Q&A: Interview with Comfort Club
- Camryn Bazan
- 4 days ago
- 10 min read
by Camryn Bazan
San Diego-based indie pop-rock band Comfort Club joined Rainbow City Park and Bloodsugar at Kilowatt Bar in San Francisco on August 20th as part of a multi-stop tour. From their 2024 debut album “Fear of Moving On” to their recent single Til The Day That You Lie released in July 2026, their discography covers relatable experiences in everyday life to the emotional complexity in relationships. Their soft rock sound draws from inspirations such as The 1975, Pinegrove, and John Mayer, matching well with their personable stage presence.
I was able to speak with members Colin Tracey (Guistarist/Singer), Nate Sanders (Drummer), and Tyler Gill(Guistarist/Singer) before the show outside Kilowatt, finding their introspective and welcoming vibes to match their music. Covering their experiences on tour, creative process, and current song fixations, fans new and long-standing can expect to learn the inner workings and all the more on this amazing group.
ECHO MAGAZINE: You’ve mentioned on social media as featuring some cities you’ve yet to play at. Have you guys performed in San Francisco before?
COLIN: Two out of three of us have been to San Francisco one time, and Tyler has never been to San Francisco. We have never played music here, so we will be playing our first notes tonight. Very excited.
How did Comfort Club start?
COLIN: I started it in 2019 by myself. I was just writing songs in my room, thought it was a cool thing to be doing; put out a song that got a little bit of momentum and thought it'd be cool to just keep going with it. I moved to LA for a while, put out some more music, and I was like, this needs to be a band. I eventually found Nate, who plays drums, and after a while we played together for two years on and off. Then I wanted to make this a full-time band, so we needed another guitar player, and he was like I know this guy, Tyler, and then [to Tyler]– you want to tell the part when you joined the band?
TYLER: And then I joined the band.
COLIN: Yep, there you have it. That's the story, and now we're here.
What kind of got you each into music? Was being a musician the end goal?
NATE: So I did like the typical concert band middle school thing that led to marching band drumline, and I just kept on going with it after high school. Started playing with some other people, just jamming. Got more into the jazz stuff, and I started gigging. I'm in Temecula, California, so I just gig all around there. Met Colin, and that helped getting out there more, so I think it is the end goal at this point. I don't think it initially was, but I think it is now.
COLIN: I played guitar a little bit when I was like 12 or 13 and then put it down for a while. When I was 17, I went and saw John Mayer in concert, and that changed my life. I pretty much just wanted to do that every day since then, and that's kind of all I've been doing, so I'm going to stay on that path, I think.
TYLER: Kind of similar to both of you, but yeah, I think when I was a teenager, I was like 13 or so and started playing guitar. I was into a lot of different kinds of heavier music in particular, and then coincidentally, John Mayer for me was the one–I went to a concert of his with my family before I went off to college, and that kind of changed everything. Got really into blues and things kind of changed for me, and then guitar just became my life from that point for sure.
What would you describe as your creative process?
COLIN: I do most of the creative stuff in terms of like writing the songs from the beginning and kind of all the visuals and stuff, but it's been nice because we just started being a full-time band in November of 2025, so now I feel like I have these guys to run stuff by and have creative counsel as opposed to, in the past, I was just kind of like “I hope this is cool and I don't really have anyone to run it by”. Having a band has taken it to the next level and given me the ability to workshop some songs, bring it to them– like for a couple songs on our new album, Nate played drums on them, Tyler played some bass and helped with, honestly, just making sure I don't lose my mind. That was really helpful. Then for the live stuff, it's really cool to bring the songs to them and be like, “How can we make this feel different?,” than the recordings, and that's where I think I have to give Tyler a ton of credit. I feel like you [Tyler] are taking a bunch of guitar lines that I throw at like a recorded song and put them all into one little nice little box.
TYLER: I think Colin and I have different approaches to how we write music from the ground up and I think that his production sensibility– you know there's a lot of different layers. There's a lot of components to songs that when we try to morph them into a performance, there's a lot of moving pieces that I always enjoy the challenge of–that is to find a lot of different things and try to get them into one performance that can be replicated and you can sing with and stuff, so that's been kind of the game for me.
COLIN: That's kind of the direction we're trying to take the band. The recording stuff is great, but I think like we feel a lot more alive and like a lot more magic in the music when we're playing it live as opposed to recording it. Obviously, it's no secret that like Spotify and all that is in its final stages, I feel, of being relevant. I mean, it'll always be there, but it's not for us; it's not worth the squeeze, whereas the live show really feels like we can actually express ourselves as artists and not be compressed from the top down. For sure, I think we're pouring way more into the live show.
On your website, you note certain artists that you draw from. Could you discuss some of your inspirations musically and maybe otherwise non-musically?
NATE: I'd say coming from that kind of jazz concert background, I really got into the jazz drummers, mainly contemporary ones like Nate Smith, Mark Juliana, but at the same time I did get into a lot of different styles of drumming, such as hip-hop and more fusion and that type of stuff. At this point I think I'm really trying to pull influence from everybody and just be as well rounded of a drummer as possible.
TYLER: I'm primarily on my day-to-day just teaching guitar so I have the pleasure of learning a lot of different kinds of music every day, but I think if I were to summarize my journey outside of lessons– I kind of grew up playing metal music and then got really into blues and then pivoted more towards like more progressive math rock as they call it, instrumental kind of sound, so I think ultimately as everybody is, I'm just trying to find something that I feel is me, you know? So it's kind of changed throughout the years.
COLIN: My inspirations are pretty much solely Pinegrove, The 1975, and John Mayer– pretty much where it stops for me. I try to find inspiration in other forms of art, mostly like reading books. I would say it's pretty much just those bands and then reading books.
You recently released in July your single titled Til The Day That You Lie. Can you describe the creation process and inspirations behind the track?
COLIN: We've been working on an album for the last couple years, didn't know it was an album at the beginning– put out like five songs last year, and then I was like, these songs don't really belong together anywhere, so I needed to tie them all together. I wrote another five songs to form an album, and one of those was Til The Day That You Lie. It's the last song on the album, and it was kind of speaking about how I feel I'm a very loyal person in relationships, probably too much so, but if someone lies, if someone loses your trust, that's kind of the end of me being a fiercely loyal person. Not a groundbreaking concept, but I feel like it was cool to kind of cap the album with something like that, and the album is very much about the relationship between someone who's more secure and somebody who's less secure and how that creates way more of a mess. I feel like this song kind of just speaks to all of that in one little package.
Across your whole discography, do you guys have a favorite song and/or lyric?
NATE: Come back to me.
COLIN: [to Nate] Do you know any of it? Do you know any of the names? Yeah, that is kind of hard honestly, even if you're in the band, I feel like it's kind of hard to remember names of songs.
TYLER: I mean I think a lot of my favorites kind of go to how do they how do they feel live, because the songs definitely feel and sound pretty different live than how they were originally recorded and produced, so that changes. I think just on how those songs are feeling live, I think Love a Reason to Hate You has been just really, really fun to play; really good energy live that didn't jump out at me when I was listening to them initially. Lyrically speaking, I think there's, dare I say, brilliance all over the place. Next Birthday, I think, is the most obvious example of some just banger, banger writing.
NATE: Definitely off the “FOMO” album. Try I think is the best song on that album. That's my favorite song.
COLIN: The drums on there are insane too–shout out Jacob Stockman who played drums on that album. He absolutely ripped the drums on that. It's cool when we play live to try and replicate the crazy stuff he was doing. Lyrically, I feel like I kind of come back to Forever Proof a lot because that's the most I've encapsulated this feeling of being in love with somebody who can't love you back, and Try was like that too. I think of those two when I'm chasing that feeling, like if you can hit that emotion–that's the deepest emotion I've ever felt in my life, and I feel that those two songs get close to putting it in words.
TYLER: It's also sometimes tough to listen to some of the songs as well; they can kind of hit close to home, which is just a testament to like good writing, but you're like, damn, thanks, don't surface this right now. I'm just trying to do my job and learn guitar parts.
Has there been a gig that has really stood out to you thus far?
COLIN: I feel like the UK was crazy. Definitely like the most extreme experience I've had in my life. I feel like to go to a different country and play music and have people show up; and then of that, I think Birmingham was probably the craziest one. Just the most energy I've ever really, I think, felt in a crowd. So, that's mine.
NATE: Oh, yeah. Tim coming out and being like, [*in a british accent*] “It's fucking Comfort Club!” And then we get to go on. It was just insane! I mean, even the Manchester show.
COLIN [to Tyler]: How about –well, I guess you don't have that many US shows to pull from.
TYLER: Yeah, I can count on two hands I think the number of shows I've been in so far, but I don't know. They all kind of group together in experiences, I think, for me. Like, Texas was such a cool experience in general. That was the first one I joined. And then playing the hometown show in San Diego recently was very cool. I had my friends and family come out. Going to the UK and meeting everyone out there was just like a surreal thing for all of us, I think. It was a lot. It was tough, transit-wise, and making everything happen. But it was just so successful. It was so much fun.
Rapid fire questions! If you had to perform one cover for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
TYLER: Pass.
NATE: Uh...I don't know– No.1 Party Anthem.
COLIN: I would say Old Friends [by] Pinegrove.
TYLER: Gangnam Style.
Favorite fan/crowd interaction so far?
COLIN: Ooh, there's a video of us playing in Pomona, and Tyler did this [hand hearts] to someone in the crowd, and I didn't see their reaction, but it was cool to me.
NATE: There was a guy, I forget–it might have been one of the Texas shows–but Colin, he said to the crowd, “Hey, hope you guys are having a great time!,” and this dude was like, “Yeah.” It was really, really fun. He throws away his beer [*throws towards ground*]. And Colin was like, after he walked away, “Are you sure?”
If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
COLIN: I would love to know how to play piano. I can't figure it out; I don't have the dexterity.
NATE: Uh, probably bass. Bass.
TYLER: Ocarina. Or drums. I can play drums a little bit, though
What are you listening to right now?
COLIN: Rainbow City Park soundchecking.
NATE: Uh, fuck, come back.
TYLER: I found a few Machine Gun Kelly songs I like, and my band got really mad at me that I played some Machine Gun Kelly in the car.
NATE: Oh, I have one. Radioactive by Imagine Dragons.
TYLER: I'm going Betrayflip, that's my official answer.
Final question! Is there anything coming up or in the works that fans can look forward to?
COLIN: Yes, there are plenty of shows in the works. There is a new song coming probably within a few weeks, maybe four or five weeks. And then there's an album coming towards the end of the year. And just more shows, shows galore. That's pretty much our goal right now. So anything that they should look forward to from you [to Nate] specifically?
NATE: From me? I'm just going to be here the whole time. So if you want to see me, just come out to the show, and I'll be there.
TYLER: I think I’m just looking forward to Nate in general. I think we can all...
COLIN: Look forward to Nate; that's your homework. Thank you for having us over at Comfort Club. See ya!
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