In Conversation with Comfort Club

[UNPUBLISHED:] How do I say this politely? Your song "You Lost Me At I Love You" hurt me. How does that make you feel?

[COMFORT CLUB:] I think that is the nature of writing songs about relationships or connections with other people. I think if you call out what's imperfect about yourself in relationships, it can hurt a lot because it's self-reflective. And, yeah, I've been noticing that a lot lately that I'm writing about stuff that happens in relationships and realising that I'm also a problem.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you think this song is you taking responsibility for your actions in a relationship?

[COMFORT CLUB:] Yeah it really is written in the nature of trying to be a better person. So, I think recognising your flaws, really helps to, you know, be a better person in a relationship or just in your day-to-day life. It's very easy to not think about your problems. But I think writing has given me a reason to think about my problems with it.

[UNPUBLISHED:] What was your inspiration for this song? 

[COMFORT CLUB:] I came up with the idea of you lost me at I love you, which is basically, if you're in a relationship or anything close to that and then it starts moving towards getting more serious and getting a little bit more committed. Then if the other person starts getting towards ‘love’, I can't handle that. I had that concept and then just kind of wrote around it. It came about fairly easy and I didn’t really struggle to write the song because it's something that happens to me often and I'm learning about myself that I have this issue where I kind of push people away when they start to get more serious. So, the song was pretty easy to write because it was very realistic about my life.

[UNPUBLISHED:] I see that you've just played your first venue show, what was that like? 

[COMFORT CLUB:] Oh, it was so much fun. I was nervous about it because I have played in bands, played at venues, but I had never played a ticketed show where my name is on the venue. I'm confident in my songs and I think that they connect with people, but I was more just worried about things like the venue and figuring out the sound. For example, while I was playing, I had a hard time hearing myself––like hearing my vocals while I was singing. So, I was really nervous about that, but I think, overwhelmingly, I was just having fun. I think there were like 100 people there when I was playing. Having that many people in front of you––just to have that much energy coming your direction––after every song when people were cheering, I was cheering back at them because I was so excited and it felt so good. There was so much positive energy going both ways.

[UNPUBLISHED:] What made you want to release the song ‘You Lost Me at I Love You’ on your birthday?

[COMFORT CLUB:] I originally, like three or four months before my birthday, wanted to put out an actual EP on my birthday, I just didn't get enough done by then. So, I thought it would be interesting to have something. I sort of don't like birthdays, so it was nice to have a reason to celebrate other than just getting older. That doesn't really feel like a reason to celebrate. It's fun when you're young, but now that you're getting older there's not really any upsides, you're just getting older. That's it.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell me about your name, ‘Comfort Club’

[COMFORT CLUB:] I changed my name like two years ago. I was just going by my birth name which is ‘Colin’. But it doesn't really tell a story of any sort. It's hard to build around this because it doesn't mean anything. But when I changed to ‘Comfort Club’ I was like, these are words that people can associate my music with. They're words that very much speak to who I am as a person. Like comfort for example: I always wear sweatpants and a sweatshirt, so I'm always like, in a sort of cosy environment. I think I'm that type of person who tries to make people feel comfortable. Then the Club thing is just having people around and being part of a community. So, the name kind of just came out of me trying to define who I am as a person and then it sounded really cool and I was like: this is the perfect match.

[UNPUBLISHED:] How do you think your music’s developed since ‘New Ways To Miss You’?

[COMFORT CLUB:] I'm a bit clearer on what I'm trying to say. I think, on ‘New Ways To Miss You’ I was being a little bit metaphorical in the verses. I don't think I really knew what I was talking about. I was just kind of trying to say things that sounded pretty or sounded like they were telling a story. But now with ‘Permanent’ or ‘You Lost Me at I Love You’ those are songs that you could read as a text message, and you would know exactly what I'm saying. I'm able to hone in on the idea of what I'm talking about and write lyrics that actually tell the story. As opposed to just sharing details that just kind of paint a picture. Then production wise, I didn't know what I was doing at all. Now I'm either working with producers and I've gotten significantly better at production. So, I think the sound is just way better, too.

[UNPUBLISHED:] What inspires you when you write? 

[COMFORT CLUB:] Honestly, I think stories are what inspires me most. Which is something that I definitely get from songwriters. There are a bunch of songwriters who are really good storytellers. But also, movies are a great example. I've been inspired by movies before, not necessarily directly, but sometimes I’ll watch a movie and then write a song because of that movie. I was telling someone yesterday, Romantic Comedies are my favourite type of movie because there's nothing happening other than a love story. Everything else around is kind of just peripheral, but the core of it is just a love story. I will sometimes read poetry just to try to find inspiration because those are, most of the time, just such short concise ideas, and it's easy to kind of take that as inspiration and be like oh this person wrote about this, I felt that before. How can I do that on my own?

[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have any dream collaborations?

[COMFORT CLUB:] I've been very into Eden, and Jeremy Zucker, so either one of them. I've listened to both of them, and they are relatively similar in their approach. I think it'd be really fun to work with someone like that because I'm such a fan. I don't even know if it would make sense. But even if we work together and the song never came out, I just think it'd be really cool because I'm such a fan of their music and their sound. I think it'd just be really cool to be able to put my ideas in my voice and my musicality over their sound. Their music is so much more than just a song, like it's literally like an entire soundscape. But they're so talented that I think it'd be cool to work with someone like that.

[UNPUBLISHED:] You've been so busy, in 2021 what else have you got in store?

[COMFORT CLUB:] I'm doing an East Coast tour of the United States which I'm very excited about. I'm playing with my roommates and doing a DIY tour which is really exciting. Then I'm just trying to get back into writing because I kind of reached the end of the music that I had fully done at this point. So, I'm kind of back into the writing phase, and then just trying to play anywhere that I can. I live in LA so I want to be playing here as much as possible. But I'm also so willing to travel and play in front of new people whenever I can because that's something that I didn't really get to do for the first two and a half years of Comfort Club. And now that I'm getting to do it, I'm enjoying it so much and I want to be doing it all the time.

Stream Comfort Club’s – ‘You Lost Me at I Love You’