Bethany Sharayah Cosentino (born November 3, 1986, in Los Angeles) is an American singer and songwriter. She is best known as one half of the indie rock duo Best Coast alongside Bobb Bruno. Cosentino also cofounded the hypnagogic pop band Pocahaunted in 2006, before leaving in 2010. She released her solo debut album, Natural Disaster, in 2023.
Biography
Early life and Pocahaunted
Bethany Sharayah Cosentino was born on November 3, 1986, in Los Angeles, California. Her middle name was taken from the song of the same name by Amy Grant. She is of half-Italian descent. Her father was a musician who toured with bands including War and Ambrosia, and her mother was an actor in commercials. Her father was also the worship leader at their church, and Cosentino started singing with the church's choir. Seeing her mother's commercial work inspired her to do the same as a child actor.
When asked about what music spoke to her in her youth, Cosentino mentioned Linda Ronstadt, Rilo Kiley, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell, Gwen Stefani, and No Doubt. At age seventeen, she started posting original noise music to MySpace under the name Bethany Sharayah. That music got significant attention online, with major record labels trying to sign her which she rejected. She left high school early after passing the California High School Proficiency Exam and attended a community college.
In 2006, Cosentino and Amanda Brown cofounded Pocahaunted, a hypnagogic pop duo, in Los Angeles. The two issued over 25 releases in three years, and supported Sonic Youth for a concert in Berkeley, California, in 2007. In 2010, Cosentino left Pocahaunted and moved to New York to study creative writing at The New School. While in New York, she worked an internship for the music publication The Fader.
Best Coast
Solo
On October 7, 2014, Weezer released their ninth studio album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End. Cosentino featured on the album in a duet with Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo on the song "Go Away". On July 24, 2015, the band released a music video for "Go Away", directed by Brendan Walter and Greg Yagolnitzer, in which Cuomo plays a man trying to win back the affection of his ex-girlfriend played by Cosentino.
On November 3, 2017, Billboard published an op-ed written by Cosentino about sexual assault in the entertainment industry, just a month after film producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault in an article in the New York Times, launching the MeToo movement of sex crime and sexual harassment victims publicizing their experiences. In the piece, Cosentino called Weinstein "The Man With Power Who Abuses It", and discussed how men like that are "in colleges, at Halloween parties, at car washes, in grocery stores — they're everywhere." She described her own experiences with sexual assault, both from a family member as a child and from a man she employed as an adult. She concluded the piece by saying "If 2016 was the year we elected a grabber-in-chief" – a reference to the allegations against then-President of the United States Donald Trump – "consider 2017 the year of male consequence." The piece also made reference to allegations against fellow indie rock musician Matt Mondanile. Cosentino had previously appeared on The Daily Show in 2016 to discuss sexual assault in the music industry after Dirty Projectors' Amber Coffman and other women publicly accused publicist Heathcliff Berru of sexual misconduct, which Cosentino had responded to supportively.
On May 14, 2018, Cosentino released a single, "Jerry (Maybe We Should Get Married)" which was a collaboration with songwriter Nick Lutsko and parody Twitter account @Seinfeld2000. The song, released by the company Super Deluxe, features Cosentino singing from the perspective of Seinfeld character Elaine Benes.<ref name="Seinfeld song">{ { Cite news |last=Yoo |first=Noah |date=May 14, 2018 |title=Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino Sings as Seinfeld'''s Elaine in New Song |work=Pitchfork |url=https://pitchfork.com/news/best-coasts-bethany-cosentino-sings-as-seinfelds-elaine-in-new-song-listen/ |access-date=August 7, 2023}}</ref>
On March 25, 2020, Cosentino debuted her weekly radio show Bethline, livestreamed on Best Coast's YouTube channel. The first episode's featured guest was Mannequin Pussy's Marisa Dabice. Subsequent guests of the show included Sleigh Bells' Alexis Krauss, Paramore's Hayley Williams, Vanessa Carlton, Soccer Mommy, and Fred Savage. As of May 2020, the show was on hiatus.