Harry Coote – Rumours ‘Funeral Songs, WWE & Creative Frustrations’
Do you know what your funeral song will be or thought about what your theme song is? What about your wrestling intro song? These are the critical questions I put to Rumours’ Harry Coote when we caught up to talk about the band’s new EP If Only You Could Feel Something Too (our review here) which dropped last week.
Getting straight into the randomness, I warn Harry I am going in an odd direction.
“Oh, I live for that, please,” is the enthusiastic answer.
The title track ‘If Only You Could Feel Something Too’ has been described as if Bring Me The Horizon made WWE entrance music, so I ask Harry if he used to watch wrestling.
“That’s probably my favourite review ever”, Harry laughs. “Can I swear? Fuck, yeah, I watched WWE! Until I was about 12 or 13, then someone came to school and told me it was fake. I was like, man, you’ve just ruined so much for me. I loved reading that comment because a small goal for me would be to be on the WWE sometime. Maybe not as an intro song, but SummerSlam comes on, and we’re playing in the background. My little brother still watches wrestling, so I rubbed that review so hard in his face.”
I tell the story of being in high school and all of the boys in my grade were obsessed with wrestling; they made belts and wrestled each other in our lunch breaks. I also had a boyfriend who wouldn’t talk to me on Wednesday nights because wrestling was on. I confess that I didn’t watch it as much but did play the PlayStation game often because I liked making my own entrance to the Undertaker’s music.
Harry knows the game I am talking about and says he was a Rey Mysterio fan. My next question is, if he was a wrestler, what would be his entrance song?
“Damn, that’s a really good question! I’d want it to be one of my mate’s songs, so it’d have to be something by Inertia, Reside, Windwaker or To Octavia. I don’t want to play favourites now that I’ve said it, so can we just say it would be one of them? Actually, I’ll give it to Windwaker ‘The Sitch’ because I think that’d be awesome, just an absolute little vibe to come out to.”
I agree it would be perfect, such a dancey tune, then I move onto my next random question. Darth Vader has the ‘Imperial March’ as his theme; I ask Harry what his theme song would be.
“I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me this. Thank you so much. ‘Love Really Hurts Without You’ by Billy Ocean. In case my family and girlfriend read this, when I die, bury me to that song.”
Another amazing choice. I tell Harry that all my loved ones know that my funeral song is ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ and that I want everyone — including my parents if I die before them — to wear their best emo clothes to the funeral.
“Oh no, that’s tough! When you hear that opening G note on the piano, everyone in the room will be like, ‘I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to fucking cry’. I like to think I’m a pretty upbeat, positive guy, and when I put Billy Ocean on, it will be over the top positive. Everyone that had kept it together until then will just be like ‘that prick had to have the last laugh’”.
Like in Love Actually? I ask.
“YES! I can’t recall what song it is; it’s Beach Boys, isn’t it? Is it ‘Bye Bye Baby’ or something? By the way, big Love Actually fan, too, so if anyone wants to write a love actually review on our song, they can go for it. Love Actually and Elf every Christmas.”
At this point, I suggest we should probably talk about the EP. “If we have to, okay, fine”, Harry jokes. I ask him to talk me through the frustrations the band encountered while writing the EP.
“For starters, we’re all very frustrating people, but I think the big ones were [guitarist] Ben [Canham] and myself still living in Wagga Wagga and that we had so many different influences and every song had to be perfect. Like if one person didn’t like the slightest thing, there was such an argument over it, it’d be so pointless, but it’d be so passionate. So credit to all my best friends and bandmates for probably giving me early hair loss at twenty-five.”
“During COVID, we couldn’t get back to finish recording it, and we couldn’t do the music video for it. But we’d do a bit of a demo and pick it apart and leave it for a month or two. With all these different influences, of course, everyone had a different opinion about what the next section should do. I guess there was obviously a lot of frustration with COVID and just with just general life, really. I think we were all stuck in a bit of a rut, and we’ve definitely come out of it. There was a lot of pain that went into the writing, but it’s all very worth it.”
Speaking of influences, I suggest that this release has moved in a different direction to previous ones and ask Harry if that’s a fair assessment. He is momentarily distracted by an ice-cream truck.
“Sorry, an ice cream truck is actually just driving past my house right now, and all I can hear is the jingle,” Harry laughs.
“I won’t get distracted again, I promise. It’s not as metalcore as previous things we’ve written, but I like to think I’ve sprinkled a little bit in. I’m so proud of all the boys in the band for everything they’ve contributed. Looking back on my life, it’ll be one of the defining moments; I’m very proud of it, and the response we’ve gotten is great. I want to give a shout out to everyone who’s actually listened to it so far. The response has been overwhelming, it’s really more than we could have ever hoped for, and I’m infinitesimally proud of everyone who was involved with it, not just in the band.”
The band should definitely be proud of the EP, and I tell Harry that I’ve seen many positive reviews about it so far. Harry then offers that he loves a roast and loves it when people pick apart his music and him in general.
“I love going through the comments, and it’s like ‘wow, this is incredible,’ but then you go five comments down, and there’s ‘sounds shit, this sucks you dickhead.’ I just live for it. I think to an extent, you haven’t created something if everyone likes it. If you have someone in the comments saying ‘Bring Me The Horizon try hard, go die’, then you’ve created something.”
We touch on the constant BMTH trashing that happens with every new release of theirs.
“Every everyone trashes them, but they’re absolute trendsetters; they change the game with every release, and everyone who gives them shit is trying to write the exact same stuff afterwards. When a band as big as A Day to Remember, Bring Me or Amity release a new song, someone is always by their keyboard, waiting, cracking their knuckles, like ‘okay, I’m going to not like it.’
We quickly chat about working with Will King and Chris Lilac from Windwaker, the EP having a sneaky feature from Will and Chris having produced the EP.
“Jackson [Bentley- vocals] and I kind of went to high school with Will, Chris and Indy from Windwaker, so we’ve been good mates for a long time. And we’ve worked with Chris absolutely everything we’ve done to this point. It just feels so much nicer being able to sit in a room; here’s this guy that’s one of my best mates. And even if it’s a bad day, it’s still not a bad day because we’re all just hanging out”
On that super cute note our time together comes to an abrupt end due to getting carried away at the beginning. If Only You Could Feel Something Too is out now and trust me, if you haven’t wrapped your ears around it yet, what are you doing with your life?!
Interview by Cait Mac @cait_2tone
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If Only You Could Feel Something Too is out now! Listen here
Rumours – If Only You Could Feel Something Too tracklisting:
1. If Only You Could Feel Something Too
2. The Same Kind (feat. Merry Kirk-Holmes)
3. Incredulous
4. Neurosis (feat. Will King)
5. MANIA
6. Live Forever (Paralysed Pt. 2)
