The Cost on Loving Postpunk: "When Girls Break Your Heart, That's When It Starts to Make Sense"

A lot of the credit for new South Florida foursome the Cost's mature sound can be pinned on a cool dad. Band cofounders Manny Roman, its frontman, and bassist Nate Molina were middle-school buddies when they started digging into Molina's father's record collection. A transplant from L.A., the elder Molina was an avid new-wave and postpunk fan during that era, and the future members of the Cost discovered that they too loved those urgent, romantic sounds.  Almost a decade later, after stints playing in half-serious high school bands, Roman and Molina finally found a steady drummer, Danny Calle, and decided to pursue a postpunk sound around late 2010. Slowly but surely, the band has continued to gig around South Florida, improving both its take on the genre and its live performances, to increasingly impressed crowds. The Cost's biggest show to date came just two weekends ago, opening for the Jacuzzi Boys at Churchill's in Miami. 

This Saturday, the group hits the Green Room stage for this month's edition of County Grind Live. We caught up with Roman by phone to chat about Cure posters and recording on Miccosukee land. 


New Times: When and how did the band start?
Manny Roman: The band's always been an idea for a while, before it actually became the band. It was probably three or four years back, right after high school. Nate and I always had the idea of starting a band, but we couldn't find a drummer. Then we found Danny [Calle] and became a three-piece. Now, as a four-piece [with Julian Narravete], we've been together almost a year, pretty soon.

When you were still in high school, it was just an idea. Did you have an idea of the kind of band you wanted to start, or did you just want to start a band in general?
What really inspired us was the music we were listening to, which was mostly what Nate's dad was listening to. He would feed us the Cure, Depeche Mode, very postpunk stuff and very dark. We never sat down and said, "Oh, we want to sound a certain way." We just kind of jammed, and these songs came out, out of nowhere. We're still trying to figure out where they're coming from. But you can hear the songs and pinpoint the influences.



When you first heard that music, what appealed to you or grabbed you first?
Well, at the time, I was listening to a lot of heavy metal -- this was middle-school age, like 13. I remember going into Nate's dad's room, and he had the biggest Cure poster I've ever seen in my life; it took up the whole wall. It was the "Boys Don't Cry" poster, and it was just kind of overwhelming to see it at the moment. And as time went by, I fell in love with the Cure -- which is still the strongest influence by far, for me.

The first time I heard the Cure, actually, I didn't really like it. I thought it was pathetic, because I loved the heavy stuff. But then my point of view started changing.

When did you start coming around?
To be honest, it's when you start learning about heartbreak. When girls break your heart, that's when that music starts to make sense and you get attached to those albums and they speak to you.