Bethany Cosentino had her “come to Jerry” moment a bit later in life, especially compared to her indie-rock peers.

“I always said, ‘I don’t get the Dead—it’s too noodly for me. I’m a punk,’” the longtime Best Coast singer/guitarist says. “But my fiancé is a bit older than me and a huge Deadhead. I heard him playing ‘Ship of Fools’ and went, ‘This is gorgeous.’ I started listening to their live stuff, he took me to see Dead & Co., and I experienced the whole culture. I had this awakening. I became one of the people doing dances with my hands and twirling at shows.”

Cosentino’s unexpected entry into the Dead’s universe arrived during a period of profound personal and professional growth for the acclaimed, 36-year-old, Los Angeles-based musician. On Feb. 21, 2020, Best Coast released their fourth LP, Always Tomorrow, which lyrically delved into Cosentino’s newfound sobriety. But, just a few weeks into the group’s support tour, COVID put the kibosh on Best Coast’s ability to promote the project on the road.

“I really started to evaluate my life and asked myself: ‘What is something that I’ve always wanted to do?’” she says. “I felt called to explore a different side of myself artistically and personally. I had outgrown the person that I was. It stemmed from the fact that the world was changing before my eyes, and I realized that nothing in life is guaranteed. I also felt pigeonholed—not just by the public but internally. I was stuck where we started. I kept trying to evolve beyond it, but I kept getting pulled back to what we were in the beginning.”

In 2020, with COVID safety measures still in place, Cosentino started working with producer Carlos de la Garza, who had helped shepherd Always Tomorrow. However, she quickly realized that things didn’t feel different enough and decided to shift course and find someone who could help her dig into the Americana, country-rock and rock-and-roll influences she always held back from bringing to her lo-fi, surfy group. Eventually, that led her to Butch Walker, who Best Coast had considered working with way back in 2013.

“I wasn’t ready to make a super produced, collaborative record back then,” she says. “I was young. I was stubborn. I had a formula. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. But, when I realized that I wanted to make this kind of record, I thought of Butch. I was ready to collaborate differently—to open myself up in new ways and to get out of my comfort zone. He had a foot in the Nashville world, as well as being a pop producer, a genius songwriter and an incredible musician.”

The new collaborators spent much of 2021 and 2022 shaping what would become Cosentino’s solo debut, Natural Disaster. And the resulting set, which was released in July on Concord, not only marks a sonic shift for the singer, but also a lyrical one.

“A lot of it had to do with age and detaching—not being so precious about everything,” she says. “Songwriting is one of the ways, if not the way, that I make sense of the world that I live in. I’m an artist. I’m a sensitive person. I experience very high highs and very low lows. For a long time, I felt like I had to have complete control over every aspect of what I was doing. But being older and trying something I wasn’t used to, I felt like I didn’t have anything to lose. And that part of my ego fell to the wayside. I’m also more in touch with myself now. Particularly as a woman in my mid-30s, I have a different understanding of the world. My priorities and the things that I stress out about are so different from when I was 22. I wanted to make a record that felt like a grown-up version of myself.”

Shortly before Natural Disaster’s release, Cosentino also decided to put Best Coast on ice, formally announcing a hiatus this past May to focus on her solo work.

“It felt like it belonged to Bethany,” she says. “It didn’t feel like it belonged to Best Coast. But I also didn’t want to give a definitive answer on the future of Best Coast. A huge takeaway that I had from the experience that led me to make this album is that life is fragile. You can have all the plans in the world, and the next day everything can change. When I talked about Always Tomorrow, I’d say, ‘There’s always tomorrow to do it again or reevaluate.’ And this record is me looking at life when tomorrow isn’t promised. I’m enjoying living life in this gray zone and allowing myself to breathe in the moment. I’d like to do another solo album but, in five years, I might become a teacher. I have no idea what the future holds.”

So has that new, open-minded mentality led Cosentino deeper into the extended jamband scene?

“My fiancé really tries but, so far, it isn’t for me,” Cosentino says with a laugh, also mentioning that she toyed with covering “Ship of Fools” at some point and has been digging into Bob Weir and Mickey Hart’s solo repertoires. “He’s shown me Goose and they have some really cool songs. I respect it, and I love a community of music-lovers that wants to have an experience and a good time. Who knows? Maybe in my 40s, I’ll become a Phishhead. But for now, I’m just a Deadhead.”