Under the Gun Review

UTG INTERVIEW: Over The Ocean

April 3rd, 2013 Anthony Galasso

Under The Gun Review is proud to bring you this exclusive interview from Jesse Hill, lead vocalist of Norfolk, Virginia’s Over The Ocean.

With one Spartan Records release under their belt and their sophomore effort Be Given To The Soil on its way, this group is set to continue delivering their original brand of ambient creativity to the rest of the country and beyond.

Click through the jump to read the interview as well as stream the band’s new single off of Be Given To The Soil, “Riverbed”. 

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First, how did your band originate? What brought the five of you together?

This is a pretty boring story. Whittle and I were jamming at a friend’s house for a bit, Whittle said we should start a band, and we brought Nate on. After a bit, we needed a bass player, and went to the coffee shop where Ben was working and asked if he wanted to join us. I hadn’t heard him play bass in at least five years, and I had no idea if he even did it anymore, and he had no idea what we sounded like, but he hopped on. Bogart joined us when Nate left to go to school in California, and when Nate came back a year later, he jumped back in, making us a five piece.

I love your band name. I’m a fan of all things “nautical”. Where did the inspiration for Over The Ocean come from?

We argued about names forever. Each of us championed our own stupid ideas, and one day speculation began to spread that Nate might quit if we didn’t just pick something. So, we went with Over the Ocean, which is the name of a really beautiful song by Low.

Can you describe your sound? What genre do you feel you guys fit in with? There seem to be a lot of influences, but I can’t quite pick them apart…which may be what you’re going for.

I have a hard time describing our sound, I think mostly because I’m too close to it. I’d like to think of us as somewhere between Deftones, Bjork, and Wovenhand, but that’s probably just wishful thinking.

As far as genre, we have played with a lot of post-rock bands, which has always seemed to be a good fit, despite the fact that we don’t really (in my mind, anyway) sound like a lot of those bands. Someone described us as a sort of prog rock band, which I had not thought of before, but kind of makes sense to me.

The fact that you hear a lot of influences probably comes from the fact that we have a lot of influences. The five of us in the band all have fairly different listening habits, which I think has helped us create a sound that is hard to pin down. If we all listened to the same music, we would likely have a much more identifiable sound.

You guys seem to have come out of nowhere. I’ve been jamming Paper House on Spotify ever since a friend of mine recommended you to me on Facebook. What’s it been like to see a bit of the limelight?

Thanks for listening! It always means a lot to hear that from people. Seriously.

Are we in the limelight? It’s so hard to tell what’s what in the age of the internet. Right now is a really great time to be making music in the sense that people around the world can effortlessly share interesting music with their friends, but it’s also difficult to know how to turn that into something. Apparently we have gotten a lot of spins on Spotify, but I don’t know how to transition people from Spotify to to Facebook, or better yet to shows.

How are the dudes at Spartan Records treating you? John Frazier seems like a pretty awesome guy.

John is great.  We were connected to him through our friends in the band MAE, and he has been really helpful. We know how to play music, but we don’t really know how to get our music out there for people to actually hear, and John is great at that stuff. Spartan is still in the beginning stages, and I’m really excited to see where John takes it.

Tell me a bit about Be Given To The Soil. It’s been two years since you released Paper House, did any band dynamics change between then and now? Writing, influences, what-have-you?

There are a lot of big changes since Paper House. One huge change is having Bogart in the band. We wrote and recorded Paper House before he joined us, so having him in the mix changes things quite a bit. We are also in different stages of life than we were on the first record. I have a kid now, and another on the way in a few weeks.

I think we wrote this album in much the same way we wrote Paper House, but with different goals in mind. We were very deliberate in writing the new album about creating a raw, disturbing piece of existential art, which is obviously a big shift from the first record.

The album art for Be Given To The Soil is so beautiful. The gatefold double vinyl looks amazing. I won’t lie, I kind of want two of them. One to listen to and one to hang on my wall. Haha. Who did the artwork?

Thanks! The artwork was a collaborative effort. Ben took the picture for the cover while he was riding his bike in the Great Dismal Swamp. I hand wrote all of the text, and Bogart put it all together and sort of oversaw the whole thing. Whittle also helped Bogart with a few decisions.

Do you guys have any big shows or tours coming up?

We are playing Macrock in Harrisonburg, VA in early April. We also have a couple of really exciting local shows planned in Norfolk for this spring. Aside from that, we don’t have any huge live plans in the works.

What can fans expect from an Over The Ocean live show?

Hearing damage. In all seriousness, I’m really proud of our live show; it’s what we do best. We work really hard to pick the best order of songs so that everything can smear together into one big moment, rather than having a collection of isolated songs. We also tend to revise our songs constantly, so a lot of what you might hear at a show will be different from what you hear on our records.

Of all the songs you guys have, which is the track that really gets people going?

“Arguing Philosophies” has been a good one at shows lately. Honestly though, I feel much more accomplished if the room is totally still at the end of a song than if people are cheering, so in that respect “Ecology” might be a better choice.

Any plans for future releases already? Or are you guys just going to ride this Spartan release for a bit?

We definitely want to do something again. I have been working on some songs that might find their way into a future release in one form or another. The last thing we want to do though is rush into something. I would guess it might be another couple years before you see a followup to Be Given to the Soil.

To be able to do what you guys are doing is amazing. Is this a full-time gig for all of you? Did you think you’d ever be successfully releasing your music to the masses?

It is amazing. I am so happy to be able to make music and to share it with others. I wish this was a full-time gig, but it doesn’t really pay all the bills right now, or any bills, for that matter. We all have regular jobs and play music on the side.

I don’t think I ever thought people would be that interested in what we are doing, but I guess one of the nice things about being a musician right now is that even a fringe band like us can build some sort of following.

What are some future goals for Over The Ocean? It can only go up from here, right?

Absolutely. One thing in the works is a film companion piece to Be Given to the Soil. It is still in the planning stages right now, but it looks like it’s going to be really great. Hopefully we will have more details on that soon.

 

Written and conducted by: Anthony Galasso

Anthony Galasso
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