Like a variety of genres and want to hear them all in one show? Have we got a band for you

“There are so many moments in life now, where we’re isolated in our own bubbles,” Luke Vose was saying. “Music is one of those things we can all do together, a wonderful human experience.”

Vose has been quoted elsewhere as saying he and his bandmates in Crooked Coast aim to write and create songs with choruses with which people will want to loudly sing along.

Crooked Coast, the Falmouth quartet Vose fronts, has achieved those ambitions of bringing folks together largely through busting apart any adherence to one genre or another. Their impossibly infectious music is based in rock ‘n’ roll, but also with some hip-hop aspects, and persistent reggae and ska rhythmic underpinnings.

Crooked Coast is headlining Brighton Music Hall in Boston on Saturday night, releasing their latest single this week, and also announcing that their annual Coast-Fest music festival in Falmouth Harbor has signed alt-rock star Andy Frasco to headline the Aug. 3 event.  (Brighton Music Hall is located at 158 Brighton Ave. in Boston, and the 18+ show begins at 8 p.m. with Boston alt-rockers Trash Rabbit and Bowling Shoes opening.  Tickets are $20 and available through crossroadspresents.com, or the box office, and for more information call the venue at 617-208-8786.)

Crooked Coast includes four Falmouth natives, with Vose on guitars and vocals, John McNamara on guitar and vocals, Ben Elder on bass, and Shaq Druyan on drums. They all share in the songwriting and arranging, and come from a variety of influences.  When the band began around 2012, as a trio, they called themselves The Rumrunners. Druyan is the newest member, with six years in the quartet.

Bandmates from an early age

“I think Ben and John were in bands together starting in middle school,” said Vose. “I met Ben and jammed with him, and he brought John into the mix. What really helped us when we started was that we got a Sunday night residency at a club in Woods Hole. Playing regularly there, everything clicked with us and we began writing together. When the pandemic hit, we doubled down, and began striving for better-sounding recordings, better videos and all the other things you need to know to make quality music.”

The question of influences is a tricky one, since the band’s sound seamlessly incorporates so many genres. “Go Back,” a midtempo burner from eight years ago that examines the march of time and need to live in the present, evokes the best of Everlast’s hip-hop/rock mix. “People Say,” a vibrant rocker with the elastic rhythms of the best ska, is about six years old. “Icarus,” from 2014, is alt-rock with a groove, and subtle reggae accents. “Cape Cod” from 2018 rides a swirl of edgy guitars but portrays the love of a person or place with a chorus “miss you when I’m gone ...” that is hard to resist.

Crooked Coast’s latest full-length album was “Picture This,” released in May 2022, with the striking single “Burn the Bridge,” a potboiling mix of reggae rhythms and rock dynamics that seems to depict leaving a toxic relationship, or perhaps just getting out of a bad situation.  But like almost all of their material, the tune uses authentic passion and an instantly-memorable chorus to grab your attention.

So how did this heady collision of styles happen?

How their eclectic music came to be

“We are totally different,” Vose laughed. “I grew up a big House of Pain fan, so I will agree with that Everlast influence. We actually opened up for him a few years ago, one of our first times opening for someone like that. We had visions of hanging out and talking with him backstage, but he was not very friendly and we hardly saw him. It was a bit of seeing the harsh reality of the business, but there’s no doubt, I grew up listening to his music.”

“John is probably much more influenced by punk rock, stuff like Green Day, but also The Strokes, and even The Beatles,” Vose continued. “Ben and Shaq are really into that stuff plus reggae and ska. We occasionally play with two horn players, and that really brings out our ska side. There’s always been that close connection with punk rock and ska music, like Operation Ivy. I think we all listened to Sublime, and love that effortless blend of ska and reggae they did. Sublime (the Rhode Island band devoted to playing the music of Sublime) does a great job, and we like them too.”

It’s perhaps too obvious to note, but Linkin Park did as good a job as anyone ever has of melding rock and hip-hop elements into a coherent and fully engaging style.

“I loved Linkin Park,” said Vose. “But again, all this blending is a case where you can’t just mash two styles together, and it has to be an organic thing based in the people playing the music loving those things. Like with Linkin Park, you can’t exactly explain why it works, but with creative people like that, somehow it does. I will say (Linkin Park’s late singer) Chester Bennington was one of the greatest rock singers I ever heard, and Mike Shinoda’s rapping is extraordinary.”

Music written collaboratively

It might be that Crooked Coast can mix all those disparate styles together effectively simply because they write all their music collaboratively. Everyone has a voice in the writing and arranging.

“We try to write with all of us in a room,” said Vose. “Sometimes two of us will work on an idea, and then bring it to the others. But usually it’s all four of us. We try not to get too caught up or stubborn with our own ideas – the juice for this group is the perspective all of us, together, bring to the music. “

An added feature of Crooked Coast’s creative spark is their videos.  The band, and their friends, are all big fans of music videos and have dedicated time and effort into designing and producing their own. The tune “Cape Cod” for instance, has a video with striking aerial shots, and while Cape Cod scenery is definitely an advantage, their sophisticated use of drones and storytelling formats adds immeasurably to the overall product. Simply put, these are videos that both stand on their own, and make fans eager to see the band in person.

“Luckily we were always into video and had friends who could shoot and edit them for us,” Vose noted. “More and more people are watching music videos online now, so they’ve always been important, but we try and make sure our visuals relate back to our songs, and people seem to like them.”

Band still likes classic album format

Music fans have also gravitated more to smaller formats, singles and EPs, although Crooked Coast still likes the classic album with about a dozen songs. They are well into crafting their next album, hopefully by the end of the year, but meanwhile they’re releasing singles and gauging what works best.

“With this record we really wanted to elevate what we’re doing,” said Vose. “We’re looking at doing about 13 songs, out of at least 30 we have ready. We want to pick what works together, and the songs that can best make for a cohesive project. We are dropping singles this spring and summer, and will be watching the response, consider what videos we might make, and seeing if there is any record label interest. We’ve even had some interest in recording a jingle, so we’re looking at that too.”

Crooked Coast has had some marvelous experiences so far, but they still have some ambitions they’d love to fulfill. The setlist at Brighton Music Hall on Saturday night will include some of the new music, but there are loyal Crooked Coast fans who also want specific older tunes too.

“Some of our fans ask for songs that we have admittedly forgotten about,” Vose chuckled. “We have a great fan base, and it means a lot when people feel your songs are connected to their life somehow, so we will always try to play those when they ask. Probably our biggest gig so far was performing at Boston Calling, the night Metallica headlined, which was pretty intense. We liked that festival idea so much we started our own little thing, Coast-Fest, because there’s such a beautiful bandshell in Falmouth Harbor. We didn’t know what we were doing that first year (2019), but we’ve learned and built up a team of volunteers, and we’re looking forward to having Andy Frasco join us this Aug. 3. And we’re excited to be going back to Brighton Music Hall, a really nice room, and a great spot that draws a lot of college kids.”

Nervous Eaters and Robin Lane star in Fall River

About 200 giddy rock fans celebrated the vibrant return of two stars of yesteryear, when The Nervous Eaters headlined, with Robin Lane and her quartet opening at the Narrows Center in Fall River. Both acts had their biggest national impact in 1980, but their recent work is as compelling as ever.

Lane’s 45-minute opening set included 10 songs, most from her more recent albums, which tend towards a more Americana sound than her edgy rock of 40 years ago. Lane’s “Woman Like That,” for example, from her 2022 album “Dirt Road to Heaven,” could be described as smart country-rock, with Gothic undertones. The harder edge of “It’ll Only Hurt for a Little While” evoked her earlier days, and lead guitarist Peter Hoffman was a dazzling counterpoint to the singer. Lane’s signature hit from four decades back, “When Things Go Wrong,” got a wholly new treatment, changed from gritty alt-rock to a twangy, bittersweet Americana version that heightened the regret in the lyrics.

The Nervous Eaters crammed 17 songs into their 80-minute set, as leader Steve Cataldo’s fiery garage rockers like “Wild Eyes” and the pre-1980 “Loretta” still bring the heat. But the Eaters have some tantalizing new material, like “528,” a rocking ode to the late owner of The Rat in Kenmore Square, where the Eaters were basically the house band and Jimmy Harold was their manager. But Cataldo’s telling us last week that the band now has three good writers was accurate. Guitarist Adam Sherman’s “I Want to See You Smile” was a torrid roots-rocker, while his “In The Shadows” was a churning ballad every bit as engaging. Bassist Carissa Johnson sang her own “Fuel Heart,” a pulsating portrait of difficult romance that proved she has songwriting skill and the pipes to deliver it.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Crooked Coast, a quartet from Falmouth, headlining Brighton Music Hall