Hitting the streets this Friday is The OBGMs’ sophomore LP, The Ends, out on Black Box Music. These Toronto guys are here to rock and have fun and it translates into an ubiquitous energy. While their self-titled debut LP was very effective, the band obviously challenged itself on The Ends, which finds the band letting loose and taking risks with different sounds (see percussions and flow on song Outsah). While some bands will awkwardly and purposely try not to fit a mold, the same result seems to appear organically for OBMGs. Their music is the unashamed expression of the sounds in their collective brains, giving an underlying Punk feel to their brand of high intensity Rock. Here is us picking the musical brain of frontman/guitarist Denz.
What have you been listening to the most lately?
The list is deep. I’m loving a lot of things. I’m listening to TROI IRONS. I listen to OXYMORRONS, DANNY DENIAL, KING YOUNGBLOOD, CLAIRMONT THE SECOND, COLA H, the list goes on! A lot of new Hip Hop.
Anything in there that are new discoveries to you?
Predominately, most of them. I was going through a phase of looking for black artists in Rock spaces, just to find out more of them and who existed. I’ve been looking for a bunch of new acts that I just didn’t know existed. So many different artists from similar walks of life as me and making such great music and I’m so sad that I didn’t know about them earlier. Troi Irons, I met her. Her director used to direct all of our videos and he put us in touch. Oh, man. If you want to look for a new artist, Troi Irons’ definitely the one to start with, she’s amazing.
Good. No, I’m not familiar so I’ll definitely check it out. Off of the list that you mentioned, one of my own discoveries of the past few months is Danny Denial.
That guy! I get chills sometimes watching him perform. He has a very, very interesting catalog. Very happy discovery. I love his music.
What’s your favorite way of discovering new music these days? Of course, not live shows at the moment but is it going to a record store, browsing online, friends’ recommendations?
I bounce between friends’ recommendations and digging through Google. I’ve gotten the habit of picking a region in the United States or Canada and just googling bands, and seeing what pops up from there. Then seeing similar artists to that artist. It’s very interesting to me. I’ve been literally taking it old school. Well, not as old school as record hunting or CD hunting, like back in the day, but just going online and googling artists, googling Rock, Punk, Afro Punk and seeing what comes up and seeing who that artist is affiliated with. That’s kind of how I love finding music now.
What’s the first thing that strikes you when you listen to new music? Is there anything that makes makes or breaks a band for you?
I feel like I know if I’m going to like a song at all on the first note or second note. I feel like I have an idea of what that is and I’m not even sure exactly what makes me feel that way but I’m attached to the song either immediately or not at all. I’ve never gotten in the middle of a song and said, “hey, I like it now”, you know? It’s always on the first few notes, “This is it! This is worth it!” So I think what strikes me first is definitely chords and melody, chord selections being unique. Or if they’re not entirely unique, they’re just delivered in a way that’s pleasing to the ear or different to the ear. That’s something that really strikes me. I do like when people take risks with vocal melodies, and try to do something a little bit different. As opposed to predictability, sing songy type things, I want to see people mix it up and something that I can’t predict the next note, I very much enjoy that. So if I’m listening to a new song, right away, I’m just looking to the chords and melodies. Well, your drummer has to be tight. If your drummer’s not tight at all, it obviously distresses.
Is there any genre that grew on you, where maybe 5 or 10 years ago, you would never have imagined listening to that kind of stuff and now, you absolutely love it?
I would say the kind of stuff that I listen to way more now than before is, I’ve actually taken it back to the 70’s and the 80’s. I’m just a lot more into it now. I’m having a little bit of a phase of 80’s Pop music right now. It’s not necessarily an artist but it’s more of a decade and an era of sounds. I’m listening to a lot of TOTO. I’m listening to a lot of FLEETWOOD MAC. I didn’t even really know much about Fleetwood Mac until the last five years and I can’t believe, I was allowed to miss out that much on them! LED ZEPPELIN. I had no interest in listening to Led Zeppelin up until last year, and I’m so sad that I didn’t know about this band. I don’t know why nobody told me about them. So I’m more taking it back. Right now, I’m trying to take in a lot of different types of music so the older genres that I kind of skipped past when I was learning about music, I need to go take that in.
Going one step further, is there actually stuff that you hated the first time hearing it but eventually grew on you, and you’re able to enjoy it now?
There’s a few things. The first time I heard DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979, I didn’t like them at all. “What is this? This is very loud.” Then it got to track two and it was like, “these guys are legends” *Haha* “I understand it now.” TYLER, THE CREATOR. When I first heard of him, I thought it was just like, shock Rap, like, “um, this guy’s trying to be ENIMEM.” Then I was like, “this guy’s a genius.” Actually, the most recent album, Igor, I wasn’t sure if I liked it at first and then I was like, “this is a flipping classic album.” Who else…COLDPLAY. I would say when I listened to the Viva La Vida album, I didn’t know if I liked it or not but now I will go back to it and I know that it’s classic. Um, every OBGM’s song! When we make it, I think it’s trash but then I go back and listen to it and I’m like, “Man, that’s classic!” *Haha*
Going all the way back, do you remember the one time that music first had an impact on you? The moment that you really realized you had a love for music?
Yes. The first time I realized I had a love for music, I wrote a song when I was seven or eight years old and it was a love song to a girl, over a TLC beat. I wrote it, I put it in my journal -not a diary- and my mom found it and she basically punished me for some of the lyrical content. She wasn’t feeling my flow. Instead of throwing it away, I just started a new notebook, with new rhymes, and I realized that, this is cool. “I’m out here really really writing songs. I just might be a rapper.” *Haha* That’s one of the times I remember the most.
The second, I remember seeing REDMAN and METHOD MAN on a show out here called a Rap City, on MuchMusic. They would do a top 10 countdown and their number one video was NIRVANA’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. I was like, “What is this? They’re rappers and this Rock song is their number one video of all time?” I was just hooked. “These guys are amazing.” I was singing it into my pillow, in my room, very, very loudly.
What has been your evolution through music, from these points on?
My playlist, up until like 2005 was exclusively 90’s and 00’s Hip Hop. I wasn’t really listening to too much else outside of that. In 2000, up to 2005, I started producing off of a program called Fruity Loops. This was in the middle or the beginning of the DIPSET/CAM’RON era so everybody was really, really sampling around that time. To sample, you kind of have a have an idea of older records so I would go to HMV or any record store and I just kind of look for the names of people that were doing things in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, and try to find cool samples that I could do. Sampling whatever from the ROLLING STONES, whatever from the BEATLES, whatever from DIANA ROSS, and looking for new tracks. After then, I realized that everybody can sample but not everyone can really play the instruments so I picked up the guitar, and I expanded what I listened to. I started to listen to a lot more Rock, Rock And Roll and Punk. Nothing too hard. I would say Nirvana is probably a piece of the hardest I got. But as I got deeper into it, I got more aggressive with what I wanted to hear. So my playlists until 2005, exclusively Hip Hop, then I added some 70’s-80’s R&B and Rock, and then by 2010, it was almost exclusively Rock, Indie Rock, Punk Rock, and some Metal.
What are some of the most memorable concerts that you’ve seen in your life?
Wow, I have a few. The best concert I’ve ever been to in my life was TYLER, THE CREATOR at Osheaga. I’ve never been more inspired to want to be on stage than watching that guy perform.
The first Rock concert I ever went to -and the first mosh pit I was ever in-, which was really impactful for what I wanted to do for music, was BILLY TALENT at a secret show at the Horseshoe Tavern, a popular venue in Toronto. Billy Talent are a huge band and they’re playing this 300 cap venue. Literally just before the show started, a guy turned to me and he’s like, “Yo, have you ever been in a mosh pit before?” I’m like, “No, never.” He’s like, “As soon as they hit one note, I’m gonna pick you up overhead and I’m gonna throw you on top of everybody.” and then he did it, it was very, very easy for him. My foot almost hit their singer, Ben, in the face and he grabbed my foot and was singing at the same time, and he never missed a note. It was amazing. I talked to him about it, it was amazing. So that was one of the most memorable shows I’ve been. I saw the YEAH YEAH YEAHS at a venue called The Vice(?), which has since shut down. It was like a church. That was spiritual. That was incredible.
Oh, PRINCE! I went to Prince’s last show in Toronto, a microphone and a piano show and I was just completely moved, almost to tears as to how beautiful it was. That was the greatest memory of concert I’ve ever been to. Number one. So happy. I was broke at a time and I was like, “yo, am I gonna be able to get to this concert? It’s like 600 bucks to go to this, and there’s no band, we don’t even know what’s going on. I just saw him the year before at ACC so I don’t know if I’m gonna go to this one.” But I HAD to and I’m so happy that I did because I would have regretted that for my whole life, if I hadn’t gone to that concert.
What’s the most impressive band you’ve toured with? The one that you’d be watching night after night? What did you learn from them?
I would say there’s a few. We’ve had the opportunity to tour a bit with bands that have really taught us a lot about showmanship and voice preservation. I would say a band named MANDO DIAO, they’re based out of Sweden. They’re very, very popular out there but they’re not so much known out here. It was like watching real rockstars in person, for the first time in my life. There were people bringing their babies for Mando Diao to kiss. They’re bringing their kids to say “hey, that’s Mando Diao over there.” Just watching them interact with people and watching them bringing it every single night on stage and see it not change who they were as people, was very, very inspiring. Because they’re doing big, big venues, stadiums, all over Europe, and we’re getting off and we’re walking streets and they’re taking care of themselves. Really inspiring.
I would say also RDGLDGRN. They have had the opportunity to work with some of my heroes and I just got to see what it takes to try to make it far in music. They were all teachers before they even decided to do music full time and they had to give that up. They had to give up their security, just to really work on their dream and watching them make that happen, in another country that wasn’t Washington DC, it was pretty inspiring. I was just watching how they interact with each other. The types of pedals that Red was using was very interesting. And a lot of vocal tips, a lot of voice preparation tips, as their music is very vocal cadence filled, so breath and breath management was something that I really took in on that tour. “How did these guys do that? Rap and play guitar and do all this stuff at the same time, without blowing it.” Those are probably the two bands I think of the most.
Can you name three songs that you would consider to be perfect songs, and explain why and what they mean to you?
Lithium, NIRVANA. I think that sounds perfect. It’s a perfect anthem song for a band that wasn’t trying to make anthem. They’re just trying to make music with major chords that was loud. The placement of loud/quiet/loud and how so many bands tried to replicate that afterwards, it’s kind of like, we’re speaking of perfection over here. Lyrically, “What the f*** is he talking about?” It’s still polarizing because you have people that think they know exactly what the song is, and then, it can be up to interpretation for everybody. He just gives you enough to want to be a part of it. When the louds are loud, everybody’s singing along, you know? When it gets quiet, you can hear exactly what he is saying, so you can sing along as well. It’s just perfect. That song is just perfectly written, perfectly delivered.
I’m gonna go Under The Bridge, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS. My God. I love that song, but I loved it even more after I read Anthony Kiedis’ book. If you haven’t read his biography, you should. Why is the perfect? Lyrically, if you read the book, you can literally pinpoint what time he is in his life. This imagery that he uses is literally just taken from his life. He was literally doing drugs under a bridge with these people. That’s where he drew some blood. This guy is drawing real inspiration on real things and painting a picture in your ear and you can really visualize it. “Under the bridge downtown, is where I drew some blood. Under the bridge downtown, I could not get enough.” It’s not like he’s talking about anything poetic. There’s nothing that you can really see beyond that. It’s more about pairing that with where he was in his life. This guy was able to find the exact words to describe it in a way that you would feel it. It’s almost gospel by the end of the song, the harmonies that they choose. It was very, very, very well placed. Beautiful. They kept it simple but since they’re such fantastic musicians, what is simple? They dance around the arpeggios of whatever forward they’re choosing and I think it’s just perfectly placed every single time. Wonderful song.
The Beautiful Ones, PRINCE. I’ll go with that because Prince is my favorite artist of all time and I don’t think he can do anything wrong, ever. With that particular song from the movie/album Purple Rain, it’s literally painful to listen to sometimes. The story that he’s telling in the song, I really really feel. The chords that he’s choosing at particular moments are perfectly placed to really emphasize what he is saying. By the end, when he’s like, crying on the track, and the band is picking it up, they had that big crescendo by the end, it’s crazy! Prince is an artist that really uses dynamic flow on all of the songs and this kind of brings me back to the last show I got to see of him and he only played it for like a bar. He knows how to use crescendos and you can see it from him being a Jazz pianist, he uses the whole scale and he’s using it the right ways. That’s one of the songs that I really look to for perfection.
Do you have any unpopular music opinion that you would like to defend? Something that you truly love, but for some reason, can hardly find anyone to agree with you?
My unpopular music opinions are famous for the ones that I got extremely wrong! One, I used to think that BRITNEY SPEARS wouldn’t be popular. “Nobody’s gonna love Britney Spears, it sucks!” *Haha* That was a quite unpopular opinion and I grew to love her but at the time which came out, I was not feeling it at all. Same for LADY GAGA.
A record that comes to my mind right now is MGMT Congratulations. So MGMT comes out, they give you a record that was spectacular. They give you Electric Feel, they become the biggest band in the world. And the next album, they release Congratulations, and it kind of comes out flat. And I’m like, that album itself is perfect. It’s literally perfect, the whole album from start to finish. I made my fiance listen to it in car. I don’t think there’s a song that is bad on it. I think it’s perfectly placed. It’s a wonderful album and I’m so sad that wasn’t as celebrated as their Pop album. But Congratulations is a major hitter, filled with just bangers, from top to bottom.
Oh, here’s an unpopular opinion, I think CLAIRMONT THE SECOND is the best rapper of all time. I don’t think there’s an artist that has ever done as much work as he’s done and received such little acclaim. There’s not an artist that can make all their videos at that level and make that music that good at that level by themselves and not be called Drake. I think he’s the greatest rapper out, period.
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