About 70 miles south of Boston, Cape Cod stretches out into the ocean with water on three sides. In the summertime, it welcomes tourists from around the world to its beaches and classic sights. Once winter rolls in, the party stops, and the year-round residents brace for the same cold reality endured by the rest of the state. It makes sense that Crooked Coast calls this place home. On one hand, the quartet—Luke Vose [vocals, guitar], John McNamara [guitar, vocals], Ben Elder [bass, vocals], and Shaqed Druyan [drums]—revel in sun-soaked reggae rhythms and hip-hop grooves. At the same time, they infuse punk energy into sky-high rock hooks laced with pop appeal. After piling up millions of streams independently and earning acclaim from Dig Boston, Cape Cod Times, Vanyaland, and many others, they perfect this balance on their 2022 album Picture This and more to come.
“The sound definitely reflects where we come from,” notes John. “In the summer, it’s basically tropical. Everybody’s in board shorts and sandals. That’s where you get the reggae. In wintertime, we all grew up doing construction jobs, cooking, or working with our hands and listening to rock ‘n’ roll. We fuse these two sides together.”
“We meet visitors from everywhere, so there are all of these different flavors in Cape Cod,” Shaq goes on. “At the same time, there's ‘Boston Energy’—which is tougher. New England is the fucking best, and we carry that through our music.”
“Since there’s no entertainment industry here, we didn’t have a blueprint,” Luke notes. “If you want to be a professional musician and make original music, you go figure it out on your own.”
A shared sense of brotherhood has driven Crooked Coast since day one. John and Ben played in a band way back in junior high before welcoming Luke to the fold. With the addition of Shaq, the current iteration solidified by 2017. Beyond slogging it out with countless local gigs, “Go Slow” gathered north of 566K Spotify streams. During 2020, “Rise & Shine” cracked the Top 5 of the iTunes Top Reggae Songs Chart. Mixed by Courtney Ballard [5 Seconds of Summer, Good Charlotte, The Used], their 2022 album Picture This amassed over half-a-million streams as the band graced the bills of major festivals, including Boston Calling, Beach Road Weekend, and Reggae Rise Up. Not to mention producing and headlining their own Coast-Fest in Falmouth, MA. They are currently wrapping an album featuring production by Gary Cioffi [Grayscale, Transit], Anthony Saffery [Portugal. The Man] and Charlie Scene [Hollywood Undead] cementing their sound like never before.
“Each of these songs is a different exploration,” Luke reveals. “It’s a wide-ranging project, but we were able to tie everything together into a unified sound. It’s representative of who we are.”
In the end, you might want to escape to Crooked Coast for a while.
“If you’re going through a rough time or just had a bad day at work, I hope our songs makes you feel better and forget about your problems,” John leaves off. “We want to take you away from the moment for as long as possible.”
“We just love playing,” Shaq concludes. “We do this from the heart, and I think it’s apparent. There’s so much chaos in life, we want you to have fun, breathe, and live in the moment.”
“Crooked Coast is our own Twilight Zone version of Cape Cod,” adds Luke. “It’s a place you can go.”
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