C.O.F.F.I.N On New Film, ‘10,000 Miles From Oslo’

Photography by Dougal Gorman.

For the last seven years, across continents and album cycles, I have been photographing Sydney’s most beloved rock and roll band, C.O.F.F.I.N.

Perhaps more importantly though, we’ve become friends, sharing in successes, failures, and thousands upon thousands of headaches. Headaches of the best kind, though - the ones you get from cry laughing, flights at dawn to countries unknown, and foolishly late nights. Quite honestly, I feel that I owe an enormous debt to C.O.F.F.I.N for taking me to the deepest corners of the world - like Oslo, Norway. Which leads me to why we’re here, the new film, 10’000 Miles From Oslo, C.O.F.F.I.N’s latest documentary which premiered for the first time just last night in Melbourne. I wasn’t there, but I will be at the Sydney screenings. Tomorrow is sold out and maybe by the time you read this the Saturday session will be as well, but if you can make it, you should. Cry laughing and a foolishly late nights are guaranteed for both nights. Here’s some questions I wrote on the metro minutes before sitting down with Benjamin Portnoy, the lead singer and drummer of Sydneys very own, C.O.F.F.I.N.

10,000 Miles From Oslo is presented by Up.

What is C.O.F.F.I.N’s connection to Oslo?

Well, there seems to be some kind of underlying Scandinavian connection with the band that sometimes we're aware of and we can explain, and other times makes no sense at all. Obviously starting with the band name: Children of Finland Fighting in Norway. It means nothing, sounds like it does, and that's why we kept it - because it sounds like it means something.

For a few kids from the Northern Beaches of Sydney to come up with a name that references two countries in Scandinavia really doesn't make any sense. We were put on the spot for a band name when we were kids. We would have been listening to Scandinavian metal at the time, like Dimmu Borgir and Burzum and stuff like that. You know, being fascinated, as young metal kids are, in burning churches and that kind of imagery. Over the years, I think connections have slowly shown themselves more and more and developed into some strange link between us and this place that's on the totally opposite end of the world. I think for a few reasons —sonically, there was definitely a big influence from that sort of Scandinavian sound of rock and roll, like Turbonegro. And that combination of good, serious rock and roll mixed in with good humor.

Totally.

When we toured there for the first time in 2023, when you were with us, I started noticing a lot more connections too. Geographically, it's kind of like this isolated space on the other side of the world.

Yeah, it's very similar to Sydney, in a way!

Similar to Sydney, yeah. It's surrounded by water, like Sydney. Its landscape and environment is super intense, like a lot of Australia is. I thought the people were going to be a lot more sort of distant and standoffish, but people were really down to earth.

I remember when we were there, all the locals at the shows were like, "You're finally here! Like, what does the name mean?! They kind of assumed you were from Norway.

Yeah I sort of felt bad that I didn't have a more interesting answer to give them.But I think that's the fun of it, that it's just so uncanny and absurd.

How was your first experience in Oslo? Any highlights? Obviously Neseblod Records and spending time with Tommy from Turbonegro.

Yeah, it was great. It was the last show of the tour, and we booked ourselves an extra day so that we could just experience the place. Which ended up getting another show added to it because that show sold out and they said, "Oh, you're here longer, let's add another show." So we did just that. But yeah, considering we were only there for like two and a half days, we fit in a lot of stuff. Like you said, meeting Tommy, who drums in Turbonegro, and hanging with him and, you know, going and playing Euroboy's guitar at his house - it was crazy.

It was amazing seeing the fjords, and going to those floating saunas that they had in them, and then jumping in the cold water of the fjord. Going to that record shop, of course, is like a definitely got-to-be-done spot on the Oslo list. We didn't get to go to the Pamparius pizza shop because it's a bit out of town, but we'll do that next time. Even just experiencing the climate was really interesting. Playing in Tromso was pretty fascinating because we were much further north, and that was a place where, being summertime, the sun never really set. You're sort of just unintentionally always on a bender.

Yeah we stole paint from a venue to roller a big C.O.F.F.I.N somewhere but it was basically sunlight at 2AM so we diverted to doing it in the depths of a park. I wonder if it’s still there. Anyways! Who did you work on the new record with?

So, this was the first album we have made where we actually had the addition of an official producer, who was our good friend Declan Martens from Amyl and the Sniffers.We recorded it between two studios. The first one being Soundpark Studios in Melbourne, which is owned by one of the co-managers of Amyl and the Sniffers, Andrew Parisi. And then finished it with Jay (Jason Whalley) at his studio, Pet Food Factory, in Sydney. Declan being the main producer and Jay sort of doing his soft producing, which he's always done for us when we've recorded with him—where he kindly helps with vocals and general ideas, and just sort of being a good guide as to whether we should keep trying with something or whether it's good enough to move on. It was really nice to have them both on board because they're two people we are good friends with, but also really trust musically. It was a cool experience. And then we had Tim Maxwell (Grim Rhythm) mix it and Mikey Young mastered it.

If you had to cover one Creedence Clearwater Revival song in every C.O.F.F.I.N set for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Ooh shit that’s a hard one because—

They’re all good!

We were hanging out with Stiff Richards the other month and listened to the whole Creedence catalog, and every single one is a hell track. But, the first ones that come to my mind would have to be "Green River" or "Fortunate Son." But I'm thinking "Fortunate Son" because you've got to pick one that's just going to totally tear the roof off. I feel like as soon as you hear that drumbeat and guitar line come in, you're ready to kick anything into gear. Best believe you’re going to come up and sing it.

If you’re lucky! How long has C.O.F.F.I.N technically been a band?

Well, officially we have been a band for twenty years? Or maybe even twenty one years? It’s twenty one! Twenty first birthday this year, woo! The original members were me, Abijah, Arthur, and Ziggy and yeah unbelievably started twenty one years ago when we were like eleven or twelve years old. We were always mates first, and had such a good time just hanging out, we never had that unfolding happen where you get over each other or get over the style then start a band again with people who are into the exact music you want to start, or a band where you know exactly what you want to do. But we kind of mark the start of us as a band as you know it today being when our first seven-inch came out (On The Gronk), which was recorded with Jay actually.

It’s super cool that Jay has been on the C.O.F.F.I.N train since the start.

Yeah it was nice because he was sort of just starting to record bands, and we heard about that and we were really excited to potentially work with him because we were such fans of Frenzal Rhomb. We really lucked out in finding someone who we wanted to work with from that point onwards. And that's why it was really important for us when making this record to have him involved, because he is such a big part of our story and is such a beneficial sort of person and knowledge to have around.

Yeah it seems like everyone involved in C.O.F.F.I.N is on a personal level before a professional one.

Yeah, it's really helpful for someone to know your sort of individual characteristics a bit when being in a space that's sometimes, you know, vulnerable, or where you're trying new things, or to have someone who you trust can say to you, "That's fucking shit house, do it again," and for you to not take it personally or sort of get thwarted by that.

How did the documentary idea come about?

Abijah and I had always toyed with the idea and fantasised in some ways about making a documentary because, you know, we've always been into band documentaries. Regardless of a documentary, we’ve always documented things on the road. I think mainly just wanting to archive memories of the crazy shit and adventures that have happened whilst playing and touring.

It was our manager Jake Laderman who really got the ball rolling as a nice way of promoting the next record. Being an outsider to the band I think he was really taken by the story of C.O.F.F.I.N - which I think we ourselves weren’t as aware of as people inside of the band. So yeah he bloomed the actual idea and started applying for grants. And in typical grant-applying fashion, we were unsuccessful.

Grant or not, was the band hesitant to make a documentary?

Yeah it was a real tyre deflater. But to Jake's credit, he sort of said, ‘Look, I think I can get this done relatively cheap. I've already done all the work in researching who would do it and how we'd do it. I'm going to just take on funding it myself now, and we'll figure it out later with the money.’ Initially it was meant to be a short piece just promoting the making of the new album, but Jake started discovering this mammoth amount of historic footage that we have accumulated over the years, and it just kept building into this bigger thing. Then we were extremely fortunate to have Up jump on board in the dying moments with the project - who have always supported the likes of yourself, Split System and ourselves on past international tours.

Who was filming back in the day? It's cool that there is so much that you can now use in a documentary years later.

I guess growing up skateboarding and being neighbourhood rascals doing pranks, we always had MiniDV and VX cameras to document that stuff. But then we were also just documenting all the life around us, so there just happened to be this library of footage to pull from for the doco. Filming was just completely communal between mates. We would hand it around like, "I'm going to go do this crazy thing, film it!”. If you look at our music videos today even, the filming credits are three or four different mates that just pointed a camera in the right direction. We’ve always involved our friends and given them a role, and I think that's kind of heavily connected to the DIY spirit of the band.

Yeah and that gives it a really genuine documentation feel to things vs. the fucking forced content that you see these days. It’s not contrived. 

Yeah it’s fascinating because there weren't any social media things around, there was nowhere for the footage to go. It's kind of cool to think back on us doing that without any sort of end goal. These days nothing is given time to grow into its own life. There’s no space to see things in a deeper form than what they are immediately.

Do you think there will be some surprising footage in the documentary that you’ve completely forgotten about?

I mean, I haven't seen the documentary yet. I've decided not to watch it until the night because I don't want to be wigged out by what's in it and influence the story of it. I’ve seen one scene of us all jamming in my room when we’re about twelve or thirteen and one of my mum’s room mates walks in dressed as a Pharos on pingers - and we're asking him all about drugs. Which I forgot about until then. There will definitely be stuff in there that I’m uncomfortable watching for multiple reasons, but mainly the fact that your seeing yourself going through all those cringe years. Like wearing a Suicidal Tendency hat with the brim popped up - things I’ve kept hidden away from my contemporaries. I think that’ll be the most interesting part of it - seeing the human element and the natural evolutions of our lives. You’ll see us from ten years of age all the way to thirty.

You just released a single titled Sleep In It. Can we expect anything off the back of that, and I guess, following the documentary?

Yeah "Sleep In" is the first song from the new album. The album's going to be out in September. Between then, we've got a couple more singles dropping with videos - some of which you’ve kindly helped me work on! We're going to London and Manchester for some doco premieres. We have a few shows sprinkled throughout Australia before a Euro/UK tour in November, which I believe will be starting the day after our show with the Foo Fighters, in Newcastle.

Fuck me, there’s a bit on!

Yeah, then we will tour the new record next year.

A short documentary following C.O.F.F.I.N from their beginnings as teenagers on Sydney’s Northern Beaches to becoming one of Australia’s most respected contemporary rock’n’roll bands. Told through over twenty years of archival footage, interviews, unseen material and life on the road, the film explores how persistence, friendship and the surrounding culture of the Northern Beaches shaped the band’s identity, music and worldview.Debut screenings and live Q&As with the band and filmmakers are happening globally starting June 30th.

For more on Up, head here.