Jason Schwartzman announces return of Coconut Records
American actor and Wes Anderson collaborator Jason Schwartzman is returning to his musical moniker, Coconut Records, after a 13-year absence.
Schwartzman first released music under the guise of Coconut Records in 2007, the same year he shared his debut album, Nighttiming. Two years later, Schwartzman followed up his first LP with Davy, and the most recent Coconut Records project was a soundtrack for the 2012 movie, Goats.
Since then, Schwartzman has focussed on his acting career, appearing in projects by his longtime collaborator Anderson such as The French Dispatch, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Asteroid City. Meanwhile, in 2024, his movies included The Last Showgirl, Queer and Megalopolis.
However, he’s now launched an official account for Coconut Records on TikTok and has already uploaded a host of material to the site which features his musical accomplice Ben Kweller. In the second video, the pair were seen “writing new Coconut Records on FaceTime” and the caption featured the hashtags “#newalbum, #newmusic and #songwritingprocess”.
Additionally, another image uploaded to TikTok captured the duo in the studio together along with the message to viewers, “Me and my friend Ben are writing and recording and we learned that if we get 1,000 followers we will be able to go live on TikTok so please tell your friends so we can turn on the camz when we make the jamz.”
During an interview with the Radio Times last year, Schwartzman discussed his ambitions to return to music, revealing he was “gonna make a new album” in the near future.
He explained: “I’ve been sitting on a bunch of songs for a long time, and I don’t know, I was kind of in a rut. I was like, I don’t know if I should ever make these again. I’m not going to do this.”
The actor also explained that it was down to reuniting with Kweller that his lust to make music was revived, adding, “It was just like Carol in the movie (Between The Temples). So he’s going to make a record with me, but that’s an example of a person coming into your life. I don’t think I would have made another album, maybe, if I hadn’t connected with Ben right now. Like, it awakened something.”
