and New Ambrosia, there is something very Southern about it. A uniquely, Southern sound even. There are telling of heavy religious metaphor and allegory, and reflections on a lower class background. Do you try to bring your Southern heritage with you in your work? Does it play a role in your creative work? True. I know you have spent a lot of your life in the South. One thing I noticed in a lot of your more recent work: judus hung himself in america , and, there is something very Southern about it. A uniquely, Southern sound even. There are telling of heavy religious metaphor and allegory, and reflections on a lower class background. Do you try to bring your Southern heritage with you in your work? Does it play a role in your creative work?

MC: I think it’ll come out regardless, and you can’t really outrun your upbringing all together. I love the South. We happen to live in a very progressive part of the South, and it’s been really cool to have our small southern town as a home base, when the places the music industry wants folks to live are so expensive. I’m still religious, but my views aren’t really in line with any churches. I talk about that on the “judas” record some. I think there is definitely a musical heritage of the South that you can hear in the music of people from here. It’s also easy to spot fakes. If you’re from New Jersey and you’re singing country music, which is traditionally working people’s music, it’s easy to see the dishonesty. There’s a trend now for people who have been born really well off to try and make music that is in the lineage of working people’s music for some kind of authenticity game, but it’s very see through to me. Most of the southern artists I know aren’t putting themselves in the kind of boxes people in the big cities seem to be, trend hopping. Down here folks know they’re going to be looked at maybe somewhat disdainfully, so they explore more, and come up with their own sounds. But definitely my upbringing seeps into everything I do. I was raised by my grandfather, so I have a lot of him in my habits, what i’m into, etc. I was exposed to a lot of country and gospel early on that’s become sort of obscure and forgotten by people my age and younger, but the internet has helped make these artists discoverable again so maybe we’ll see that influence come out. YouTube is amazing for that. Just going down rabbit holes and finding forgotten music.

Last question. What are you current creative endeavours?

MC: Currently we’re finishing up the next elvis depressedly LP; still coming out this year, as far as I know. And I’ll be putting out a kind of sequel to the “judas” album under my birth name very soon. Within a month or two. It’s another 8 songs and a little more out there, but i think people who liked the last one will dig it a lot.

Awesome. I’m stoked for everything to come. Thank you for taking to the time to talk to me and answer all my questions.

Mathew Lee Cothran is truly a master in the craft songwriting. Through is voice, he sings of of pain and sorrow but a still hopeful future. He blends beautifully the teachings of an American story using religion, politics, and a familial bow to wrap it up so good. Listen to him and his partner, Delaney, on their project elvis depressedly; his now-summed up project Coma Cinema; and the his wonderful songs under his own name. His work can be found on physical format over at Run For Cover Records and Joy Void Records.