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LAFRO Pairs Two Musical Bears Who Woke Up Together Singing

Written by NetBear on July 30, 2008 – 5:53 am -

It isn’t every day you’ll meet musicians who’ve done a bathhouse steam room tour. Super-diva Bette Midler comes to mind. And like the Divine Miss M, Scott and Waldo, who go by the name LAFRO, combine sweet vocal harmony with wacky, in-your-face comedy.

Take one ex-glam rocker (Scott “Koo-Koo Boy”) and pair him with a devout exhibitionist on guitar (Waldo) who will drop his pants at the drop of a hat. These two have got some crazy/steamy chemistry going on. The wigs, jockstraps and man-skirts will be flying when LAFRO comes to town! But what keeps their audience riveted is their eclectic blend of supremely harmonized music.

LAFRO describes themselves as two musical bears who met on a web site, went to bed and woke up singing. But if you just looked at the photo above you might think they were your average, mild-mannered, folk playing musicians. Umm… Not!

LAFRO likes to dress-up. As you can see, these boys love to flaunt their wigs, ski masks, faux-fur, moo-moos and whatever else they can get their hands on. And as you will see later on, they also like to dress-down.

The group is comprised of Scott Coblio on vocals and husbear Waldo on guitar & vocals. The two of them both lived in New York before moving to Los Angeles. Both of them also performed before they met — Waldo as a soloist and in duos, Scott was in a band for 6 years called Koo-Koo Boy. Scott admits to being pretty glam in his pre-bear days.

The duo writes their own songs and do a mixture of obscure forgotten ones from country, 60s garage rock and beyond. They performed recently in LA at Cafe Europe as well as at Venice Beach. And as our cover photo shows, they especially like to perform without much clothing on.

But they can tell the story a lot easier than I can in part one of this never before seen (if you don’t surf YouTube) video exposé on the world’s only Country/Punk/Pop/Folk duo. These two aren’t afraid to make fun of themselves. The results are hilarious!

What was intended as a quick sex-date, however, became a friendship, a bond, and a musical partnership…

The boys like to incorporate some of their wild friends into their videos, such as in Fist City their drag king friend Daddy Wild plays Scott’s husbear and her real life girlfriend Carmel is the other woman Scott is jealous over.

Here’s a special surprise! Bearotic has an exclusive interview with the boys from LAFRO. We probed hard and deep, grilling Scott mercilessly to learn all their most intimate secrets… Yeah, they loved it. And we did too.

Can you tell us a bit more about how/why you guys perform will little if any clothes on?

Waldo (the one who plays guitar) is a naturalist/nudist/exhibitionist. He takes his clothes off at the first opportunity! He’s never more than 3 beers from being shirtless or a pitcher from full-on nudity. He’s an old hand at being thrown out of bars for it. But they always let him back in! LOL I’m not quite as much of an exhibitionist but it feels good to sing with him when our bodies are close and touching. It turns me on and keeps me from getting stage fright. HA HA

Here’s more of Waldo wearing “Be Brave” written on his back for a party.

How did you guys meet? How long have you been together?

We met online. It was in September 2006. Our birthdays are one day apart — mine is September 19 and his is September 20. That about marks the two-year anniversary point for us since we met a few days after his birthday. His jaw was broken and wired shut from having gotten into a fight! He can be a bad-ass. But I’ve had a calming influence on him… enough to keep him out of jail anyways!

Who are some of your musical influences?

You could call us a cross between Cat Stevens and Nancy Sinatra. Ha ha. I like 60’s rock and 80’s new wave, anything melody driven. Waldo likes Jan Terry, also Indigo Girls & Ricki Lee Jones. He likes funky rhythm-based music too, whereas I’m more white bread and poppy. But we meet in the middle!

Here’s LAFRO channeling Cher at a rehearsal of Southern Cross.

When you are writing a song, where does the inspiration come from?

Waldo’s songs are autobiographical — he tends to sing about the way his experiences make him feel. Mine are more escapist — creating worlds out of my obsessions that I can escape into!

How do you go about writing a new song?

Sometimes it starts with a key phrase that sums up a whole situation or feeling for you, and you write a song around it. For years, I had the title “Vampire Girls” stuck in my head because I thought that’s what they were saying in the TV commercial for “Campfire Girls”. Eventually I wrote the song. Dreams can be a good source too — sometimes you dream you’re writing a song and when you wake up, you still remember part of it. We get some pretty interesting phrases that way! Waldo’s stuff, like I said, is very first person and passionate. But I get a lot of ideas from old movies and I make up little stories from iconic pop culture relics and forgotten things that time has passed by.

Out of all your songs, which one are you most emotionally attached to and why?

Waldo has one called “Run & Hide” that’s very personal and heartfelt for him. He also does a killer version of Nikka Costa’s “Fatherless Child” that can make you cry.

I wrote one called “Manhug” that we’ve worked up an arrangement of that I’m very proud of lyrically. It’s about a straight guy I once knew who was a poet and used to wear T-Shirts saying “Silence Equals Death” etc., and whenever he was drunk he would talk about how we should make out with each other and stuff. But then he would complain if you hugged him too squishily at a party in front of his straight friends! So he was kind of a hypocrite. The gist of the song was “you can withhold all you want from me, but you can’t stop me from ravaging you in my imagination!” It’s kind of immature probably, but it was great fun to be so evil!

Scott & Waldo host HEE HAW, singing another version of Dolly Parton & Porter Wagner’s Holdin’ On To Nothin.

Where do you want to go with your music? OR Where is your music taking you?

We’re not quite sure. It’s like being in white water rapids, only slow ones. Ha Ha. You just get in the boat, do what you want and see where it takes you. Hopefully other people like it too and then a little scene develops. In our case, if the music doesn’t catch them, there’s always the chance that they’ll like our personalities and cozy up to us for some musical Bear-Love interaction!

Do you have a CD or other release in your future?

We are working on the website and anyone who wants to will be able to order our 12-song CD direct ($10) or our 8-song DVD ($10). Until the site is up, interested folks can order it by sending a check or Paypal (username: kookoo at roadrunner.com) to:

You can email me at kookoo at roadrunner.com for more information. Naturally, we encourage sending used socks, obscene fan mail and dirty underwear too. Woof!

You can’t help falling in love with these two crazy guys. With two handsome bears crooning at you, how could you not? And no matter how much they might make fun of themselves or whatever wacky stuff they might wear, it’s LAFRO’s music that keep you coming back for more.

Here’s one of our favorite LAFRO videos, recorded live from the steam baths of Los Angeles, it’s Hang On Sloopy!.

Watch more of LAFRO’s music videos and performances on YouTube.

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