“As you can tell from our crop tops, we are a serious band!” announced Common Koi frontman Skylar Coy to the crowd before launching into a song at 2024’s Summer’s End music festival.
I met with the indie rock group on the last Saturday of September at the aptly-named music festival in Corvallis, put on by local booking agency South Valley Sound. It was the perfect time for one last hurrah before summer break ended – the weekend before school started for LBCC, and following week zero for Oregon State. The sunny weather couldn’t have been much better as the band and I chatted at a picnic table under the shade at Bruce Starker Arts Park.
Common Koi formed while they were students at the University of Oregon. “I went to college knowing I wanted to be in a band,” said Coy, who also plays guitar. “I met [drummer Stephen Strong] on the dorm website. It’s like a dating app for roommates, and I actually decided that I didn’t want to live with him.”
“Thank God,” quipped Strong.
“He was a bit weird, but I knew he was an instrumentalist,” joked Coy. Strong’s roommate, guitarist Jack Keith, soon joined, as did bassist Kira Gelbaugh, who Coy met in a hip-hop ensemble.
Gelbaugh also plays with post-hardcore band Solution Honey. Strong releases music under the name Steve Luvlights. “I’m a band monogamist,” declared Coy.
To my surprise, the band claims that its name has nothing to do with Skylar Coy’s last name. Strong told the full story: “When we first got together, before Kira was even in the band, we were jamming in the basement of our dorm room trying to come up with names,” he said. “One point we had the idea of Doop Snogg, as in, Snoop Dogg, but reversed, you know, like Ritt Momney, Doop Snogg. And we asked a dude if that was a good idea who was passing by. And he said, ‘F— no.’ [Laughs.] So we didn’t do that.”
“We had been to a couple house shows [in the Eugene scene],” he added. “And it just felt like there was so much talent and so many interesting characters, you know, and the koi fish are kind of a mystical being. … There’s a lot of mythology around koi fish. Skylar loves koi fish. And so to be common among the koi, to feel comfortable among greatness and among mysticism, it’s the idea.”
“Genuinely, when we were coming up with the name, I never thought about ‘koi’ and ‘Coy,’ because they’re spelled differently, you know?” said Coy. “And I was excited about the koi. I love koi fish.”
As Common Koi, the band wrote what is still their biggest hit, 2022 single “Clout,” the day Gelbaugh joined the group. “We started playing college house shows, and just kind of kept going,” said Coy. Their first EP “POND” followed soon after.
The band’s latest, debut album “Bestfriends,” was released in May of 2024 by the trio of Coy, Strong, and Gelbaugh. “We sacrificed our other guitar player to a volcano,” said Coy. (Keith contributed additional guitar to the album.)
The band’s newest member is guitarist Wyatt Qualiana, who’s been with Common Koi for the last few months. “There was definitely some intimidation at first,” he said. “But you know, everyone’s made me feel very much at home, that my contributions are well-received. And for that, I’m very grateful.”
Qualiana has fit in well with the Common Koi sound: bouncy rhythms, jazzy flourishes, intricate arrangements, and the feel-good vibes of the West Coast.
“Everyone’s parts are so interconnected that if I want to change something on the vocal, it usually means everyone else has to change something too,” said Coy. “Everything is so codependent.”
“We do a lot of just keeping our ears open to what people are playing,” Gelbaugh said of the band’s collaborative songwriting process. “So like, jamming chords and being like, ‘Oh, Steve, I heard that triplet fill, what if we do that three times and then go into this other thing?’ Or, ‘There was a harmonic line that was cool. Let’s try to harmonize that.’ And that could be almost like a little proggy bit. Or just hearing what organically comes out, and then, ‘Oh, let’s snag that!’ So really, just keeping our minds open to what comes up naturally.”
“Stuff we’ve been playing is nothing crazy chord-wise or chord progression-wise, but there’s all these little dynamic parts and stuff [which the band referred to as ‘sauce’] that kind of make a song a song, rather than just a jam,” said Qualiana. “I think it’s definitely a multifaceted thing, where the jamming provides quite a function, but then there’s the process of subtraction, just slicing little pieces off, tweaking them, and then seeing if they sound good.”
“Everything that’s in our songs has a reason that it’s there,” said Coy.
On “Bestfriends,” the music remains true to Common Koi’s sound, but it’s also bolder and more diverse than before. There’s melodic indie-rocker “Everything That Goes Wrong in a Movie,” “Payton’s Revenge,” with a jumbo-sized, singalong chorus and horn section, the ’80s-tinged “Co-Star,” and acoustic-led closer “Escaping.” Every song is catchy, and there’s a range of emotional depth to enjoy as Coy’s vocals range from playful and conversational to strained and heartfelt.
“We’ll often take the feeling of something and then make it into a much grander song,” Coy said of the band’s lyrics. “Kind of like an extrapolation. … A lot of the things are based in reality, like lots of shout-outs to my girlfriend, lots of shout-outs to experiences we’ve had. But there’s also songs on there that are just completely for fun, like our song ‘Drifters’ is about an unrequited love/getting lost in the jungle/being a dumba–, you know?”
“It’s a feeling. It’s not necessarily a message,” he added. “I would say a lot of the songs carry an overarching theme of our journey together as friends and as a group. … We’ve known each other through all these experiences that we’ve had, and a lot of it’s just about how we’ve ridden together and we’ve done everything together.”
The band’s chemistry shines on their latest album.
“We let loose on ‘Bestfriends,’” said Coy.
Added Gelbaugh, “Especially writing the second half of the album, we’re just like, let’s just…
“…do what feels good in the moment,” finished Strong.
It was a different process than “POND,” which Coy said “was pretty calculated, like we had tested and played all of those songs at shows before to make sure they hit.”
Still, “Bestfriends” was a labor of love to create. “It took us like a two-and-a-half year process to put it out and really make it seem cohesive,” said Gelbaugh.
“I feel like the music was pretty intertwined with our lives,” said Coy. “It took so long, you can almost see the journey of the band and what was going on in our lives throughout the album, different phases. A couple months we were really into pop, and then we became kind of punk/metal-ly – for like four months, we were all really pissed off at something. And then there was a big folk period. So you get all these weird genres throughout the album. But I mean, I think we were all just like, ‘Let’s just release it and see what happens.’ I mean, it’s all you can do, right?”
The band’s sound pulls from a number of influences, with the group referencing many Eugene-area bands.
“We’ve been lucky to have been surrounded by a ton of musicians, living with other bands and solo artists and playing with bands over the years,” said Gelbaugh. “So I feel like a lot of our stuff is a culmination of what we’ve been hearing and playing with for the past five years.”
I also had the band share which artists were currently on their playlists. It yielded an eclectic list, from LA LOM to Chris LeDoux to Gustav Holst, The Killers, Mk.gee, Albert Hammond Jr., Playboi Carti, and, although reluctantly admitted, Drake.
“I think all of that kind of comes through in our music, too, that we’re all over the board,” said Strong.
“Drake does come through!” laughed Coy. He’s not wrong, either – a pop influence is easy to hear in the band’s discography, and autotune creeps into the final chorus of “Drifters.”
“We always try to make our choruses slap,” said Coy. “We spend a lot of time hitting the slap-o-meter.”
The chorus of “50 Ways to Call the Void” might be the catchiest on the new album. “Lyrically, it’s about shooting someone. It’s about going insane,” said Coy before clarifying: “And like, I never was so insane that I shot someone.”
The song served as the closer to Common Koi’s set at 2024’s Summer’s End – the first after-dark performance of the festival.
Common Koi are no strangers to Summer’s End, with 2024 marking their third year playing it. They referenced 2023’s show being one of their favorites. “I played with laryngitis last year, and it was still lit,” said Coy.
Although Eugene-based, the band has an appreciation for the Corvallis scene. “We love it here,” said Gelbaugh.
“Eugene house shows and dive bars have been our comfort zone, you know? And when we started writing music, we were almost writing to that audience of Eugene college students and stuff like that,” said Strong. “But we’ve been on a couple little tours. We played in Corvallis a lot. Corvallis just has such a good energy, like, everybody’s there to party, but also equally there to really listen to the music and enjoy.”
Following Summer’s End, the band teased an upcoming show at Eugene’s WOW Hall, “WOWHalloween,” on Oct. 26. “It’s gonna be a big one, and then we’re gonna take a little bit of a break,” said Gelbaugh. She’ll be moving to Los Angeles later this year.
Coy announced the news to the crowd at Summer’s End: “She’s gonna make it, y’all!”
While 2024 might mark the end of this era of Common Koi, the band still has plans. “We’re hoping to record in December or January some new stuff that we’ve been writing, and hopefully get to play a show up here every couple months or once a month, depending on how it goes,” said Gelbaugh. “And I’d love to have us down in LA, too.”
“Definitely the dream,” said Strong.
It’s a bittersweet moment, but also one that shows just how far Common Koi has come since its inception in a dorm room basement. Coy’s lyrics from “Clout” seem oddly prophetic: “My parents are always saying that I need a job / But my band’s about to take off / Woah oh oh oh oh…”
You can read the full conversation below:
Editor’s note: This transcript was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Can you give me the background of how Common Koi started?
Skylar: Yeah, sure. I went to college knowing I wanted to be in a band, and I met him [referencing Stephen] on the dorm website. It’s like a dating app for roommates, and I actually decided that I didn’t want to live with him.
Stephen: Thank God. [laughing]
Skylar: He was a bit weird, but I knew he was an instrumentalist. So I wanted to throw together the band. I hit him up, and then he was like, ‘My roommate plays guitar, can he join?’ And then I found Kira at hip-hop ensemble. We were in a class together. And then we were a band for a couple years like that. But then we sacrificed our other guitar player to a volcano, so we got this guy [referencing Wyatt] in like, the last six months. We started playing college house shows, and just kind of kept going.
So did you guys all have a background in music heading into it?
Skylar: Yeah.
Is music a full time job for you guys, or still something on the side right now?
Kira: We have other jobs and do as much music as we can.
Stephen: Kira is the most full-time music.
Skylar: Definitely.
Kira: I teach and work in a music store, and then play with Koi.
Stephen: I do lessons. I work at The Bier Stein which is like a beer bar. I’m doing social media there, which is kind of fun, but I really want to make enough money with my music to support myself. I also go by Steve Luvlights on the side as a solo thing, which I didn’t start till maybe two years ago. And Common Koi is just the best for bringing so much music into my life. I didn’t know I was going to be joining a band in the first week of college, but it happened. And, you know, the same day we met Kira, we wrote our still, like, top-streamed song, “Clout.”
First day?
Stephen: Yeah, like, literally, first day.
Kira: Yeah, after hip-hop ensemble.
Wyatt: I repair guitars and do public health research, and then do this. Down to hopefully getting into more music soon.
[To Stephen] So are you the only one with the side project? Like music-wise?
Stephen: Well, Kira’s in other bands,
Kira: Post hardcore band called Solution Honey. And then I just kind of dabble in backing bands if people need me, and hop into little hip-hop sessions here and there, but Common Koi has definitely been the main for the past five years.
Skylar: I’m a band monogamist. I don’t even have a solo project.
Stephen: You got one song under “Skylar Coy.”
Skylar: Yeah, four years ago.
Your debut album “Bestfriends” came out this year. I know you guys have been on the scene for a while. You put out an EP and some singles, but is there some pressure that comes with putting the debut album label on something, or was that not something that you guys really stressed about?
Kira: Definitely thought about it because it took us like a two-and-a-half year process to put it out and really make it seem cohesive.
Stephen: Yeah, from when we started writing, and then we recorded five songs, and then we wrote more and recorded five more songs over the course of like, over two years. And that’s kind of been our songwriting style: We get a bunch of ideas and then we pick the good ones, and then spend way too long on them, trying to perfect them. It’s worked, I think.
Skylar: I feel like the music was pretty intertwined with our lives. It took so long, you can almost see the journey of the band and what was going on in our lives throughout the album, like, different phases where, like, a couple months we were like, really into pop, and then we became kind of punk/metal-ly – for like four months, we were all really pissed off at something. And then there was a big folk period. … But I mean, I think we were all just like, “Let’s just release it and see what happens.” I mean, it’s all you can do, right?
On that same note, I always ask about how bands define their genre, because I know some are a little touchy…
Skylar: Don’t ask that. [Laughter.]
Stephen: There’s no straight answer. What we’ve been saying for five years is “dance rock.” It varies, but I’d say, in general, with most songs, we have a goal of making it kind of dancey and poppy… and rocky.
Skylar: Totally. Generally, we try to make it fun.
There’s always so much to notice about your music, and just like the timing. I think that – the first song I heard from you guys was “Standard of Beauty.” And there’s a part where I was like, “This sounds like, almost a little math-rocky.” The chords and the timing…
Stephen: Yeah, there’s some of that inspiration. Like, I love emo stuff, and some math rock. And obviously Solution Honey is super punk and heavy and a little mathy. And, you know, we’re not like, big, nerd type-musicians, like we want to make everything we do super complicated, but it’s really fun to throw those things in.
Yeah, there’s no like, 7/4 polyrhythm on the next album to look forward to?
Skylar: Kira tries.
Stephen: Kira does send us that way.
Kira: We’ve been lucky to have been surrounded by a ton of musicians, living with other bands and solo artists and playing with bands over the years. So I feel like a lot of our stuff is a culmination of what we’ve been hearing and playing with for the past five years. With our own twist, but that whole, like, Laundry, Novacane, Solution… [sound].
Stephen: Yeah, influenced by our friends.
Skylar: Yeah, there used to be this old genre in Eugene when we first started, called Eugene Mosh that was, like, Novacane, a lot like the old OG Eugene bands. And I wouldn’t say that it’s a thing anymore. Like, a lot of the Eugene bands now have kind of gotten a new thing going on, but we still keep, like, there’s like a signature rhythm in Eugene mobs, like [sings the rhythm] and we still put that in our songs.
Stephen: Somebody was saying Two Door Cinema Club, with a lot of our rhythm and bounce.
Comparing “Bestfriends,” which just came out, versus your past music, would you say that you did anything different than you have in your past?
Skylar: Oh, yeah, we let loose on “Bestfriends.”
Kira: Especially writing the second half of the album, we’re just like, let’s just…
Stephen: …do what feels good in the moment.
Kira: Yeah.
Stephen: I’d say, you know, “POND,” our EP, was pretty calculated, like we had tested and played all of those songs at shows before to make sure they hit.
Skylar: And we spent months mixing it.
Stephen: Jack, our old guitar guitarist, mixed it so, yeah, it took forever to do it ourselves. For “Bestfriends,” we had our engineer and producer, Nevada Sowle, who’s really good, who has a studio in Astoria, where I’m from, called the Rope Room.
Skylar: Blind Pilots’ studio.
Stephen: Yeah. Have you ever heard of Blind Pilot? The folk band from my hometown that blew up – the one band that made it out of Astoria – but that’s where we’ve recorded. Like, the bulk of all our stuff is at the Rope Room, and then we would do stuff at home to add on to it.
Can you explain the lyrical themes of the new album?
Skylar: You know, I’ll think about this for a second. There’s a song – our song “50 Ways to Call the Void.” Lyrically, it’s about shooting someone. It’s about going insane.
Stephen: Like, it’s about a person going insane and shooting someone because they’re frustrated.
Skylar: And like, I never was so insane that I shot someone.
Glad to know. [Laughter.]
Skylar: But I think, we’ll often take the feeling of something and then make it into a much grander song. Kind of like an extrapolation, you know. And like, our song “Sucks” is super, like, I’m sure you’ve felt frustrated and upset or disappointed about something to the point of you can’t even think about it. It’s so, like, intense or whatever.
Stephen: And so, some jealousy themes.
Skylar: Yeah, so the song reflects that. And like, a lot of the things are based in reality, like lots of shout-outs to my girlfriend, lots of shout-outs to experiences we’ve had. But there’s also songs on there that are just completely for fun, like our song “Drifters” is about an unrequited love/getting lost in the jungle/being a dumba–, you know?
Stephen: But take bits and pieces, like, it’s a little bit all over the place, I’d say. But when it comes down to it, the song has a feeling that it evokes.
Skylar: It’s a feeling. It’s not necessarily a message, usually. Yeah, but I don’t know. I mean, I’m not very good at lyrics either, man.
I mean, they all sound great to me. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.
Skylar: But like, I don’t know, oftentimes it’s just about thinking of something to fit with the vibe of things. There’s definitely songs on that album where the lyrics don’t mean a whole lot. Like, “50 Ways to Call the Void.” I hope people think those lyrics aren’t true, you know. But a song like “Escaping” actually does have a lot of meaning to it, you know, and like personal life experiences and growing up and learning things that you didn’t know. If you asked me about a specific song, I could explain it to you, but explaining the whole album lyrically conceptually is very – some songs are really deliberate and some songs are deliberately undeliberate.
To go back to “It’s not a message, it’s a feeling.” Would you say there’s a feeling for the whole album, or is it – it sounds very cohesive, to be clear – but I mean, is it a mismatch?
Skylar: I would say a lot of the songs carry an overarching theme of our journey together as friends and as a group, because a lot of the experiences that we’re writing about in these songs are experiences when we’ve all been – we’ve known each other through all these experiences that we’ve had, you know, and a lot of it’s just about how we’ve ridden together and we’ve done everything together.
Stephen: And I’d say when there are specific inspirations or things we’re trying to convey, like, that maybe one of us has experienced in a relationship or something, we all talk about our feelings and problems and s—. So it becomes like a shared feeling, like, we can empathize with each other and put it into a musical thing.
With your songwriting process, does someone take the lead on that? Or do all four of you contribute ideas?
Skylar: All the songs are mostly written as a group, yeah. On “Bestfriends,” everything was written as a group. You know, a couple that were just me, right? But generally, it’s pretty brute force group writing.
Stephen: We take our time deliberating over every little thing as a group.
Skylar: Yeah, we usually start with some chords or, like, an idea, or a riff, then I start coming up with some lyrics, then we see if we like the feeling or the idea of those lyrics, and if we don’t, we’ll switch that. And then we kind of start just developing an idea that we like. We always try to make our choruses…
Stephen: Slap.
Skylar: Slap. We spend a lot of time hitting the slap-o-meter, like, “Oh, that doesn’t really slap.”
Stephen: You know what? [To Wyatt] I’m curious what you’d say about our writing process. Because, I mean, we started having Wyatt for live shows, but in the past couple months, you’ve been just as much a part of the writing process as all of us.
Wyatt: Yeah, I mean, it certainly is deliberate. There’s certain parts of it that might come from a jam, so there’s composition and spontaneity, but there’s a whole lot of stuff that can sound really good jamming that can, you know, it doesn’t stand out, and I think that comes with the refining process. And so, stuff we’ve been playing is nothing crazy chord-wise, or, you know, chord progression-wise, but there’s all these little dynamic parts and stuff that kind of make a song a song, rather than just like a jam. And so I’m definitely seeing that as being like a functional songwriting method right now. Obviously, I can’t speak to the earlier compositions, but even with that, there are still pretty technical parts that come out of it. When you actually hone in and focus on, like, a transition between two pretty standard chord progressions. You know, there’s room to add a lot of unique sounds, textures, and stuff.
Stephen: Sauce.
Wyatt, Yeah, sauce. So I think it’s definitely like a multifaceted thing, where the jamming provides quite a function, but then the process of subtraction, and then just slicing little pieces off, tweaking them here, and then seeing if they sound good. Like, “Does this sound like a functional song?” And that’s kind of been the process for the past couple of months, through my eyes, at least. And yeah, it seems to work, but it has to be goal-oriented, or else, you kind of just end up doing the exercise for what?
Skylar: Everything that’s in our songs has a reason that it’s there, you know? We take voice memos of all of our tracks as we’re writing them. And like, the amount of changes a finished song gets before it’s finished is a lot.
Stephen: It’s like 20 voice memos.
Skylar: Yeah, it’s like, we’ll get the chords down, we’ll get the lyrics down, and then we still change it more after that, until everyone likes it. You know, everyone’s parts are so interconnected that if I want to change something on the vocal, it usually means everyone else has to change something too. Everything is so codependent.
Kira: We do a lot of just keeping our ears open to what people are playing. So like, jamming those chords and being like, “Oh, Steve, I heard that triplet fill, what if we do that three times and then go into this other thing?” Or, like, “There was a harmonic line that was cool. Let’s try to harmonize that.” And that could be almost like a little proggy bit, or just hearing what organically comes out, and then, “Oh, let’s snag that!” So really, just keeping our minds open to what comes up naturally.
To go back to you. Wyatt, was it kind of intimidating to join the songwriting process of a pre-established band, or did you just dive right in?
Wyatt: I would definitely say it’s taken me a bit to kind of find my place in it. You know, I’ve tried to do the opposite of the guitar thing, and remain sort of as minimal as possible, instead of just spraying and praying. You know, the way I play would probably sound a bit different, and I had to kind of change my playing to fit the Koi sound a little bit. So, you know, the intimidating part is making sure that you’re lifting up the whole music instead of just your playing. That’s definitely been something I’m – I don’t want to say self-conscious about – but been overtly aware of to make sure that whatever I am contributing is lifting up the whole song as opposed to just having a guitar shine through. There was definitely some intimidation at first, but you know, everyone’s made me feel very much at home, that my contributions are well-received. And for that, I’m very grateful.
Stephen: We love you.
Skylar: I love you too. [Laughter.]
Stephen: I’ve been doing too much on the drums guys, it’s okay to tell me…
Skylar: No, I love it, dude. I love when you let it rip, man.
What bands are you guys listening to right now? Like, not just influences, but what’s on the playlist right now?
Stephen: Don’t say it.
Stephen: Don’t say it.
Stephen: Say it.
Skylar: Drake. [Laughter.]
Skylar: Drake, Central Cee, let’s see. I don’t even know. Nicki Minaj, King Von, Gordo, Camila Cabello.
Stephen: Oh, Mk.gee. I love Mk.gee.
Skylar: [Mk.gee impression] Are you looking up?
Stephen: Do you know Mk.gee?
I’ve heard the name. I don’t think I’ve listened to a ton of music from him yet.
Stephen: Dude, he’s so good. His last album is making him blow up. He’s on a world tour right now. He’s a guitarist and songwriter, just like emotional and abstract, but also poignant and just great vibes. I like Mk.gee and Dijon.
Wyatt: I’ve been listening to a ton of salsa music, like obsessively, of every country, pretty much, because they all have a different way of doing it. But then a lot of this band is super good, called LA LOM, which is an acronym for the Los Angeles League of Musicians. And they play kind of like loud guitars through tube amps, but like cumbia beats and stuff. And it’s kind of psychedelic. Like, the drum kit is this hybrid kit. He’s playing with a maraca, you know, and there’s congas. But then, besides that, I’ve been listening to a lot of, early-, mid-2000s pop rock. Like OK Go, Muse. Bit of this The Strokes-associated stuff. And then I’ve been listening to Gustav Holst, “The Planets” quite a bit, which is crazy.
It inspired the “Star Wars” theme.
Wyatt: Really, I didn’t know. I can totally hear it now that I think about it, yeah.
I think it’s “Mars.” Very Star Wars-y.
Stephen: I played that in marching band. We had a “Mars” movement.
Wyatt: Dude, it’s so good. And it’s like, I try to listen to music that doesn’t always have guitar in it. Because, you know, you can be so reliant on muscle memory when you’re playing guitar and stuff. I want to be able to hear things that don’t necessarily sound like – they’re not guitar phrases, right? And I think it keeps things fresh, and it keeps the creative energy going.
Kira: I just kind of crawled out of an old country Western phase, like ’50s, ’60s country.
Stephen: I’ve been into that too.
Kira: So good. I’ve been listening to Albert Hammond Jr.
He’s one of The Strokes’ guitarists, right?
Kira: Yeah, some of The Killers, Machine Gun. I’ve been working on a lot of West Montgomery’s “Full House” album for students. But all over the place. We were listening to electro funk and Skrillex on the way over here.
Wyatt: Nice and eclectic.
Stephen: I was listening to Playboi Carti on the way up.
Skylar: I love me some Playboi. I like his new voice, to be honest.
Stephen: I was listening to “Die Lit,” the classic.
Skylar: Kira, I’ve been into Chris LeDoux.
A lot of genre representation here.
Stephen: Yeah, I think all of that kind of comes through in our music, too, that we’re all over
the board.
Skylar: Drake does come through!
You guys are obviously Eugene-based, but you play in the Corvallis/Albany scene a lot. Obviously, you guys are here at Summer’s End. What’s your experience been in the Corvallis/Albany scene?
Skylar: Fantastic.
Kira: We love it here.
Stephen: Yeah, they rock out here. Young and wild and free.
Skylar: Corvallis is so good.
Stephen: Eugene is great too. That’s when we started and still, Eugene house shows and dive bars have been our comfort zone, you know? And when we started writing music, we were almost writing to that audience of Eugene college students and stuff like that. But we’ve been on a couple little tours. We played in Corvallis a lot. And Corvallis just has such a good energy, like, everybody’s there to party, but also equally there to really listen to the music and enjoy.
Skylar: Some of our best music connection friends have been made up here.
Stephen: Definitely. Skip the Millers.
Skylar: Shout out to the boys, Trev and the boys.
Wyatt: Yeah, Trev and boys [laughs].
Have you guys played at Summer’s End before?
Skylar: Three times now.
Stephen This is our third year I think.
Kira: Everyone shows up here consistently, and they’re supportive. And yeah, great energy.
Are there any events in October that you’d like to plug?
Kira: WOW Hall, Oct. 26. It’s gonna be a big one, and then we’re gonna take a little bit of a break.
Stephen: Kira is moving to Los Angeles.
Kira: But we’re hoping to record in December or January some new stuff that we’ve been writing, and hopefully get to play a show up here every couple months or once a month, depending on how it goes. And I’d love to have us down in LA, too.
Skylar: Yeah, definitely the dream.
Kira: November will be a chill month, but WOW Hall is going to be a big one that we’re looking forward to. And then, yeah, getting situated with new music and new places.
Stephen: Yeah, that is the Halloween WOW Hall show of the year. Just in the past couple years, it has become, I think, a tradition of theirs, because it turns out being like their biggest show, and everyone’s in costume, and it’s a bunch of local college bands, and it’s really fun. And we’ve never gotten to play it. I’ve been to the past two or three years of WOW Hall Halloween shows, but we haven’t played it, so I’m excited that that’s kind of our ta-ta for now as we take a little break and Kira moves and we focus on the recording aspect more. And this, of course, Summer’s End, so good. Weather’s perfect. Great food, great vendors, great people, and we played the past couple years. It’s been probably my favorite show in the last two years, or at least last year. Last year was awesome.
Skylar: I played with laryngitis last year, and it was still lit.
Stephen: That was the year before.
Skylar: Was it the year before?
Stephen: When I was trying to sing all your parts, and it was a little rough.
Did you just have to do Bob Dylan covers?
Skylar: [Bob Dylan impersonation] She’s the standard of… beauty.
Skylar: Yeah, no. Freaking LA, taking our Kira away. You know, Kira, they have fake houses that are actually oil refineries in LA. Do you want to live near those?
Kira: I think that’s where I’m living.
Stephen: That’s why the rent’s so affordable.
Skylar: This is actually my side project I’ve been working on recently.
Stephen: For the listeners at home, we’ve got a long trail of salt specks from potentially a pretzel. I’m thinking of a pretzel.
A kind of random question we always ask bands is for the story behind the band name, and I’m guessing it has something to do with a last name?
Skylar: No, no.
Stephen: I like to tell this one!
Skylar: No, no. Because you don’t tell it right though.
Stephen: Yeah, I do! OK, so when we first got together, before Kira was even in the band, we were jamming in the basement of our dorm room trying to come up with names. One point we had the idea of Doop Snogg, as in, Snoop Dogg, but reversed, you know, like Ritt Momney, Doop Snogg. And we asked a dude if that was a good idea that was passing by. And he said, “F— no.” [Laughter.] So we didn’t do that, but if you look up Doop Snogg, we have a side project of joke songs. But Common Koi, to be fair, Skylar’s last name is Coy, C, O, Y – I don’t think we were really thinking about that when we came up with the name.
Skylar: We were not. I wasn’t at least.
Stephen: It did cross my mind. And I was like, that’s actually a really good marketing thing if our name kind of includes our singer’s last name. But Common Koi – we had all come from, I come from a small town from Oakland, all coming to Eugene, where we had been to a couple house shows. And it just felt like there was so much talent and so many interesting characters, you know, and the koi fish are kind of a mystical being.
Skylar: I love koi fish. I had a pond!
Stephen: You know, there’s a lot of mythology around koi fish. Skylar loves koi fish. And so to be common among the koi, to feel comfortable among greatness and among mysticism, it’s the idea.
Did he tell it right?
Skylar: Mostly.
Stephen: Yeah, it also just sounds nice.
Skylar: Because genuinely, when we were coming up with the name, I never thought about “koi” and “Coy” because they’re spelled differently, you know? And I was excited about the koi. I love koi fish. I had all these ponds growing up, lots of koi fish in them. They all got eaten by herons.
Stephen: Love herons.
Skylar: I hate herons. … But like, people say, “Oh, it’s your last name band!” But I don’t feel like that does the other members justice, because I do less than a quarter of the work. I’ll tell you that.
Stephen: I think it’s just cool, not just as a marketing thing, but as a memorable thing. Your name is spelled different, so obviously it’s not direct, but it’s kind of related.
Skylar: You know, I get it. It’s a double entendre maybe.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Skylar: No, I just want to destroy the salt line now.
Stephen: Shout out South Valley Sound!
Skylar: Shout out South Valley Sound!
You can listen to Common Koi’s music here. You can visit South Valley Sound’s website here. You can learn more about WOW Halloween here.
