A Psychedelic Supernova: ISTA on Their New Music, Their New Jersey Debut & More

Has a song ever stopped you dead in your tracks? Is there a song you never knew you needed in your life, but the moment it hits your sense of sound it causes you to turn into Will Ferrell from Step Brothers where you just yell for everyone to “please shut up!” because you need to let this song envelope your soul?

For this writer the song was “Do What Feels Right” by the band ISTA.

On October 26, 2023, a normal work day at my daily grind and 90.5 the Night (Brookdale Community College’s independent radio station) was playing its usual mix of indie delectability and Jersey Shore classics. Then like a wicked fuzzed out groove shattered my morning malaise with the intensity of three Irish coffees. The sound coming off the small Alexa in the office felt like Cake had just done a whole bunch of acid and then decided to to the desert for an all-night bender with Fu Man Chu and created this unfathomably catchy song that bounces around your soul with reckless danceable abandon.

ISTA is a band that is on the cusp of something special. This seven-piece supernova of sound is just scratching the surface of their greatness and it’s only a matter of time before we see this band’s name plastered across all the big festival posters and is that hip band so many of us will regale anyone who’ll listen with the story of how we heard them before anyone else.

Recently, we caught up with Rex Costello (vocals, guitar) and Ollie Hart (guitar) of ISTA to discuss the band’s sojourn from the West Coast to the East Coast, the origin story of their name, working with renowned producer Sam Cohen and so much more. The band is set to play their first show ever in New Jersey (their new home) at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park on Friday June 13th along with Francie Moon and Sun Dog. The show will be for the release of their new single, “Waves.”

So, I hate asking this question but I was really intrigued by the band’s name. I figured it was a cool name, so I did a little research and found out via Google that it’s an acronym for “In Sound to All” — can you confirm if this is true?

Rex Costello: Yeah, it kind of developed out of that. I wouldn’t say it’s why we made it the band name more than it was a word that we liked.

Ollie Hart: It was happenstance.

Let’s talk about this happenstance.

RC: Well, Ollie and I used to have a band called Ecstatic Union.

Definitely heard of that band.

RC: Well, there’s Ecstatic Vision. You’ve probably heard that. Ecstatic Union was a thing where people would be like “Oh, I’ve heard of them!” and they always think, Ecstatic Vision. Even our manager when we first met him was like “I was looking at your stuff and you guys played this and that.” And of course, it was that Ecstatic Vision thing again, which used to happen to us like on tour all the time.

But also that band name didn’t feel right. We were recording a new record with our now producer, Sam Cohen, in Brooklyn in 2019. Working with him  was just like such a new evolution for us — the sounds we were getting and the more collaborative nature of the music as it was evolving. We just felt like a new name was appropriate. Even while we were Ecstatic Union, we were always kind of like mentally masturbating about band names. “What about this one? What about that?” And it was maddening. But we felt the drive — we needed a new band name. Out of what was on this huge list of names [we chose ISTA]. I had called a song that actually I called it “Ista.” It’s funny, it’s actually the name of so many organizations on the Internet.

We were playing in another band at the time during that transition [from Ecstatic Union to ISTA] called Kunzite. During those rehearsals a friend of ours was a part of another ISTTA organization and we just really liked the way that it sounded. Then there was this Pakistani record in the living room where we were all hanging out. It was a Pakistani psychedelic vinyl compilation and I put my hands over the part of the “ista” in it, and it just looked so rad. We were just like — there it is. Also we had Istanbul symbols on the drum kit. I was playing it and our friend came over, and all the rest of the letters had faded out. So he saw the letters “ISTA” and he pointed it out. We just felt like we were getting these signs.

OH: The creation of the ISTA logo came from that Pakistani [lettering] and we edited it a bit. So the inspiration for the first logo was that record.

Earlier you mentioned working with Sam Cohen who has worked with Norah Jones, Shakira, Joseph Arthur, and Bob Weir. He’s also one of the first artists we ever interviewed on Pop Break. How did you come together to work with him? And what wisdom or insight did you take away from the experience of working with such a prolific musician?

RC: Our good friend Augustine (whose birth name is Justin Roloff) used to be in a band called The Anniversary back in the day. They used to tour with Sam’s old band, Apollo Sunshine. Justin is one of our really close friends and he actually was in the other band, Kunzite, that Ollie and I were playing in. We were moving the project (Ecstatic Union) out to New York. Ollie and I were starting our tours in New York and going back West from there. I don’t remember how it came up with Augustine other than that he was like, “Oh, Sam is in New York now like you got to get together.”

Oh, you know what happened. Actually I was served. “Let the Mountain Come to You” the Sam Cohen track on my Spotify in like 2018. I was just like “this is fantastic” and I listened to it a bunch and I got into the whole record [Cool It]. I was listening to it all the time and [eventually] I saw “similar artists” [on Spotify] and Apollo Sunshine was right there at the top.

I was like, “That’s a familiar name […] doesn’t Augustine know those guys or something?” [So I reached out to Augustine and asked] “Do you know who Sam Cohen is?” His  text was like “Yeah he’s from Apollo Sunshine. Oh, you guys are in New York now, and Sam’s in New York. You guys should connect.” I think he just gave me [Sam’s] email and Augustine said “Tell him I sent you.” Also our friend Jim Valentine in Austin, who has Coil Audio — they make really cool handmade pre-amplifiers, they’re close with him.

So I just kind of was like, “Hey, I’m friends with Jim Valentine and Justin Roloff’s, and we’d love to work with you that they gave us your contact.” [Sam] said anyone who’s friend of Justin and Jim’s are friends of mine like. We met up with him when his studio was in DUMBO [section of Brooklyn] in the beginning of 2019 before an Ecstatic Union tour. We pumped out two songs in two and a half days.

That was when everything started to change. [We thought] these were the next beginnings of the next Ecstatic Union album. And then, as we kept recording with him, we’re like …  this is its own thing. I wanted to relieve myself of the guitar. Really, the more we were playing live as Ecstatic Union, the more it was clear to me that I wanted to be more freed up and like to move and express myself physically. So the iteration of the new band [ISTA] was starting from there. Working with Sam felt so good, sonically, it was so fresh. There was a really nice challenge edge there. He’d be like “Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we mix it up? Why don’t we try this? Why don’t we move this here? What if we cut that down there?” It was the first for us to be really working with a producer.

We worked with our close friend Thomas [Dolas], who plays with The Oh Sees. We’re all friends from high school, and we did an Ecstatic Union album with him. It was like semi-producing [because] it was a lot more — “Okay, let’s do that! Okay, that sounds fun!” Whereas working with Sam was more collaboration. If I’m getting in my head too much, he’s like, “Why don’t you pass Ollie the guitar?” I’m like duh! Just getting me out of my own [way] when I get like one-track minded. He pretty quickly just started writing the bass parts for the songs, too and we just told him to cover it. We went from multi-tracking like piece by piece [but with Sam] we started just tracking with Sam altogether. So Sam on bass, Evan [Eubanks] on drums, me and Ollie playing guitar and getting all of our basics as a band together.

[Sam] revolutionized our experience of recording all around. There’s these nice tension points too. We might get stuck somewhere, and it might get frustrating and we might need to just go get a snack or take a break, or just pivot. There’s a really creative and dynamic balance of tension and release with Sam, that really revolutionized our process. He’s just such a joy to work with. Now we work with him at Slow Fawn which is his family property.

OH: The recording difference was a shift from going from underground in DUMBO to this property in Upstate New York. It’s a totally different experience recording which I feel influences and lends itself to the music we’re making now up there.