Much like community, music nourishes us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It also invites us to come together under the same roof and in a shared moment. In similar fashion, John Craigie rallies a closeness around music anchored by his expressive and stirring songcraft, emotionally charged vocals, lively soundscapes, and uncontainable spirit. The Portland, OR-based singer, songwriter, and producer invites everyone into this space on his 2024 full-length album, Pagan Church. Following tens of millions of streams, sold out shows everywhere, and praise from Rolling Stone and more, he continues to captivate.

“The music is always evolving and devolving with each new record,” he observes. “With my last album Mermaid Salt, I really wanted to explore the sound of isolation and solitude as everyone was heading inside. With this record, I wanted to record the sound of everyone coming back out.”

In order to capture that, he didn’t go about it alone…

Instead, he joined forces with some local friends. At the time, TK & The Holy Know-Nothings booked a slew of outdoor gigs in Portland and they invited Craigie to sit in for a handful of shows. The musicians instinctively identified an unspoken, yet seamless chemistry with each other. Joined by three of the five members, Craigie cut “Laurie Rolled Me a J” and kickstarted the process. With the full band in tow, they hunkered down in an old schoolhouse TK & The Holy Know-Nothings had converted into a de facto headquarters and studio, and recorded the eleven tracks on Pagan Church.

With two songwriters, six albums, and more than a thousand shows under their belt, The Coffis Brothers have earned their reputation as modern-day torchbearers of all-American rock & roll. It's a sound caught halfway between amplified Americana, acoustic folk, roadhouse R&B, and electrifying roots music, crafted by a pair of California-born siblings who've been sharing the stage since childhood, and the five piece band filled out by their childhood friend, Kyle Poppen on lead guitar, and the rhythm section of Aidan Collins (bass), and Cory Graves (drums).

That sound reaches a new peak with Kaw-fis Bruth-urs. The band's third collaboration with Bay Area legend (and longtime Mother Hips frontman) Tim Bluhm, who serves as the album's producer, Kaw-fis Bruth-urs finds Jamie and Kellen Coffis letting their guard down, enjoying the creative ride as much as the destination itself. For every signature-sounding song like "Cut Right Through" — a heartland rock anthem built for highway drives and long horizons, as sunny as the band's Golden State homeland and as hook-driven as a Tom Petty classic — there's another track that stretches the band's sound into new territory. The result is The Coffis Brothers' widest-ranging album yet, running the gamut from bluesy, blue-eyed soul ("Face the Music") to jangling, harmony-heavy power pop (“Do You Want To").  

"This is what we do, and we're giving ourselves license to evolve and get better at it, too" says Jamie, who was raised in the Santa Cruz Mountains of northern California alongside his mother — a children's musician — and his younger brother. Decades after Jamie and Kellen made their stage debut alongside their mom, singing three-part blood harmonies at a young age, their musical bond has only grown stronger, sharpened by hundreds of live shows as much as their shared DNA. "It's the natural evolution of us performing together and spending so much of our lives together," Kellen adds. "We didn't set out to make anything in one particular direction — we just wanted to make a batch of really great songs."