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Last fall, I caught seven-piece pop-funk ensemble Couch's opening set for maestro guitarist Cory Wong at New Haven, CT’s College Street Music Hall. What was meant to be a rare work-free affair quickly turned into a mental notetaking session, as I was immediately captivated by several facets of the group’s performance, including calculated, yet playful, onstage banter between multiple clusters of members, the distinct musician’s mentality of the collective, and, of course, the overall musicality. Most captivating was lead singer Tema Siegel, whose awareness of her own vocal prowess was glaringly evident throughout the set, though most noticeably on the slinky, alluring fan favorite “Jessie.” 

Almost exactly a year later (two days removed), I arrived at Brooklyn Steel around 3:30 p.m. as I’d been invited to attend Couch’s soundcheck ahead of a sold-out show later that evening. The group spent 90 minutes working through notes, most of which involved ideas for instrumental expansion, minor – and occasionally drastic – changes to arrangement, and a half hour back-and-forth vocal rehearsal between Siegal and opening act Stephen Day ahead of their duet of Couch’s “Autumn” later that evening. Saxophonist Eric Tarlin repeatedly threw harmonic offerings at Day, who handily picked up on the cues. Siegel sang nearly full voice throughout the duration of the session, which bandleader Zach Blankstein told me was typical. 

Following sound check, the band and I moved to the green room for a 30-minute conversation, edited for clarity below. They then immediately pivoted to a VIP acoustic session and Q&A with close to 50 fans, and after that, they’d enjoy a group Chipotle dinner before hitting the stage for a lengthy set just over an hour later. Onstage, they would feed off each other’s energy and celebrate each member’s skill level, respectfully stepping back, as far as physically possible, on the stage amid individual musical improvisation. For a group of musicians of this caliber, this string of events was anything but strenuous. This was an electrifying day at the office. 

The band was (and is) on tour celebrating the release of their debut full-length record, Big Talk, released just two weeks prior. The project, a celebration and acknowledgement of life’s complicated, messy, and often times, necessary, ‘big talks,’ is a compelling collection of songs detailing prolific moments of vulnerability (“So Myself”) arduous conversations with loved ones (“On The Wire,”) recollections of high school affairs (“Slow Burn,”) and childhood travel stories set to music (“Lucky To Be Stuck With You”), among other topics. The bulk of these tunes allow the band to play to their strengths as arrangers, instrumentalists, and songwriters, while simultaneously presenting the listener with a roundabout representation of their sound that is both accessible and unpretentious. 

Overall highlights include “So Myself,” “Static & Noise,” and “Little Less Over You,” all offering the most elaborate and impressive nuanced musical passages, narration, and vocal collateral of the project. The latter two in particular achieve the most discernible widespread musical scope of the record and are definitive standouts of Couch’s young discography. With Big Talk, Couch nailed their most ambitious assignment yet, and use their live show to embolden these songs, and themselves, further.  

OTW: What is a formative experience in which you realized that having a ‘Big Talk’ moment was necessary? 

Tema: “On The Wire” explores one of those ‘big talks.’ In the last couple of years, my relationship with my mom has changed because we’ve entered this era of being mother/daughter, but also friends, and even co-workers, to each other. It’s meant that I’m seeking a different kind of support from her than I was when I was just her young daughter. It caused some tension. I was kind of hurting her, expecting her to be something that she wasn’t prepared to be to me. So, it resulted in us needing to have this vulnerable heart to heart about who are we to each other now at this stage of our lives, and in our relationship.

What gets you going musically while putting together a song that is telling a ‘Big Talk’ story? 

Jeffrey: When we write music, it’s not always, ‘We have this idea for a song. How do we write music that supports it?’ That’s sometimes the case. For example, “So Myself,” is about finding confidence in who you are. It’s a very tender and intimate song, and everything we wrote to support it is trying to keep the vocal forward. To create this warm atmosphere. On other songs, we had a groove first. That inspires how it makes us feel, and then Tema will fit a story to that groove.

Eric: One of the ways in which the ‘Big Talk’ theme shows itself in the music is the general attitude in making different sonic decisions then we’ve made in the past. We freed ourselves from sounding the way Couch has sounded, and from our direct instrumentation by using more synthesizer sounds. Danny got a sweet Juno 106 which uses a lot of 80’s and 90’s synths on it, and we just allowed ourselves to do what felt cool and correct rather than what we thought people would expect from us. 

Were any of the songs written in a space of immediacy following a prolific event? If so, did you ever look back on any of them later and determine that, based on your headspace, it may not have been the best time to have written the song? 

Tema: “One Night” was written shortly after the story that it is about occurred. I think it’s probably TOO soon to say if we regret writing about it at the time that we did, because a lot of these songs are still so new to us. 

Eric: One hallmark of this creative process has been culminations of different people working on the genesis of each song. Different songs have different flavors, and it really comes down to who originated the ideas, and it has been a ton of different combinations this time around. 

How do you adjust your sound to become more mature over time? 

Danny: We’re not forcing it, or actively thinking about how we can play in a way that is more mature, or less whimsical. It’s a reflection of the way we feel as people, now in our mid-20’s. Tema brought a lot of edge to these songs. A lot of our music leading up to this record was pretty uplifting in nature, and there are some uplifting songs on this record, but a lot of them are quite angry and pointed. We did not want to shy away from that. Also, every year we play together, we get better as musicians with increased experience, as some of have side projects outside of Couch, and I hope we never stop getting better as musicians.

Has the recent influx of ‘jam-band’ style music, with acts like Cory Wong and Jon Bellion on the front lines, and acts like Penelope Road and Stolen Gin on the come up, affected the way you make music?

Jeffrey: When we were becoming a band, those were artists we looked up to, but at a certain point, we need to assert ourselves within that scene and stand out and have our own voices be heard within that. As Danny was saying, how we become more mature in our sound, a lot of that is breaking away from that mold in that scene looks like, and using voices within the band to bounce ideas off those influences, but to use our voices as the main driving factor. 

Tema: Can I add to that? 

Eric: [Takes a short pause} No. 

Tema: [Smiles] When we were starting out, we identified ourselves as a soul-pop band wanting to make music like Lawrence, Cory Wong and Lake Street Dive. As we’ve collaborated more, and brought in a broader range of influences, we’ve departed a bit more from that identity and brought in other genres. We’re departing more from this genre that may have even limited us initially. Now, we’ll bring in ideas and it’s no longer “Is this Couch-y enough?” but “Is this FUN. Do we like it?” 

Tema, you combine technical vocal skill with full comprehension of your physicality. What is it like to be able to produce viable emotion, and even answer questions through your performance, as the frontwoman of an ensemble?

Tema: We all go to concerts as homework. We study what people do and finds what moves us, and movement is a really important piece of that. You could be the most talented player in the world, but stand still and lose some folks, because they’re not visually engaged. We really care about bringing a group physicality and energy to our performance, so I actually feel very energized by my bandmates and by the music we’re playing. I appreciate the observation, and I think it can really enhance the storytelling. 

How do you achieve the musical warmth of songs like “On The Wire,” “Static and Noise,” and “Slow Burn”? 

Eric: One thing we’ve always prioritized in our production and music is layering to our hearts content... enhancing our sound in a studio setting. We don’t shy away from 15 horn layers or vocal layers. Danny, usually, has MANY different keys or synth parts happening, or we sometimes double Will’s bass part with a super distorted one. Even now, as the sounds change, we are heavily layering ourselves. We are really trying to make the big parts of our songs as big as possible through the production as well as the performance. 

What motivates a key change in a song like “Little Less Over You”?

Jeffrey: It brings you to a new sonic place. What’s neat about “Little Less Over You,” similar to a key change we have in a song called “Poems” that is up by a major second, it is very evocative of show tunes and final ‘shout choruses.’ “LLOY” alternates between two keys, and that is inspired by “Miracles” by Benny Sings. Besides the upward and downward motions, it does feel different to be in different keys. “Slow Burn” ALSO modulates between two different keys, but it’s less of just WANTING to do a key change and more of us playing with different chord progressions and different ways to write songs that might weave around different key centers. We’re just chasing that feeling of motion. 

For a song like “Middle Man” that is so lyrically exploratory but rather upbeat musically, did you ever have the desire to strip it back? 

Jared: “Middle Man” originated with Jeffrey, and it’s one of the songs that fully encapsulates the record. He has a very extensive interest in EDM, electronic music, and I think “Middle Man” embodies that sound.

Tema: Originally, “Middle Man” WAS a slower song. It wasn’t until Jeffrey brought in this EDM tune, and we started talking about the themes for that song, that it resurfaced, and we paired them together. That’s a testament of what it is to be a collaborative band. I start a lot of song ideas in a slower, more tender place, and I’d probably write a lot of slow, sad, singer-songwriter music, but I have bandmates bringing in different musical ideas. It illuminates this new world of pop music, but with singer-songwriter lyrics, that could work over an intimate folk song.

Jeffrey: The ideas we run with typically do not stray too far from what the demo was. I think of “So Myself,” a song Tema had a voice note of playing acoustic guitar and singing, and that’s how the song still feels at its core. For “Middle Man,” the only other instrument I play other than the trumpet is the laptop [laughs], and the song still has that underlying feel to it. For “LLOY,” Eric was playing this keyboard pattern at our first writing retreat, and that is still the foundation of the song. When something feels good, we go with it. 

Is ”Static & Noise” the freest song, musically, on the project? 

Zach: I think it’s a little less free because it took a while to get it feeling really good. Even though there is some improvisation night to night, we went back and forth across a lot of summer gigs going, “This part felt good tonight… this part didn’t,” and adjusted it to the point where, now that we’re playing it on tour, it’s feeling pretty nice. I’m almost nervous to leave my part, because we’ve cracked the code a little bit. 

Boys, how do you incorporate the sass and cockiness Tema is singing with into your playing? 

Will: There is a lot of tone and grit you can get from the bass. Knowing that “Static & Noise” has a lot of that behind it, there are a lot of bass attributes that accompany it well. One of them being this quarter note groove in the chorus, followed by what Zach mentioned earlier as the octave pops and the slapping sounds, bring out a lot of that sass. 

Eric: The music matches the sass of the lyrics in many ways, so we don’t have to consciously try to mimic the tone of Tema’s lyrics and performance. My biggest influences for my contribution to that song are bands like Silk Sonic and Tower of Power. These lyrics aren’t as playful… they’re not taking themselves too seriously. The entire genre that “Static & Noise” pulls its main influence from has that feeling, so it’s easy to lock in and be stanky with it. 

How do you maintain the sense of self-love that is present in “So Myself” in your writing going forward? 

Zach: When we relisten to our songs, after having worked so hard on producing them then taking a step a way, we call it ‘A Good Listen’ in the group chat. The average listen may not be a good listen, because we’re so critical while deep in the process… 

Danny: I wish I had the opportunity to hear these songs fully mixed and mastered for the first time with fresh ears. On average, I’ve listened to every song on the album hundreds of times before they hit Spotify. I DO have conviction that I love our music. 

Jeffrey: Another thing harkens back to maturing as musicians. I recently heard a quote from a trumpet player; “During practice, it’s not ‘What do I want to play?’ The better question is ‘What do I want to hear?’ That encapsulates how I feel about a lot of the music we’ve written, and in the past, we’ve written our music a bit more cerebrally. Like, ‘The vocal stopped here, so show off our musicianship to some extent.” Now, we write music that, in some ways, is more complex, and in some ways simpler, but, ultimately, our parts serve the music better. I enjoy listening to this album more than I enjoy listening to previous music, and that IS self-affirming writing. 

Zach: A good listen. 

Listen to Big Talk, out now: