Before the O.A.R. concert last Thursday night, the popular band took some time to sit and chat with The Quad about their music, up-coming plans, and life in general. Q: There are so many young college bands out there trying to establish a grassroots fan base. This is something that you guys accomplished from the very begin. How and why do you think this happened?
A: A lot of things worked in our favor. Fans were able to access our music through the Internet, which a couple years ago people weren’t able to find out about bands on there. It helped us tremendously. When we were in school, (at Ohio State), we weren’t able to travel across the country, but our music was able to. I think it is just a combination of just how accessible music is these days, and [the devotion of] our core audience – spreading by word of mouth, coming to shows, trading music – stuff like that.
Q: In response to that, how do you feel about the Internet music trade? A lot of artists are completely against it. However, it really influenced your bands popularity, so are you in favor of it because of this, or against it because of its negative effects on the industry?
A: I think we’re kind of on the fence about it because we’ve seen it hurt a lot of bands. For the entertainment industry in general, I think that it will definitely change the way things are done because of all of this. But you know, we don’t want to say anything like that because we see it on both sides, putting the positive against the negative. For us, the people found out about the music, and then came back and supported the band by buying the CDs. But it is illegal, and does hurt people. This is our job, to spend hours of time, money and energy on putting the entire package together, even down to the artwork, and we want you to see all that.
Q: Were there any negative reactions from your original grass-roots fanbase when you made the decision to sign with a major record label?
A: I don think there were any negative reactions. They had their questions as to why we were doing it, and how it was going to be and all that, but you know I think there were more just showing us that they cared about what we’re doing. Before we made the merge, we let everybody know in our fan community online, and pretty much put it out there to answer questions before it went down. I mean there are always going to be those people who blame you for “selling out,” but, I mean, we want people to hear our music and we have been doing this independently for six years. It was at a point where it made sense to change. We are also still working with our independent label along with Lava, giving us the best of both worlds.
Q: What sort of things can fans expect to see/hear from you guys in the future?
A: This summer we get to play six shows with the Dave Matthews Band. It’s a huge radio-sponsored event. We’re all so excited about it; they’re an amazing band and it’s really a dream come true. I think the reality of it hasn’t really even set in yet. We’re also going to be headlining a tour with a few other bands, as well as putting out a live double disc with DVD footage. We’re going to be playing, writing tons of music, probably heading back to the studio in the winter. Just the basics, touring and putting out music.
Finally, the interview concluded with a set of the “Quick 5” questions.
Favorite Movie: “Goonies,” “Star Wars.”
Favorite Food: lasagna, sushi
Soomething thing you can’t live without: music, love….no, just kidding, music.
Meet anyone dead or alive: John Bonom.
What do you think of WCU:
Oh it’s the best place we’ve ever played! We do know that this show sold out so fast. We’ve been looking at it for weeks on our roster and we’re like, “what is going on at the school? We can’t wait to play there!”