We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Austin Cooper a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Austin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

There’s one specific No Lungs song called “New Devil” that I think is misunderstood and completely understood at the same time. The song is about a manipulative person taking advantage of a girl who she sees as her lover. The lyrics are in first person from this manipulator’s perspective. There’s a line mentioning Galahad, who was a knight at the round table known for being chivalrous, just asserting how his lover sees him as a perfect man, but he is empty and using her. The most memorable line is one that says “I’m the Devil and you’re a sinner, I eat girls like you for dinner.” Again, it’s just alluding to this guy’s manipulative ways. I think this is what people understand.

What I don’t think everyone understands is the fact that this song isn’t about me. Since this song is in the first person and I am the one singing it, it’s easy for a listener to think I am talking about something autobiographical. The truth is, I didn’t write it about myself. It’s just written as a story, but one that I’m sure is prevalent in many people’s lives. It’s an evil song.

There isn’t any real insight I took from this. I actually assumed it’d be taken in this context, and playing it live sometimes makes me nervous.

Austin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Austin Cooper and I play in an alternative rock band called No Lungs. No Lungs is a project I started in 2018. I record everything myself, and I self-released four full-length records. I got a couple friends to help me play these songs live, and we perform around Arizona frequently. In March, we’re heading off on our second regional tour. It’s called No Lungs Tour IRL and it’ll take us up the west coast and down through Utah and Colorado. Tickets are available at nolungs.com.

We’re also in the works of planning a special show here in the valley where we’ll be performing the fourth record, titled ‘What You Didn’t Want to Happen Is Happening Right Now’, in its entirety. More info will be up at nolungs.com or our socials (@nolungsaz is the username on everything except Facebook, which is @nolungsisdead

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I first started No Lungs, it was my first band where I was the leader. I was the sole member so I had to wear all the hats, and even with a band that jams with me in the live setting, I still wear most of the hats by choice. I wasn’t quite sure how to build an audience, so I started on Instagram and just searched up the tags of bands I thought I sounded like, then I followed everyone who had a post with that tag. I know it’s an annoying way to go about it, and I even uploaded a video introducing myself and letting people know I understood why it was annoying. I think it was that transparency that started to attract people to my socials. I’d have an app that I’d use to unfollow people who didn’t follow back. I also made sure to follow back people who were following me. Am I doing social media right? Definitely not. The advice? Don’t follow my advice.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Non-creatives don’t understand that success isn’t black and white. It’s a whole lotta grey. So many people ask me if No Lungs is signing to a major label, or prefacing comments like “When you get famous…” blahblahblah. It’s annoying and sometimes puts unneeded pressure on me. Who said I even wanted to be famous? Who said I wanted to sign to a major label? Most artists who sign to major labels get dropped if they don’t recoup their advances, and major labels implemented the 360 deal, which takes money from not only the artist’s record sales, but merch, live shows, and everything else. Signing to a label/getting famous may be the definition of success to some people, but definitely not all. Most of the time the people who base success on being famous are in it for the wrong reasons.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nolungs.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/nolungsaz
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/nolungsisdead
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/nolungsaz
• Other: www.nolungs.bandcamp.com

Image Credits
River Kocur, JP Silva, Mars