by Will Vani

I remember where I was when I first heard Cold Court, it was early March in a house show venue called “Luigi’s Mansion.” Just from hearing their first song, I knew they were something special. Ever since this 7-piece band has continued to make waves across the Philly underground scene, and I have been happy to see their growth. They fill the air with intense, anxious, and exciting noise rock that takes influences from a large number of genres.

Last June, they opened for the experimental rock band Black Midi, and in October they opened for the rising Art Punk band Geese. What’s even more impressive is that they don’t even have any recorded music widely available, besides one demo tape and a live recording. These gifted musicians have found a lot of praise within their scene, and will only get better as they write more songs

Joining me for this interview are Jojo, the vocalist and lead guitarist, Alex on viola, Theo on bass, and Mini, who is also a vocalist and guitarist.

When people talk about your music, they tend to say a hodgepodge of different genres. Noise Rock, Post Hardcore, No Wave, Totalism, Experimental Rock. Is there a certain sound or scene you were shooting for as a band or did you just go with the flow? 

Jojo: I think at first we did, we kind of had like a few ideas of what we wanted to make but then I think a few months in we kind of just like “we’re going with the flow.” 

What initially were you going for?

 Jojo: Just like a broad range of noise rock genres. And I felt like we confined ourselves too much when we were trying to make just noise rock. 

Mini: And especially like, learning as well. We kind of just got into more stuff and kind of discovered more things as we kept playing. 

Why do you think repetition became such a big feature of your sound, lyrically, musically, and everything else in between? 

Mini: I guess for me personally, at least lyrically, I feel like it’s really influenced by a lot of that spiritual music, mantras, and stuff like that. Growing up, my parents and my grandparents always had mantras playing. And that kind of stuff feels really powerful. And for a lot of the stuff that we do, we try to make it feel powerful, and really have you feel it. 

Jojo: Also, in conjunction with a lot of digital age kind of sounds and art, a lot of it relies on these patterns and serial systems, and repetition is huge, and if I’m making a hip-hop beat, I’m using loops a lot, or if I’m making a demo. Just the idea of loops is big for me, I guess, just because it’s just that I play with loops a lot. And I guess that’s the way I learned how to write like music.

The lyrics you guys have are superb- they are frantic, anxious, mysterious, and existential. Who is the main writer of the lyrics for the songs and what inspiration(s) do you take from? 

Mini: For the songs that I do vocals on, really it comes from playing live and being in the room. I just kind of just say whatever I feel and whatever comes to mind at the time. And later, after what we’re done, I’ll write it down. And then it, for some reason, it just always seems to make sense. After we’ve been playing for a bit, I can just go back to it and read it. And then can kind of piece it together and make sense of it. I think it’s just really satisfying to be able to express myself that way. And I think for my inspiration delivery-wise, I could say a lot of things. Lately, I’ve been trying to push more and try to get into singing more and vocalizing a bit. But I’d say some bigger influence is I really want to sound like Hector Laveau. I’m trying to expand it and try to kind of make my own voice and just combine all the things that I like listening to together. But yeah, mainly it’s just me kind of. I feel really good expressing myself and just going off the top of my head. It’s really fulfilling and I enjoy that a lot .

 Jojo, how do you interact with Mini’s style of writing? 

I think the repetition and themes of visceral reactions, just that first impulse, definitely we try to capitalize on when writing music. With Mini, he has a very impactful delivery. So I try and match the intensity with that. But when it comes to writing in general, I think it’s whatever I’m enjoying at the time will just like naturally kind of infect whatever I’m creating. 

Are there any of your own songs that are particularly meaningful to you?

Jojo: The songs we’ve written recently have I’ve connected with more, but not generally no.

Theo: I also agree, I think the stuff that I’m writing recently is more resonant with me as a musician. I’m finding it easier to express myself through my playing of what I’ve been doing recently. It’s really exciting, so I think that’s a good resonation. 

Mini: I feel pretty connected with all our songs, they all mean a lot to me because I have such a good time playing them. I’d say definitely the newer stuff is feeling a lot better because I feel like we’re maturing and I think it’s nice to kind of grow with your friends. 

There seems to be a growing subculture of “music-nerd rock”; acts like black midi, black country new road, squid, and more are all finding praise online. Would you guys consider yourself in that category, and how do you plan to separate and grow your act among the rest? 

Jojo: I think we were going for a sound similar to that just because we felt like a kinship to these kinds of musicians and the people who enjoy that music. But I think after a certain point, we were like, this is really like inauthentic. And I think the more we write music now, it’s more natural that our voices come out in it and you can recognize ourselves in it. But at the same time, I think it is really cool that a lot of music nerd music is appreciated. You can take it on tour, or you can have an online fan base and that is definitely a special thing. And I hope people like us would enjoy our music. 

You guys have seen a rise in your reach of music, from a Drexel band to a Philly house show band, to now even an East Coast underground act. What’s next and what scene or area do you believe defines you best?

 Jojo:I think us being a Drexel band defines us most. I think more than anything else, because there’s the kinds of people we play with typically in our supposed scene and the community we built. I feel like we owe a lot to our classmates and other friends in music here at the school 

Theo: I don’t go to Drexel but without the help of the school, what we do wouldn’t really be possible because we play in the Drexel rooms and we record there, so we owe a lot to that.

 Who do you consider your peers at this point, in terms of Drexel and Philly?

 Jojo: Slow Burning Daydream and other bands from Drexel. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint who our peers really are. We play in a variety of stages and I think it’s a unique position to be in. We can still play with our friends at a school practice room, or at a pizzeria, and also be able to play with our favorite musicians at the same time. 

Black and white seems to be a popular choice of colors for your promotional and branding work. Who makes most of this artwork and why have you chosen this style? 

Jojo: There are a variety of people, but Alex and Jack mainly. Alex has taken the role of doing the promotional stuff, and I don’t know if it was all super intentional but I think we did speak once about black and white being a cool look for now since we don’t know what we want to do. 

Do you think it fits your music well? 

Theo: Yeah, I think it does. I think that’s one of the main reasons why we went in that direction with the artwork. I don’t know, it just kind of fits. 

Alex: I feel it fits very well with some of the earlier music. I feel like right now it’s kind of starting to move away from that and I think the assumption was always that the monochrome thing was kind of temporary. What I drew a lot of the promotional stuff from was old horror, stuff like Frankenstein Jr. With Jack, he almost exclusively shoots in black and white. And so for him, it worked out well. But I purposely lean toward the black-and-white thing sometimes. Because I think it does work very well with a lot of the earlier sounds. I just remember there was a time I showed a friend of mine one of the demos that came out around the summer that we’ve been playing for a couple of months now, and he just described it as “haunted house Halloween music.” I think the work itself doesn’t take itself super seriously, but there are some very meaningful messages in there. 

What’s next? 

Alex: My other band, Soda Seas, is doing shows during April. I wrote a bunch of the material around last summer and so I’m just kind of focused on transferring that to live stuff and seeing where that takes us.

 Jojo: As for Cold Court stuff, I think it’s playing shows around Philly and in New York throughout the spring. And yeah, maybe a release soon. I don’t know. 

Mini: Mainly we’re focused on just writing new songs and continuing to get better.