Foraging through the wilderness that is Myspace, I stumbled upon a band by the name of Oblivion’s Eye. A young Canadian band who have just released their debut album, I felt that these newcomers needed to be exposed to a greater audience, and managed to nab an interview with them!
T. - I found your page on Myspace, and I thought you had a good sound from the tracks on there. Do you find Myspace a good way to promote your music, or do you feel that Myspace has had its day?
Damian - I'd say MySpace is still pretty relevant. Personally, I don't think we would have reached as broad an audience as we have without it. It's a great tool for new bands to be heard, and for old bands to establish new fans. If someone tells me to listen to something, MySpace or YouTube are almost always the first place I'll go.
Brad - Yeah, I think Myspace is probably the best way for any band to be able to promote itself. It's just easy to reference someone to your Myspace page, or YouTube channel.
T. - You formed in January 2010, and released your debut album “Radiance” in June, that’s quite a short period of time, which is pretty impressive! Had you played together before, or was there just a good understanding of what direction you wanted to go in with your musical style?
Brad - Well, Damian and I have been playing music together since high school, trying to form bands and such. But we were fairly immature as artists, and it didn't help that the island doesn't have much in the way of musicians. After I had finished school, we got together and figured we had to get our s**t in gear or we weren't going to go anywhere, so we formed a melodic death metal band with my brother on vocals and some other guy on bass... That didn't quite work out, so we broke that up. Then one night we were playing together and we wrote Astral Projection, and the album just sorta took off from there.
T. - What kind of response have you had to the album?
Damian - Surprisingly positive to be honest. I think we both knew that we were on to something when we first started writing, but it's gone over a lot better than we ever hoped.
T. - Did you record and produce it yourselves?
Damian - The recording process was a bit of a weird one, actually. We have a friend by the name of Jess Tipton (he also plays drums and did all of the clean vocals on the album) who lives in Saskatchewan. We recorded our tracks here and then sent him the files to be mixed.
Brad - It was a royal pain in the a*s.
Damian - A royal pain in the a*s is an understatement. We probably ended up recording the album 3 times in total, haha.
T. - Three times? Ouch!
Damian - Yeah, he picked us apart, but the final product was well worth the criticism and hard work.
Brad - We've definitely evolved as musicians because of the whole experience.
T. - There are only the two of you in Oblivion’s Eye at the moment; are there plans to secure yourself a full line up in the near future? Are you wanting to play shows or is this just a recorded musical project?
Brad - Well we've definitely wanted to play shows, but out here it's very difficult to find drummers and bassists that like the same kind of music, and can play it as well. The current plan is to move out to Saskatchewan and start playing with Jess, considering he's probably the best fit for a drummer we could ever find.
T. - You note Devin Townsend, Strapping Young Lad and Jeff Loomis as influences, what else influences you as a band and as individuals?
Brad - Well musically, I think Devin Townsend has to be the biggest influence towards our style. He has a very wide variety of sounds, but the particular ambience style he created has a huge influence on a lot of the stuff we've done on “Radiance”, and the stuff we've written after. Also, the stage presence he has live is incredible, and it's definitely the sort of thing we're going to go for live as well. Also, bands such as Loomis, Mastodon, The Amenta, A Perfect Circle, etc, have a big effect on what we write. All of the different styles they have play a role in what we write. As an individual, I'd have to say death metal, and watching the comedy channel for hours on end are my influences.
Damian - I think we've managed to craft a sound that is entirely our own in spite of whatever influences we may be drawing on, and I think that's important to include. Furthermore, a lot of our content has a surreal nature to it and we're both very interested in that kind of thing. I'm personally influenced by life in general. I'm sure that's the most clichéd answer anyone could possibly give. But, if I've had a shit day at work or something, I'll come home and beat the fuck out of my guitar for a while. There again, sometimes it's just nice to go to the river and let the positive vibes flow, man...
T. - I found it quite difficult to think of questions to ask you, you don’t give much away about yourselves on your Myspace or Facebook pages; is that so we concentrate on your music, or is the mystery of who Oblivion’s Eye are a sneaky ploy to make us more intrigued?
Damian - Haha! Well, I'd like to tell you there’s something to it, but we're just not really that interesting! I did read quite a while ago that Tool likes to reveal as little of themselves as possible, so that the music is what you focus on and I find that quite admirable. Having said that, though, our pages could probably use some revamping...
Brad - I think in a lot of the stuff we do though, we try to focus on the music we have. Hell, most of the songs we write, we keep the lyrics minimal, so the song itself can come through more.
T. - Coming from Canada, do you feel that there is a good strong metal scene there, or do you feel Canadian metal bands are overshadowed by your southern neighbours in the United States?
Brad - Well, the metal scene isn't too bad here. I mean, Devin came from right here in BC so it can't be too bad for the musicians. But out here in Nanaimo/Qualicum it's pretty minimal, which is one of the reasons we're leaving. Every show I've played here I've had the same group of 10-20 metal heads come, and I've probably met all of the bands in the area. Not saying they're not good shows, but it'd be nice to have a better ratio between drunken old guys and moshing metal fans.
Damian - Yeah, I agree. There are a lot of talented bands on Vancouver Island, but there really isn't a lot of opportunity short of loading all your s**t on to a ferry and going over to the mainland.
T. - So for you it's perhaps more a location within Canada than Canada itself that might hold you back?
Damian - Yeah, for sure. There's a lot of great talent in Canada, but our location in particular is almost always neglected.
T. - What is the future for Oblivion’s Eye? I noticed that you have a “Sign Me To” page on Roadrunner Records site, is that your main goal?
Brad - Well a label is definitely a good direction to go, but that’s probably gonna be a bit down the road. We're mostly going to try and establish more of a presence around Canada and on the internet to start with.
Damian - Yeah, the Roadrunner Records thing was just a shot in the dark. I guess that's how they're seeking out bands these days, and we figured we would put ourselves up there just for the hell of it.
T. - If people want to get a hold of your album, where can they purchase it from?
Damian - You can purchase the album directly from our MySpace page for sixteen Canadian loonies ($16, in other words)
Brad - Or 16 live birds, which ever is easiest for you.
Damian - Yeah, we'll accept 16 live birds as payment. I appreciate craftiness.
Head over to their Myspace page to listen to a couple of the tracks from "Radiance" at www.myspace.com/oblivionseyeband, they're certainly a band I will be keeping an eye on (ho ho)!!!
Hannah
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