Intension: The Grief Catalyst and the Sound of Connection

© Ellen Arden

Words and Photos by Ellen Arden

By the time Intension takes the stage at Athentic Brewing Company during Normaltown Music Festival, the brewery is already loud with movement. Bands and festivalgoers weave between merch tables and seating areas while gear gets shuffled across the floor between sets. Tonight, Intension is down a member tonight due to illness, something the band mentions casually backstage before the set. It doesn’t seem to shake them much. If anything, it sharpens the atmosphere around them. There’s a looseness to the conversation before they play — jokes, overlapping answers, and a chemistry that only comes from time spent playing together — but underneath it all is something much heavier. Something deeply tied to their community, grief, and the way music becomes a vehicle for carrying both.

“We’re all homeschooled,” Zach Coffman says while explaining the band’s origins. The group first met through Summit Academy, a homeschool co-op outside Atlanta, before gradually turning shared musical interests into something more serious. Early versions of Intension shifted through multiple iterations before eventually settling into its current configuration: Zach Coffman on vocals and guitar, Anthony Robinson on guitar and vocals, Sam Coffman on drums, and Tristan Hogsed on bass.

The earliest material started with covers before evolving into original songs stitched together from wildly different influences. Robinson points toward thrash metal staples like Metallica and guitarist Marty Friedman, while Zach references Tool, Jane's Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins, and Silverchair as foundational to his playing style. The result is a sound the band loosely describes as a collision of shoegaze, grunge, alternative rock, Southern rock, and metal elements.

© JuelZ Productions

But what holds those influences together is less technical and more emotional. Nearly each of their answers eventually circle back toward feeling — how music transfers emotion between people, how songs become containers for grief, or how performance itself can act as release.

“A lot of my inspiration comes from the passing of my older brother,” Zach says. His brother, Christopher, helped form the earliest iteration of Intension and taught him guitar before later stepping away from the band to pursue his career. Christopher Coffman passed away on August 6th, 2022, as the result of a car accident. The loss runs deep through the group’s writing process. “I try to write music that is very relatable to people who struggle with grief or depression; that’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from,” Zach explains. “Music is a sublimation of just how we’re feeling, trying to transfer it to the listener. You know, I have a story to tell, and I want people to kind of feel exactly how I was feeling when I was writing something. So that’s a very big part of our songwriting process,” Robinson notes.

The philosophy of music of something as a shared experience rather than individually possessed seems embedded into the way Intension operates as a whole. Songs rarely belong to one person for long. Ideas are pitched, reshaped, and pulled apart collaboratively until they feel like they belong to the band rather than the individual who initially brought them to the table.

That balance between differing influences and shared intention shows up in the band’s approach to their gear. Robinson embraces modern digital modeling systems — Behringer, BOSS gear, and Electro Harmonix, and software-driven flexibility. Zach prefers the opposite approach entirely — tube amplifiers, physical pedalboards, and analog unpredictability, opting for a Marshall JCM 800 with a Friedman BE-OD pedal, and a 90’s Big Muff pedal often noted by audiophiles as being the signature sound behind Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. “Nothing digital — at least that I have found — has been able to replicate the rawness,” Zach says. Drummer Samuel Kaufman approaches things more pragmatically. His Pearl Export kit was acquired through a guitar trade, but for him, the setup matters less than the feel behind it. “A drum kit's always gonna sound good if you tune it right,” he says. Meanwhile, bassist Tristan Hogsed leans fully into the digital side of things, running his ESP LTD six-string bass through a Fractal AM4 setup which emulates an Ampeg SVT, in addition to an emulated SansAmp bass driver— a configuration that lets him approach the instrument less like a traditional bass and more like an extension of the band’s layered guitar work.

Intension sits somewhere between both Athens and Atlanta geographically — practicing out of Monroe while members are scattered across surrounding areas — they speak about the scenes almost interchangeably, less interested in territorial identity than participation itself. Robinson describes Athens crowds as younger and more exploratory, while Atlanta offers broader stylistic diversity. But for Zach, the larger appeal of both scenes is the sense of acceptance he found within them after growing up relatively isolated.

“So I didn't have a really big view of what was outside of like Monroe, right? So then when we started playing music and getting involved in the Atlanta scene, I just started seeing that there are different communities in different parts of Georgia and when I found this music scene, I mean, it was just that missing piece that I needed to find. The way that they have been so supportive to us has been so beautiful,” he says.

That perspective explains why Intension talks about community as an obligation. Zach mentions going to multiple local shows every week simply to support other bands. Robinson talks about “hole-in-the-wall venues” as the places “where the real music is at.” The band repeatedly returns to the idea that local scenes survive because people continue showing up for each other.

© JuelZ Productions

And that mindset eventually led them to create CRC Fest — an annual festival organized by the band that doubled as both a fundraiser and release show while supporting local nonprofits, artists, and vendors. CRC Fest took months of planning and introduced the band to the less glamorous realities of organizing DIY events: insurance, logistics, portable bathrooms, budgeting, and stress compressed into the final week before doors opened.

But the emotional core of the festival sat elsewhere. CRC stood for Christopher Rist Coffman — Zach’s late brother — and the festival became a way to transform grief into something communal and shared rather than private.

“It was kind of like our way to give back to the community in a way they’ve given back to us,” Zach says.

The first annual CRC Fest was held October 4th, 2025 at Atlanta Utility Works.

When he talks about the event now, he still becomes visibly emotional describing it. The festival acted as both a memorial and transition point — a way of closing one chapter of the band while making space for whatever comes next. “I’m terrible with my words,” he says. “The only way I can get these feelings out is either through lyrics, music, or just pure emotion and energy on stage.”

That energy becomes obvious once Intension finally takes the stage at Normaltown. The room shifts immediately. The crowd huddles in together, bodies pushing against each other in uneven waves while lyrics get shouted back toward the stage. Watching the room inside Athentic Brewing erupt during their set was a reaction that suddenly made complete sense.

WHAT IS NEXT FOR INTENSION —

With new music already underway, recorded largely through DIY methods between home studios and basement setups — Intension mentions wanting to expand beyond Georgia, touring the East Coast, growing their audience, moving into larger venues. But even while discussing their growth and trajectory, they continue framing their successes around carrying the community outward with them.

“We really want to break out of the Atlanta scene, so we can kind of bring it with us,” Zach explains.

And that might be the clearest way to understand Intension as a band. Not as a group trying to escape or outgrow the local scene, but as one trying to preserve the shared human experiences that brought them there in the first place — grief, depression, belonging, and the need to feel connected to the people around you.

Upcoming shows for Intension include; opening for Cold at The Masquerade on May 24th, followed by a short Southeast run alongside Neutral Snap and Frigga Five with stops at Brass Coyote in Savannah on June 4th, 40 Watt Club in Athens on June 5th, The Ruins in Atlanta on June 6th, and The End in Nashville on June 7th.

For more information and/or to purchase tickets visit www.intensionband.com.

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CREDITS :

Interview: Trudie Storck
Editing: Tyler Brune
Additional Photography : JuelZ Productions
© FrequencyATL