March 23, 2026
Couch Interview: The Business Behind The Band
Send us Fan Mail What does it take to turn casual listeners into lifelong fans? In this episode of Funktastic Chats, I sit down with Tema (lead vocals), Jared (drums), and Jeff (trumpet) from the seven-piece soul-funk band Couch — a group that's racked up over 40 million streams, won Boston Music Awards for Pop Artist and Live Artist of the Year, and toured internationally with artists like Cory Wong and Lake Street Dive. We talk about how Couch builds deep, personal connections with fans thr...
What does it take to turn casual listeners into lifelong fans? In this episode of Funktastic Chats, I sit down with Tema (lead vocals), Jared (drums), and Jeff (trumpet) from the seven-piece soul-funk band Couch — a group that's racked up over 40 million streams, won Boston Music Awards for Pop Artist and Live Artist of the Year, and toured internationally with artists like Cory Wong and Lake Street Dive.
We talk about how Couch builds deep, personal connections with fans through VIP meet-and-greets, their signature "couch family photos," and a genuine commitment to community — including raising money for Rosie's Place, a women's shelter in Boston. The guys open up about navigating AI and algorithms in the music industry, why word-of-mouth still beats going viral, and how they keep a seven-piece band together with trust, fairness, and mutual respect — with their guitarist Zach pulling double duty as manager and tour manager.
Plus, we hear about blown-out tires on the highway, the night the Big Talk album dropped, playing their biggest hometown show to 3,500 fans, and why Mario Kart on the tour bus might be the secret to band chemistry.
Visit couchtheband.com for tour dates and more. Part two coming soon!
00:30 - Intro
01:42 - On The Wire & Big Talk Album
02:09 - The Signed T-Shirt Story
03:31 - Building a Fanbase Through Real Connection
09:53 - AI, Algorithms vs Word of Mouth
10:56 - Couch Family Photos and Giving Back
13:39 - Keeping the Same Seven Members
17:25 - Gratitude, Growth, and The Big Talk Album Release
19:57 - Playing Their Biggest Show Ever
25:15 - Touring Chaos: Blown Tires & Lighting Upgrades
31:43 - Hanging Out After The Show & Mario Kart on the Tour Bus
33:17 - Picking Openers & Collaborators
34:32 - Outro & Recap
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Today I'm chatting with the band Couch.
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Their music has surpassed 40 million streams, and their rising profile has led to tours with artists like Cory wong and Lake Street Dive in their hometown scene.
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They've been recognized as Pop Artist of the Year and Live Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.
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I'm chatting with their lead singer, Tema today, along with their drummer, Jared and Trumpet player, Jeff, it's all coming up right here on Funktastic Chats
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And the song you're listening to now is called On the Wire.
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It is the title track of their brand new full length album called Big Talk.
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It blends soul pop, funk r and b with rich harmonies and horn driven grooves.
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It's super polished songwriting and arrangements higher This.
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Seven piece bands sound.
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Uh, big Talk helped launch couch onto the bigger stage, including national TV appearances and an international tour supporting the band.
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Oh my God, I'm here with Couch.
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It is so great to have you guys here.
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I'm so excited to chat with you and thank you guys so much for coming on today.
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This is what happens when you wear, when you buy the couch.
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Merch.
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You guys okay?
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I get like three members of the couch at this, at this interview here, so this is so awesome.
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I have a crazy story that I want to, it's a funny story that I wanna start off with about this couch t-shirt.
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If I turn around, Will's signature is on the back, And part of the reason I was, I wanted to reach out to you guy, I was like, these guys are just so freaking cool.
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I bought this shirt before the show and after the show I saw Will and a couple of the band members were hanging out talking to people, and I kind of interrupted and I was like.
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This is in Brooklyn, by the way.
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I was like, man, I would love it just signed this t-shirt for me.
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You're a lefty bass player.
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I'm a lefty bass player too.
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And he goes, do you have a marker?
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And I'm like, no.
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And then he was like, I'll meet you outside, man.
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And then.
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He just kept chatting with people and so I stepped outside with everyone I was with and I was like, guys, he's busy.
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totally get it, let's call an Uber.
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And right before the Uber comes, I I look out and I see this guy, Will's a pretty tall guy, right?
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I see him holding a marker up like this and, he's like, I'm here.
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I'm here.
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And I just was so cool, to come chase me outside, I just thought that was, that was pretty funny.
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And I guess Tema I'll start with you.
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when you guys are, when you guys are out playing outside of Boston, especially at these VIP pre-show, are you starting to kind of recognize some familiar faces?
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that moment of like, Hey, I know you, you know, are you guys intentional about kind of nurturing that face-to-face connection with some of your fans as the rooms keep getting bigger over time?
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We absolutely have repeat audience members.
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Folks we now recognize from cities across the country, which is really wonderful because it means even when we're far from home, there's a sense of familiarity and community.
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And I do think, activities like our VIP meet and greets are the reason that we can have those kinds of relationships.
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You know, we're not just walking on stage playing to a dark room full of people and then going home.
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Um, we do the VIP meet and greet so that we can actually like, engage with the people who have dedicated time and money to supporting our project and to say thank you and to learn about them and like tell them, you know, whatever they might wanna know about us.
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So it's wonderful to see that paying off.
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I imagine it's probably extra cool too when all those people are probably in the front row at your shows and you get your most hardcore fans in the front, so I bet that's pretty cool too.
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Yeah.
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Right after we play our VIP sets, we, um, the attendees are allowed to.
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Find their spot in the room, wherever they wanna watch the show from.
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And so a lot of them do stand right up against the barricade.
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And for me that's fun because then it's like I'm singing to people who I know are really enthusiastic about being there and people who I now have like a little friendship with.
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So if I'm feeling like I need a little energy boost or confidence boost, I can look at them and they'll provide.
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The VIP shows, which is like really fun as well.
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So it's fun just to play the shows and it's really fun to connect with people and hear their stories and just share our stories and talk about stuff that we don't normally get to talk about often.
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Um, but there is like a strategic element to it as well.
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So you're talking about shows outside of Boston and like, do we see the same familiar faces on the road?
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Early on when we were playing shows, largely the people that would come to shows were people we knew personally and it's like, Hey guys, come to this show.
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Like do us a favor, et cetera.
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But then like if our show is actually good and it's not just our friends doing us favors, then they'll tell their friends, Hey, come see this band with me next time in town.
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Like et cetera.
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And we can like make fans just by playing a good show.
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But we can make super fans and fans that actually are invested in us the way that we are invested in us by developing these more personal relationships with them.
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And it helps us grow our audience in a more meaningful way that lasts longer too.
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You know, I felt that, just from talking to Will, you know, I mean, I don't know if it's purposeful that a few of them were hanging out after the show, kind of right outside of the room.
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But, that was just so cool to me.
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You know?
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I mean, he definitely did not have to run outside in the cold and, what, what month was that?
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November something with a Sharpie that was just so, so nice.
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And, I.
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As a performer myself, as a bass player, I remember I, that's something I'll remember, you know?
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So that was really cool.
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people are so into AI these days taking over the world, but let me tell you, that's kind of how I found out about you guys.
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I mean, I was listening to Spotify and I don't know if you guys have heard it like this ai, Spotify, dj, where it plays stuff similar to.
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What you listen to.
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And, it played autumn, and I was like, who is that?
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And, I've been hooked ever since.
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I guess maybe Jared, I what is your opinion of AI in the music space these days?
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Do you have any opinion opinions on that?
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That's a, that's a great question.
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I, I think it's, it's a slippery slope as goes for many, um, many different fields with, you know, the implementation ai.
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I think AI as.
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A creative tool when it actually comes to the music creation, I think is probably less, it's less appealing, but as you're explaining about, you know, music discovery, um, I think maybe there are some benefits there, um, for.
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The AI algorithms to connect you to music that it thinks that you will like.
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And so I think there's, it's kind of a, it's a two-sided coin in that the creative side, it's probably not so beneficial for creatives who, who put a lot of work into learning their instruments and learning how to song write, um, and lyric write and whatnot.
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But then also on the other side, when it helps to.
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Expose your music to people who maybe would not have come across your stuff on other, on in other ways.
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Um, it might be beneficial.
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Yeah, I, it's funny, I listening to, I think it was Tema like in another interview or something when you were like talking about playlists and stuff, like getting on the playlist.
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And I, and I think you were like, um, you know, I'm not sure if we belong on like a, a coffee house like playlist all of a sudden like it's nice and chill and all of a sudden we hit you real hard on B two like this, you know?
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So I was wondering if just got like, AI is kind of, um.
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Getting you in front of new fans in new way?
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Or I guess maybe a better question is how do you feel new fans are finding out about you guys right now?
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I think there are lots pipelines that new fans access us.
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We've heard a lot of times, especially a couple years ago, AI related, like we were trying to do this big social media push and like hop on the TikTok train back in like the end of COVID and stuff like that.
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And there we had one or two like TikTok slash Instagram reels, like go viral.
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One of them was Will's idea.
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Funnily enough, it was this video that was like, so we wear in ear monitors as we're performing, which are basically just like glorified earbuds.
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So like we hear all of our own instruments piped in to our ears and that's how we're able to like not go deaf after doing this so many times.
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Um, but.
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He made this video that was like what we hear when we're on stage and it was just the mix of like his in ears where it's like like cut out on four, like in on two and it's like the click track and stuff and like that it got millions and millions of views just for no apparent reason.
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And at the next string of shows, a bunch of people were like, I just found out about you guys last week or something because I saw this thing come up in my TikTok.
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Wow.
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So I think a lot of people do see us and like discover us.
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Through, you know, algorithmic means, whether it's on social media or on Spotify or Apple Music or some streaming service.
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And I think one of our strengths as a band is that we are also largely like a word of mouth band.
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Um, I think a lot of artists that are not a word of mouth band, they're purely algorithmic.
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It's like they fall victim sometimes benefit, but often become the victim of like.
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Trend cycles where it's like, oh, they have a song that goes viral, they pop off, but then a year later they can't sell any tickets.
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Um, whereas a lot of people that come to our shows, it's like they were friends of us personally, or then they invited their friends and they invite their friends and their friends, and now there's like, they just have been, they've experienced us and now they just spread cast a wider net and show us to new people.
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So I think that enables us to kind of grow more steadily.
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Um, what I loved at your show was,'cause you know, everybody wants to take out their phones and take video and pictures, but, um, I think it was like a few songs then, maybe I'm wrong, where Tema said we're, we're taking couch family photos where these cam, where these cameras literally go out into the crowd and, um, you,'cause you know, I take out my phone and it's like.
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I'll, I'll still get, you know, notifications and text messages and notifications bar.
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It's like one of the reasons I can't wear an Apple Watch for the life of me or I'll drive myself crazy.
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But, um, I was just wondering how intentional that was and how, if that was like conscious choice to keep people connected and present in the moment in a couch show.
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Absolutely.
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We started doing Couch family photos.
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Back when we first began touring because we were trying to come with some kind of unique, uh, gimmick, really make our show more memorable, to engage the audience.
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Um, because sometimes I, the only, you know, playing, hopefully good music isn't enough.
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I think you, you know, we've experimented with getting the audience to sing with us, with sending the cameras out.
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Um.
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yeah, there, it, it, it was.
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was, that's where it came from.
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Uh, just an extra way to engage.
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But I agree with you.
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Over time, I've felt like it's also brought people into present moment little bit more.
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And, uh, part of what we like about it is in using.
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Digital cameras or digital looking cameras, there's a nostalgia factor to it.
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and when we send those cameras out, we even encourage people to capture not just themselves or their friends, but maybe new people that met in line, um, at the show that night.
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So it is all an effort to foster community and.
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Also, um, more recently to raise money for Rosie's Place, which is a women's shelter in our hometown.
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Um, doing really important work right now for wow, trans women, immigrant women, women of all kind, that are unhoused in Boston and seeking food and shelter and educational services.
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Wow, that's that's amazing.
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So how many, if you were to guess, how many photos do you think you guys average Aite on that?
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Oh my God.
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You do the math a night.
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I mean, hundreds, maybe really early.
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Just, I mean, everybody gets it right.
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Does, does it go around even to the upper balconies and everything?
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That's the idea.
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That's the idea.
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If people are, if people are following directions at least, yes, it should make it, it make its way fairly around the room.
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But, but yeah, I would, I'd say hundreds to be safe.
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And, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's more, um, in Chicago where I live, it's like, musicians are hired for tours and they're in multiple different projects and lineups and and they rotate constantly.
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It'd be like Emma and the band, you know, not couch, how do you guys manage and.
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Build.
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It's just this solid group of the same seven people.
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How, was that just kinda like, um, decided from the beginning or is it just you guys kind of just felt, you know what I'm trying to say?
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walk me, walk me through this is the Rolling Stones.
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It's the same people every time and it's just something that's so cool to me.
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and you could see it through the chemistry, I think there's a lot of factors that kind of go into that, that work in our favor for why it is the structure and has stayed the structure.
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So for one, all of us minus Jared grew up in the greater Boston area.
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Um, so we knew each other in a musical context before Couch ever existed.
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And like we had worked on musical projects together.
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Before couch existed and we made a couch musical project, so.
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It was sort of like a logical, like this is the group that we're gonna like coalesce around.
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And Zach met Jared in college early on.
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Um, and the only like missing piece for Couch was we didn't have like a consistent drummer.
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So Jared was like the perfect match for us there.
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And I think one wasn't, wasn't it like, wasn't it like in like a practice room or something, Zach?
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found you there's something, there's a very, and then a, and you had to go play a live show without any rehearsal or something.
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Well, yeah, there, the, the, the very, the, a short origin story with how I met Zach is that very Jack Black School of Rock esque way in which I was in a practice room in the, one of the first weekends of, of me being in college.
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He was a year older than me.
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Um, and I was practicing in the practice room and, and I just felt these eyes on me through the, through the little sliver of glass.
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And it was just Zach like peering in who I didn't, I've never met at that point.
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Um, and then I met him a couple of hours later returning a practice room.
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Keen was you in, were you in that room?
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Um, and I was like, yeah, and we started bonding over some shared music interests and, uh, we ultimately were in jazz band and all the, that type of stuff together.
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So, but that's, that's the, that's the story.
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That's awesome.
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So how did you guys get to that point where, you know, this is the band and we are, you know, we're all invested in this, this is, what point did that kind of, did that come for you guys?
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I'm going to just keep elaborating for a second I think one thing that's different about us is other than Tema who went to school for performing arts.
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Um, and Eric, who was a music major in his, uh, at college, none of us expected to be professional musicians, um, as our primary career.
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Like we all took music seriously throughout high school and in college, but none of us, apart from the two that I mentioned, were like, I'm doing music as a career.
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Um, so I think that that made us, you know, more attached to Couch as our musical outlet.
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And less like opportunistic about just hopping on the best available gig for us.
00:16:55.272 --> 00:16:55.392
Yeah.
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Um, and I know for, for my own reason that like if I quit couch, I don't think that I'd find a better gig anywhere.
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And if I quit couch two years ago, I don't think that would've been the case or anything like that.
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So.
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It's just like, I think a lot of us feel really fortunate that we ended up in this position because of a combination of luck and hard work and all this stuff that makes us continue to feel committed and have a sense of pride and ownership over it.
00:17:22.301 --> 00:17:24.615
Well, you know, I think in creatives in general, like.
00:17:25.632 --> 00:17:32.862
Struggle with gratitude sometimes, just because the ambition, it never really turns off for us.
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Like there's another goal, another level.
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So I guess Tema, when you think back to those early days as a band, I think I heard a story of you guys marking spots on the, on the.
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On the, sidewalk with chalk of where you guys were gonna stand for your first show or something like that.
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And compare it to now with a full crew will is up there on his own platform.
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do you guys ever consciously stop to acknowledge how far you've come or does it still feel you're in that heads down, keep building phase.
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I think I can speak for everyone.
00:18:05.791 --> 00:18:18.122
When I say it's hard to remember to take stock and feel gratitude, like you said, um, you know, our hobby has become our profession, which is a wonderful thing.
00:18:18.122 --> 00:18:23.672
I would so much rather be doing this than sitting at a desk for, you know, from nine to five, five days a week.
00:18:24.061 --> 00:18:28.231
Um, but it means that it's easy to get overwhelmed by the stress.
00:18:28.321 --> 00:18:31.142
Um, so I think some of the most magical.
00:18:31.547 --> 00:18:33.317
Touring experiences we've had.
00:18:33.646 --> 00:18:34.247
Um.
00:18:35.207 --> 00:18:39.287
Have been when we've of aligned in a moment of like joy and reflection.
00:18:39.527 --> 00:18:46.886
For me, I actually think to the night that our album dropped, big Talk is our first full length project.
00:18:46.946 --> 00:19:02.757
Prior to that, we just put out eps and singles and we were proud and excited every time we released something, but it literally took up until hours before the release for it to hit me that that was about to happen, and that finally there would be like a full.
00:19:04.001 --> 00:19:10.481
The full body of work for people to take in and to better understand who we have become as a band.
00:19:11.051 --> 00:19:19.571
And we were able to go out together that night, get some drinks, be together when the album dropped, and then go listen to it at Danny's house.
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And I felt so connected to the guys into the music.
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So I'm incredibly grateful for moments like that.
00:19:25.842 --> 00:19:29.412
But they often come on tour too, honestly, when we're off stage.
00:19:29.461 --> 00:19:40.142
Seeing beautiful places and, um, trying to wrap our heads around the fact that our passion has brought us places like Paris or Amsterdam.
00:19:40.201 --> 00:19:46.412
Um, people, people wanna hear our music, and because of that we get to do pretty adventurous things.
00:19:47.551 --> 00:19:49.346
You guys are going to Europe next week, right?
00:19:50.261 --> 00:19:50.682
Mm-hmm.
00:19:50.997 --> 00:19:51.267
Yeah.
00:19:51.267 --> 00:19:51.777
Exciting.
00:19:51.912 --> 00:19:52.682
Very, very exciting.
00:19:53.636 --> 00:20:03.267
Um, so you grew up in Boston, and what was it like for you guys playing your biggest show ever with like a 3,500 capacity?
00:20:03.267 --> 00:20:04.317
How, how was that?
00:20:04.317 --> 00:20:04.362
I.
00:20:07.481 --> 00:20:13.211
It was the first time I felt nervous, in a while, um, before a couch show.
00:20:13.551 --> 00:20:16.521
sometimes you kind of, it kind of feels a bit, you know, routine.
00:20:16.582 --> 00:20:22.852
Um, it's fairly the same, if not, you know, very similar show day to day, that night to night for us.
00:20:22.852 --> 00:20:30.771
But, you know, a show like that, that's thousands of more people on average than, you know, we usually do.
00:20:30.771 --> 00:20:31.672
It definitely was.
00:20:32.227 --> 00:20:41.886
A little bit, a little bit scarier than usual, but there was a, a unique rush, um, of adrenaline that I think really just made the, the night unforgettable.
00:20:41.886 --> 00:20:42.606
It was really awesome.
00:20:43.402 --> 00:20:46.852
There's a really sweet moment that I remember during soundcheck that day.
00:20:47.311 --> 00:21:00.362
Jeff's fiance, Izzy was there in the room with us, and she was standing in the middle of the room, out on the floor, where later that night there would be 3,500 people, But the room was empty except for Izzy watching a soundcheck.
00:21:00.507 --> 00:21:01.826
And she just started to cry.
00:21:02.666 --> 00:21:15.356
And I think that again, again was a way to like kind of out of our bodies and out of our own workflow and you know, see somebody who's close to our band being proud of us and excited for us helped remind us to experience that too.
00:21:16.406 --> 00:21:19.392
When I was in Brooklyn, I think Jared's.
00:21:20.057 --> 00:21:22.936
Parents were there that night and you know, yeah.
00:21:22.942 --> 00:21:26.237
And my, my brother and my grandparents, yeah, it was a bit of a homecoming.
00:21:26.926 --> 00:21:31.186
And you know, like the show is just such an immersive experience.
00:21:31.277 --> 00:21:40.156
And by the time got to that point, I was like, when Tema said that, I was just, you know, I mean, I'm a musician so I'm not really, you know, I'm more.
00:21:40.636 --> 00:21:42.787
like Watching everything, you know?
00:21:42.906 --> 00:21:45.696
Um, en enjoying myself, but I'm more watching everything.
00:21:45.696 --> 00:21:51.217
But when he said that, I'm like screaming at top of my lungs like a, like teenage girl, you know?
00:21:51.217 --> 00:21:52.356
Like rooting for you man.
00:21:52.717 --> 00:21:55.801
It felt you my best fight in that moment, know, So that was so awesome.
00:21:55.801 --> 00:21:56.231
That's very sweet.
00:21:57.116 --> 00:22:00.207
Yeah, no, it's always, it's always amazing.
00:22:00.477 --> 00:22:08.997
You know, it's an always an amazing feeling when we can, we can travel around the world and oftentimes our parents, uh, and family members will come to shows overseas, you know, across the country.
00:22:09.267 --> 00:22:15.926
Um, and even in those moments, it's kind of like, wow, they are also along for the ride with us and, you know, have been supporting us for so long.
00:22:15.926 --> 00:22:19.076
And it's always really special to to share, to share that with them.
00:22:19.376 --> 00:22:21.356
And, uh, Brooklyn was absolutely no exception.
00:22:21.356 --> 00:22:26.991
It was, it was The first time we played in London was, uh, two, two or three years ago.
00:22:27.231 --> 00:22:30.981
That was the show with the highest attendance from our families.
00:22:31.807 --> 00:22:37.281
Really, like they just, they just take it as like an excuse to go to Europe.
00:22:38.392 --> 00:22:39.027
Oh, that's amazing.
00:22:40.276 --> 00:22:41.517
Independent of each other.
00:00:30.135 --> 00:00:32.564
Today I'm chatting with the band Couch.
00:00:32.594 --> 00:00:41.895
Their music has surpassed 40 million streams, and their rising profile has led to tours with artists like Cory wong and Lake Street Dive in their hometown scene.
00:00:41.895 --> 00:00:46.844
They've been recognized as Pop Artist of the Year and Live Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.
00:00:47.085 --> 00:00:54.134
I'm chatting with their lead singer, Tema today, along with their drummer, Jared and Trumpet player, Jeff, it's all coming up right here on Funktastic Chats
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