Oddman

Oddman are not the next big thing. In a town with a seemingly continuous succession of next-big-things, and on-the-verge-ofs, Oddman are not interested in being the poster boys for impending fame and success. They aren’t interested in becoming the next big thing simply because, unbeknownst to many (maybe even to themselves) they already are the big thing. The coming week brings the impending release of their first full-length, Hollow Eyes, by far the most polished local album I’ve heard in quite some time. And with their subsequent record-release party — this Thursday at The Brick Works, where they will be the first local headliner in a long time — Oddman will further be cemented at the forefront of the local musical movement.

Although many would be quick to ascribe this to luck, or more nefariously, to jumping on the Ozzfest metal bandwagon, I can assure you the boys in Oddman are no nu-metal trendoids, nor are they coat-tail riders. Their formula for success, both achieved and still coming, is fairly simple: a healthy dose of talent, a little help from their friends, and most of all, hard work and absolute dedication to their music.

On a recent chilly night, the Synthesis sat down with the lads of Oddman — vocalist Scott Wallace, drummer Cayle Hunter, guitarist Matt Pedri, bassist Adam Daley, and guitarist Jai Luna — at their practice space to discuss these and other issues.

Scott: Well, me and Matt and Cayle are friends from way back. I wouldn’t say that we grew up together, but we’re all from Redding, all from the same circle of friends. I consider these guys my best friends. Me and Matt moved to Chico and starting playing in Oddman.

Matt: (diplomatically) The first drummer had, uhh…different interests. So, basically he went somewhere else.

Scott: We had an original bass player by the name of Paul Townsend, who’s a really good friend of ours. He’s more grounded in Chico, a little bit older. So we got him (points at Adam Daley). But, this is ancient history with the band. This formula here is what we consider Oddman; this will never change right here. We’re all really best friends and roommates. This is the core of the band.

Matt: Most of the things we’ve done have been with this group.

Scott: Greg [Tropea, owner / operator of Humboldt Studios] is great, he’s our savior. He gave us a place to practice, and most of our first shows we actually played were at Humboldt Studios, when it was an all-ages venue. But, our first actual really big show was Vanilla Ice at The Brick Works.

Adam: I had been in the band for, like, two weeks.

Scott: It was a lot of fun. We’d never really played any real shows, so to speak, and the next thing you know we’re on stage at The Brick Works, playing with the guy who wrote "Ice, Ice, Baby."

Cayle: Even though Vanilla Ice is kind of a joke, it was still a pretty big show. I’ll tell you what, they were pretty fucking good too; he hired a bunch of great musicians. And once we got that taste in our mouth, we told ourselves, "We’ve got to do this again."

Adam: It also gave people in Chico a taste of Oddman. There’s a lot of die-hard fans that still remember that show.

Scott: This is a bar town. I mean, the draw is pretty much 21 and over. And, even though we’ve had positive reactions from Mr. Lucky — Dave Singletary has been absolutely great to us, if it wasn’t for Mr. Lucky we wouldn’t have played The Brick Works….

Adam: We wouldn’t have a CD right now.

Scott: We wouldn’t even have a CD right now, so I’m not knocking 21-and-over shows. But to get outside that, to explore our demographic, which is more younger kids, really takes an all-ages venue and the only all-ages venue in this town is The Brick Works. I mean The Blue Room is The Blue Room. We’ve heard a lot of good things from the people there, but we’ve never really got a show, and we tried. You can rent out the Epicenter for $300, but you have to draw 70 or 80 people to break even, and without a name, you’re not going to do that in this town.

Adam: Yeah, we’ve played with Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies, Vanilla Ice, Insolence.

Matt: We’ve played there enough times to hopefully build ourselves a draw. Hopefully, the kids that have come out to those shows will come out again for our show.

Scott: We got picked to play at the local stage at the Warped tour, the Ernie Ball stage. Another local band, Hit By A Semi, was also picked to play on the local stage. That was also the same day that we played with Anthrax here in Chico. We ran up to Tahoe the night before, didn’t get any sleep, played the Warped Tour during the day, then came back and played with Anthrax that night. It was a really great experience; we still get a lot of feedback from the Warped Tour show. Not to mention that there was quite a few people that came up from town to the show.

Scott: We all really like Chico. The cost of living is low, the people are great, the small town atmosphere; it’s a neat town.

Adam: There’s just an extreme lack of all-ages venues and that hurts us big time, because we have a lot of high school-aged fans.

Scott: If it wasn’t for Justin at The Brick Works, and Dave Singletary at Mr. Lucky, it would’ve been a lot more difficult to succeed. Not to take away from the fact that we worked very hard to achieve what we have, which isn’t a ton, but we’re definitely proud of it.

Adam: We’re being played on Z-Rock and KFM, which is pretty successful for Chico.

Cayle: I think what it boils down to is that every band comes from somewhere, and if you’re good enough and work hard enough, then you’re gonna get out, and if you don’t, then you’re not. Everybody makes a big deal, " Oh it’s so hard to come out of Chico." It may be harder, but you reach a point where you just got to work harder than everybody else.

Scott: That’s what we try to do. To this point, all we’ve done is the best we can.

Matt: Everybody gets sick of their hometown, or the town that they live in, no matter where it is. Hopefully our music will take us our tour.

Scott: Our goal isn’t to be a successful Chico band, it’s to be a successful band.

Matt: It could be Anderson, or Williams, or any town, but you can’t play that town forever if you want to be successful as a band. We’re just working our ass off to try to get out of town.

Scott: Pus Cavern down in Sacramento, with a guy by the name of Eric Broyhill. We can’t say enough about Eric Broyhill.

Matt: He used to work at a place called Enharmonik, which is basically where the whole Sacramento music scene, like Far and Deftones, recorded. He took on the role of producer, not just like sitting there pushing buttons, but helping us out, messing with our tone.

Cayle: Obviously, you listen to anything that you do on tape and you’re like, "Ah shit, I could’ve done that better." But for the three days that we had, and the money that we spent, we got bang for our buck; we’re way stoked on this recording.

Scott: The reason we decided to do this, is that we were getting good shows and whatnot, but we needed to take the next step: a recording that captured our live sound and our energy. So, we kind of took a chance on Pus Cavern, and it’s the best thing, as a band, we ever did. It’s basically our turning point.

Scott: We were the top-selling CD at the Underground last month.

Matt: That means we beat out the Limp Cock, we beat out Britney, we beat Christina.

Cayle: We’ve sold way more than we ever expected. The fact that people are paying however much to hear us, and in the amount that they are, it’s flattering. We honestly thought we’d sell, like, 10 before the show, and maybe a few after. But, every time I’d go in the Underground, they’d tell us to bring more CDs, and more CDs.

Matt: But the best part of it, is the people who are getting it, are liking it.

Scott: See, that’s the best compliment that any of us could ever get, you know, "Hey, we like your stuff, we listen to it."

Cayle: That was our goal, was to make a CD that we would buy if we weren’t in the band, or if we didn’t know the people. But for us the best part about the recording, as for as having done it, is that people who hear the recording and don’t like it won’t like us, period. It’s not like, "I saw them live and liked them way better then the CD," or vice-versa.

Scott: With a lot of music today, it’s so produced on the CD, that it’s hard to reproduce the live show. The energy is what makes our music.

Scott: One thing that we can say about our music, is that it’s directly from our influences and we absolutely do our own thing. I scream when I do my vocals because that’s what I want to do; that’s my style. Everybody here will say the same thing; everything that they are derives from the core of their musical selves. We’re not trying to be anything that we’re not. Oddman is us. I can say right now, that all of us are very proud about that. We’re not trying to be the next rap-core band, we’re not trying to be the next Korn, we’re not trying to be the next anything.

Matt: We’re not trying to write hits.

Cayle: We don’t think about what people are going to think. If it grooves to us, if it sounds like Oddman, it stays, period. As far as being a metal band, it’s not metal, like you would think. It’s more concentrated on the energy of the music, on the beat, on the groove: getting people to move, getting us to move. Getting us to go off. It’s not about showing off on our instruments, showing that we can play 36 scales in one measure; who gives a fuck? It’s more concentrated on the power of the music itself.

Scott: Will Haven and Shortie. Will Haven is one of our favorite bands of all time. It’s an honor.

Cayle: It’s such an honor to share a stage with a band as good as they are. We listened to their CD for so long before we even contacted them.

Scott: They’re from Sacramento. They’ve toured with the Deftones, Slipknot, Soulfly. Grady, the lead singer for Will Haven, is on the new Soulfly album. We sent them a CD, and they said that they liked it. We told them that we were going to headline at The Brick Works, and that they were the band that we wanted to play with.

Cayle: That’s why it’s important to us, to show that a local band can draw a lot of people and put on a really big show, instead of having to rely on some big national act that comes through. We want to be able to show that a local band can have a following and draw a lot of people. And, if one band can do it, then anybody could do it. This show is a big opportunity.

Matt: If it goes well, it’s going to help every band, but if it goes bad, then it’s going to hurt every band in a way.

Scott: (laughing) Not if they don’t want to.

Cayle: But I’ll tell you right now, if another band in Chico put on a show there, I would go on principle alone.

Scott: It’s about supporting the scene, especially with a show like this. If we have a good release show, Union of the Dead just recorded, a lot of other bands are recording right now, you know; it’s a springboard.

Cayle: I have a lot of confidence in the Chico scene. I think that they’ll be there to support.

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