Return to Nagoya

Hard-rocking Santa Cruz band, Return to Nagoya, have been entertaining local music fans for over thirteen years with their sludgy, hypnotic, and raw sound. Forty-three year-old lead singer and guitarist, Jeremy Davis, and thirty-five year-old drummer, Anders Cochran, were drawn together over their shared love of desert-rock legends Kyuss and Queens of The Stone Age, but have a forged an identity of their own, to great acclaim.

Now, infused with some new blood in the form of twenty-two year-old bassist Cole Sandman, the three-piece outfit is gearing up for their first international tour next month with Australian upstarts, Couch Wizard. I had the pleasure of wrangling the trio together for an extended chat to discuss their origins, evolution, and excitement for their upcoming international tour.

Let’s start from the beginning. How did Return to Nagoya come into existence?

Jeremy- I used to live in a warehouse on Seventh Avenue, a space that allowed us to do these creative musical endeavors. Anders, I believe, worked at Harbor Cafe, which shared the the property with the warehouse. I kept hearing this kid play the drums regularly and thought to myself, “This kid has got some chops!” So we got introduced and started jamming. He was frothing to play a lot, so it kinda evolved from there. 

It was cool because I was predominantly a bass player in bands, and I was always wanting to kinda do vocals and play some more guitar. We started playing some songs for about a year before we played any shows and slowly released an album. On that first album I wore a few hats, playing guitar, vocals, and bass. We started incorporating a bass player and I think Cole was our fourth. Slowly, we’ve been doing more shows and now we’ve got this Australian tour. So, that’s kind of a big deal for us.

Return to Nagoya is a pretty unique name for a band. How did you guys come up with that?

Anders- If you look at any shipping container that’s been from one country to another it’ll say “Return To,” this port or that port. So the name, Return to Nagoya, came about due to some writing on the shipping container that we played in, as Nagoya is a port in Japan. Jeremy’s a carpenter, so he retrofitted the whole thing out with help from our old bass player, Evan Nolan, who’s an electrician. So, to this day, if you look behind Harbor Café, there’s a shipping container that’s super unassuming that used to say Return to Nagoya.

Jeremy- It sounded kinda cool, obscure and random and it felt fitting. People are always asking “where does the name come from,” and we say, “a shipping container.”

Anders- That shipping container is where we’ve practiced and recorded things and that’s a big part of our story. Before Evan, we had this guy Marco who’s a badass El Salvadorian surfer who was up here working. Dave Rafferty stepped in for a while and we were also gonna have Kalu (Coletta) join as well, but he was too busy with other things. So that’s the lineage. 

Now, more than ever, Return to Nagoya is a multi-generational band. What’s that dynamic been like?

Anders-Jeremy’s in his 40’s, I’m in my 30’s, and Cole’s in his 20’s. It’s interesting, because we all bond over surfing– having that same experience, except in different generations. Cole, since he was a grom, was always hanging with older people, Jeremy’s an amazing surfer from back in the day, and I’m kinda right in the middle. It’s been cool— I never had an older brother and Jeremy’s the closest thing I’ve had to a brother. I remember telling Cole, when he was really little,“fuck surfing, just play music—you’re so good!” And not to say I influenced him at all—he was already on his way—but I definitely encouraged him to pursue music.

Cole- Dude, you definitely played a big part in it.

Jeremy- Anders has been busy recruiting Cole for a couple years.

Cole, you’re the new blood in the band. When did you jump on board?

Cole- It’s been almost a year now since I moved back and we’ve been playing, but Anders has been dangling the carrot since I was about 15. It was always an intriguing thing for me because I was always a fan of the music before I started playing with them.

Where do you guys draw inspiration from? Jeremy, I know that in our generation we’ve always been fans of band like QOTSA and Kyuss. Has that style of music been influential in the style of music you guys are playing?

Jeremy- My musical taste was initially influenced by my cousin, who was a skateboarder, then reinforced by the music in older surf films by guys like Tony Roberts. That made a lasting impression. Josh Pomer, another local surf videographer, has some good musical taste as well, so it started from religiously watching those flicks. Then, Kyuss came into play, as well as Black Sabbath. They also made a huge impression on me when I was about 10 years old. Queens of the Stone Age is still my favorite band to this day, so that’s firmly in my musical DNA

Cole, you were studying music down south at CalArts before this, right?

Anders- Yeah, Cole’s the best musician out of all of us for sure.

Cole- I don’t know about that…(laughs).

Do you guys think that education has been helpful or an asset for the band as someone who’s studied music in a really disciplined way?

Jeremy- I’d say so. He picks up on stuff quicker than most people would, for sure, and has some insight to add from a structural standpoint.

Anders- Cole’s so well rounded, musically. On top of his bass chops, he’ a really good drummer and guitarist. Jeremy is a good drummer as well. So I’d say, it’s weird, as much as I’m the drummer in the band, they can both play what I can play, but I can’t play what they can play. For me, the cool thing about the band is that Jeremy can play what he plays very well—that desert rock style— yet also has other bands that he plays with and that he’s interested in. He’s really good at rhythmic stuff because he’s a drummer, is really good at song writing, and has this really unique timing. Sometimes we get into these fights, where Jeremy’s style even has Cole saying, “what the fuck?” 

What Cole adds is that, being such a good musician, he can suggest things on the drums that I might not hear, because I play the drums the way I like to play. Cole will hear something that I’m working on and say, “try this,”—things that I’d not have thought on on my own. The same thing goes for Jeremy. We’ve developed this shared humility where it doesn’t really matter how we come up with it, we’re all open to input from each other. I can be pretty anal about things, so working with these guys encourages me to be more open about things.

Cole- I think Anders is being a little humble. He’s about as good as any musician or producer that I’ve had the pleasure playing with. With that, we all have some influence, spoken or not, on what we’re doing. The result is that everything ends up sounding pretty tight, to my ear.

 

Let’s talk about the upcoming Australian Tour. It must be really exciting for you guys. Tell me about how that all came about.

Anders- So, basically, we’re going on tour on the East Coast of Australia with one of my good friends, this dude named Ollie, who I met through Cheyne Pearson, who’s also from Santa Cruz. He met Ollie back in the day on a surf trip and later introduced us. He’d come to town, saw that I was playing in a band, and told me he’d really like to start his own band some day. I encouraged him to pursue it, and the next thing I know, he’s started a band called Couch Wizard. Their style is very similar to our own. For the past few years, we’ve been talking about going on tour together. 

Their band has gotten pretty popular and they’ve already have gone on some tours before this. They lined everything up and asked us to headline some shows with them. We’re going to play 8 shows with them, after which they’re going to continue on to Tasmania and some other places. The basis of the tour is, we’re going to link up south of Byron Bay, where they all live on a little farm. We’re gonna hop in these vans that one of their beer sponsors owns and we’re just gonna tour around with them. They’ve got a booking agency setting it all up, and they’re starting to sell out already. We had Kevin Walsh do some really rad art for us as well. We’re playing some sick venues. Ollie coined it the “Thrash Magick Tour.”

Are you guys gonna try to get some waves while you’re down there?

Cole- I hope so! We’ll be out there for 2 1/2 weeks. It’s 8 shows— 4 shows in a row and 3 days off in between, so I’m sure there will be time for that.

Anders- I’ve got a bunch of friends out there, including some guys from Namotu Island who are going to take us to a rugby match. So what ever we get up to, it’s gonna be a “hell time”, as they say Down Under.

Cole- Definitely. I’m so excited for this opportunity. I just want to express my love and gratitude to Anders and Jeremy for getting me on board. Joining the band has been surreal and the whole thing has truly been a dream come true for me.

Anders- Well, you’ve got a long life ahead of you, Cole. Jeremy and I are going to be watching and supporting you even when we’re all shriveled and turkey’d out (laughs all around).

Follow Return to Nagoya on Instagram @returntonagoya