Work Hard, Play Harder

Many aspects distinguish Oddman from other bands in Chico's vast music scene, but determination and drive are the forces that cause them to float to the top as the cream of Chico's crop. In my relatively short tenure as a music journalist (I use the term lightly) I've found that the most prevalent pitfall of local bands is their inability to set and achieve realistic goals to further their musical exploits. With a handful of California tours and two full-length albums under their belt, Oddman have been diligently chipping away at that concrete wall that separates prominent local bands from noteworthy regional acts. After catching one of their shows and listening to their forthcoming release, It Al Starts Here, it's not difficult to see why.
With their second CD release occurring exactly one year and one day from the release of their debut Hollow Eyes, the band has been hard at work to say the least. Between practicing seven nights a week, time-demanding work schedules and the seemingly constant tours with Sacramento's Will Haven, it was surprising that The Synthesis was able to score an interview with the entire group. Drummer Cayle Hunter, bassist Adam Daley, guitarist Matt Pedri, vocalist Scott Wallace, and recent addition Justin Godfrey (who they call 'The Kid') on guitar all sat down and wiped the sleep from their eyes for a morning chat session about their good fortune, the creation of It All Starts Here and the impending CD release show to be held Thursday the 7th of February at The Brick Works with none other than…Will Haven.

So what's up with you and Will Haven? Are you guys all sleeping together, is there some weird love bond between you?
Band: (laughter intermixed with various affirmations of love)

You guys have gone on tour together how many times now?
Cayle: This will be our third. Each one's got longer.
Adam: We just really respect them as musicians, they're one of the bands that we look up to. We were so stoked when they said that they'd play with us, we just became friends after that.
Cayle: I think as far as musically, we get pegged a lot in the same ways. Like, we get pegged as a hardcore band or a metal band. We're somewhere in between and so are they, so we kinda can communicate as far as where we are musically and how we get portrayed to the public.
Matt: Will Haven and Oddman are the exact same kind of music but there's no name for it. Hardcore / metal, metalcore, nü-metal, whatever - we're the same thing and there's no name for it. It's somewhere between metal and hardcore.

What's the difference between hardcore and metal besides the style of dress?
Matt and Cayle: Ask the hardcore kids.
Scott: That's the whole problem. My vocals would put us in a certain genre, and with that genre comes a whole scene, comes a whole idea or whatever. We don't have any interests in any ideas or anything like that. We just want to play. The way we play I guess you could call hardcore but our attitudes are not like that.

So how have you guys evolved since your last CD?
Matt: I think we're more mature, we're just trying to progress forward professionally and musically. We're becoming better players and we try and take it more seriously every day, putting more and more time into it.
Cayle: I would say that musically, this CD is like our last CD times ten. Every part, every aspect of this CD is better. The overall sound, the tone is better. Everybody's better at their instrument…
Matt: Every time we write a new song it's better than the last one. One of our positives as a band is we have not reached our peak yet and everything we do will continue to increase, every aspect of the band.

What do you attribute this to?
Matt: Hard work, desire, we really want to do this. The last CD, we basically recorded songs that we'd been playing for the last year or more. This time we sat down and wrote an album and recorded it at our house here, each song two or three times and (Scott got) a CD with all the music to work on for a few months, basically rough mixes with all the demos on it, and then we showed up at the studio and did it all professionally. We were much more prepared, we thought it out.
Justin: I listened to the old one and [on] this one everything sounds a lot better. The riffs are a lot more complicated…

You guys recorded at The Pus Cavern with the same producer again?
Matt: He (Eric Broyhill) played a much bigger active role in producing it this time too, helped us out a lot. He actually thought of a couple parts too.
Scott: Eric's job isn't exactly to help the band - he's supposed to be there as the engineer. If you ask for help he gives it to you but it's not his job. We were very lucky. I honestly do not think we would have found someone like him, he dug our style, he dug our vibe. We very much value his opinion, we just connected. We got extremely lucky with Eric.
Cayle: We just did three days. It was really nice, everybody at Pus Cavern kicks ass. They let us stay overnight after we were done recording. We'd play and then sleep there in the studio and wake up and start recording, then the next day do the same thing. It was totally cool 'cause they don't have to do that, they went out of their way to accommodate us.

How was this recording session different from the last one?
Cayle: We played to a click track and we didn't do that on the last one. I think that helped us because I'm not a perfect drummer, I don't have the best timing in my head. I think I'm pretty good until I start playing along with a click track and then it's a lot harder.
Scott: I'm pretty shy when it comes to that singing thing and I really have to psych myself up, then I really go off. This time I just learned to channel my aggression so I didn't have to bellow all the time, I can put it somewhere else. The last album tended to [sound] like one track blended together mostly because each song started with me going 100 percent. This one I wanted to be a whole lot more dynamic while keeping the aggression.

What's the biggest difference performing live versus in the studio?
Scott: All the protective things you use on stage, all the masks and whatnot you can hide behind, you don't have in the studio. You're not holding a mic. The band's not sitting behind you, it's not like some big energy thing, it's all you. You have to get into it yourself.
Cayle: When you're playing in front of any people, even if it's like ten people, it's easy to get that adrenaline going, get excited and go balls out. There's no energy coming back to you, it's strictly the energy that you put out. That's what gets caught on tape.

Do you ever feel that your music is kinda one-sided emotionally, always aggressive?
Cayle: We love heavy music, and we put all our feelings, the whole range of emotions into that context. You can take it so far one way and so far the other way but we all just put the happiness and sadness and the anger, and excitement or whatever, put them all into one energy. It comes across to people as devil music or whatever 'cause it's heavy, but they just don't understand where we're coming from. That's cool, we didn't make the album so they could understand it.
Scott: Because I scream doesn't necessarily mean it's a negative emotion, it's just how I vent, I mean it's very therapeutic. After I'm done I feel extremely good.
Cayle: If you're not into heavier music so to speak, it's easier to watch than it is to listen to 'cause you can respect a musician that's going off to their music no matter what style they're playing. If they're feeling it, anybody in the crowd will feel it, they can just tell that you just love what you're doing, that just radiates off stage.
Scott: I think that's how we win over most fans, capitalizing off our live show. Putting that energy out live, giving 110 percent on stage, then people want to see how it comes out on CD.

You practice and play so much [and three members live together]. Aren't you guys sick of each other yet?
A round of 'fuck yeahs' and laughter.
Adam: We can't get sick of each other; we're all really good friends.
Matt: We're going to be in a van together for two weeks straight.
Cayle: We're driving 20 hours in one day, right after Vegas.
Scott: If you're sick of each other in the van, it will come out.

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