The Coffis Brothers & The Mountain Men are a rootsy rock n’ roll band born and raised in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Every bit as influential as their early surroundings, songwriters Jamie and Kellen Coffis’ blend of folk, blues, R&B and straight ahead rock are evidence of an upbringing spent listening to all of the right records from Tom Petty, Neil Young, and The Beatles. Jamie and Kellen are joined by Kyle Poppen on lead guitar, Aidan Collins on bass and Henry Chadwick on drums.
In this interview spotlight, we chat with The Coffis Brothers about their latest release, influences, challenges and more.
Full Q&A along with links and a stream of You And Me below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We are from the Santa Cruz mountains in a small town called Ben Lomond. We like to say we play Rock & Roll music. To us Rock & Roll means, blues, country, folk, rock so it covers a lot of areas which we think we do.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
We just love Rock & Roll music. We were all raised listening to the Beatles so they’re probably what led us down the path we’re on now. What keeps us going is live performing. We love getting out and playing in front of people. We go wherever we can to play and want to continue doing that.
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
Our upcoming LP “Roll With It” is the best representation of who we are and what we do. We didn’t set out to make any certain type of record, but these songs really show who we are. We wanted to capture what we did in our live performances with these songs on a record and we were able to do that. We’re really pleased with it.
Do you face challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? How has technology helped you (assuming it helps)?
There are certainly challenges being an indie artist but overall the ability we have to share our music without any sort of record label is so helpful for us. The challenges are that anybody can do it and it’s hard to stand out sometimes but being able to connect to our fans directly is hugely important for us.
Where can we connect with you online and discover more music?
The best ways to connect with us is www.coffisbrothers.com, Facebook, instagram, twitter, YouTube. All the normal spots. We’re easy to find.
