Last year during Ozzfest, I was driving in the mountains from California to Seattle and there was no radio stations coming in. I was scanning the channels when all of a sudden this massive voice comes shattering out of the speakers. After the song, I heard the DJ say words Otep. Later after seeing their website I was further amazed; by the poetry, the music, and the band itself, particularly vocalist Otep who I had the opportunity to speak with today. After the song, I heard the DJ say words Otep.
Later after seeing their website I was further amazed; by the poetry, the music, and the band itself, particularly vocalist Otep who I had the opportunity to speak with today.
Crave: Are you looking forward to being part of the Ozzfest family again?
Otep: Oh absolutely, we're excessively excited about that. It's an honor to be asked again, it's rare that bands do Ozzfest more then once even, so to be asked back twice was amazing. Our first stint was an amazing chance but we were like a third stage band and we only played half the tour, and we didn't even have a record out, we just had a five song EP, so nobody really knew us, it was really 2002 that did it for us. We are really excited to be back and a part of something like Ozzfest, which is a great opportunity for all bands.
Crave: It seems like such a great family to be a part of. So regarding the new album, I love the songs "Hooks and Splinters" and "Autopsy Song". I love the music and the lyrics just kind of grab you up, shake you around, and make you think.
Otep: Those are two of my favorites, absolutely, thank you very much. Each song that I write has a purpose, at least for me, you know there was a drive, something compelling happening inside of me that forced me to create that song, and those two on the record have special meaning and a special purpose, they stand out to me as well.
"Hooks and Splinters" touches on a part of hysterical insanity that has lived inside of me for a long time and that needed out; it needed an enemy and a target to be unleashed upon. "Autopsy Song" was during a very vulnerable and despairing part of my life and I really needed to write a song that gave me a way out, and to pull myself apart, and that's what that song is really about, a dissection of who I am, who I think I am, who I wish I could be, and the fear of what the truth might actually be, a revelation of acceptance. Its one of the most honest and vulnerable songs I have ever written. I've never really sang before, I've always been an orator and a vocalist, but I wasn't really traditionally singing before and on this record I do it twice.
Crave: It’s great to be able to interchange the vocal parts, to do different things. This album to me has a powerful, more aggressive sound. I think its such a great follow up to Sevas Tra.
Otep: I agree. When you come out with something as powerful as Sevas Tra, especially for bands that are doing their first record, you have a lifetime of material to fall back on, and then when you go into your sophomore album all you have left to fall back on really is your work ethic and your passion for what you’re doing and if those two things aren’t there it will show in the work and it will become something very sterile and something that is obvious, and that’s not at all what I wanted to do, with music or with anything creative. It’s definitely a destruction, a tearing down of who we were and who we are and rebuilding out of our own ashes and I think that’s evident. It’s a very subconscious act, creating is for me I surrender to invention and to the muses and just kind of let them lead me where they want to go, and sometimes it’s too dark and dangerous places and I listen to the first song “Requiem” now and I actually can hear a piece of me dying in that song. It’s terrifying in many ways to hear a part of yourself surrendering and dying and yet finding a new skin to wear. I’m really pleased with the way the record came out. A lot of people ask me to compare the two albums and I always say it’s the same roots, just a much bigger tree. It’s the next evolution. Its still an aggressive record, the intention of the message is still there loud and clear, it’s just the next head on the creative hydra that is Otep
Crave: I always tell people that if you’re just listening to the music then you’re missing the message. Listen to the words! I think that like with the shadow soldiers, you guys have created an army of fans, of people who have been able to relate to your music.
Otep: That’s one of the most remarkable things about our movement. We have a section on our website called “You are not alone” Its designed to give someone who is going through depression or crisis resources to connect to other people, complete strangers who know nothing but understand everything, or actually to find a path to professional help. That’s one of the most startling things that we are doing, but its something I always wanted to do. Art has always been such a huge healing therapy for me, that it’s nice to see that it’s empowering others as well. The overall popular culture view of aggressive music is that it’s all thugs, drug addicts, and devil worshipers, but for me I wanted to use this medium as a source of power. I couldn’t have such a powerful stand on issues if I was doing folk music or something, I wanted to go to war and you go to war with the most powerful artillery that you can find and for me that’s what I’m hoping people will get out of this. We cant control what happens to us in life but we can survive. Survivors win. We will endure victory before the victimizers will. Through art, and writing and finding yourself, the voice inside the chaos. It’s like sitting inside a whirlwind. It’s trying to find the calm, the power place, the piece of them that is still there that has been smashed out. Hopefully our music is the beginning, a catalyst for healing, and it serves as what art is always supposed to serve, and that is to provoke and to empower. Music brings art to life, and there is so much energy in it. I got into music because I wanted it to be exciting, I wanted it to be powerful for me and I didn’t just want to join some silly two-dimensional frat party, I wanted to be involved in something that was explosive and artistic and surrounded by creative geniuses.
Crave: Which is more cathartic for you, writing or the live performance?
Otep: Both. They are two completely different animals. Both serve a purpose. Its two different kind of events, writing is an internal event and performing is an internal event externalized. It's giving those moments life, and reliving the emotions and the ideas that caused me to write these particular songs. I'm in love with both; it's a duel love affair with writing and performing.
Crave: The performances are very powerful. Even ritualistic. Some people have described it as some kind of a religious experience. On stage you almost seem like you are going into another world. That has to be physically taxing, but when you come off stage is it really hard to reign all of those emotions back in?
Otep: Oh Yeah. It’s really hard. It’s debilitating sometimes, it’s difficult to continue, but I just remember how lucky I am to have this opportunity and to remember that I am a martyr for the muses, and this is my penance for having this ability to write and to perform. I don’t know any other way to perform, other then to transform. It is a religious experience, music is sacred and in many respects, religion has failed us so we are looking for something else to offer us that spiritual release and something else to make us feel like we are a part of something that is larger then our self.
Crave: Is it hard to balance things between the art, music, and poetry, I can imagine it’s very demanding.
Otep: Sure, it is but I love it, its what I do. People ask me what I do in my downtime, and I don’t know, what is downtime? I don’t put on a costume and suddenly become OTEP, that’s who I am. It’s not a means to a lifestyle, it is a lifestyle, it is who I am, and it’s my personality.
Crave: What came first, poetry, art, or music?
Otep: Illustrating was first. I first picked up a pen when I was like two and was obsessed with drawing and making symbols and shapes. Then writing came along in junior high when I discovered I liked writing stories, and then poetry and finally music.
Crave: What is the writing process like, does the music come first or the lyrics?
Otep: It just depends on the song. Sometimes the guys come in with a couple riff ideas and then we just sit and sort of start composing and arranging.
Crave: How was the recording process this time around?
Otep: It was a lot different. For me it was a much more challenging experience and I really liked it, because we didn’t have so many people with their input in it. It was me, the producer, and Evil J who wrote “Sepsis”, “Warhead”, and “Hooks and Splinters” with me. It was a much purer experience because we didn’t have people in there telling us we had to make a really obvious, formulated song just so we could get it on to mainstream radio. We had that agenda before, in the beginning, with some of the other band members and then they became EX band members. I wanted to pull us back to the core. I would rather see this burn to ritual ash then watch it pervert into something cheap, monotonous and mediocre.
Crave: What do you see in your future, with your art, your music, and your writing?
Otep: Hopefully a lot of touring. I want to keep writing. We have some new players and I want to see what they bring to the writing table. Playing, they are masters at what they do now. Personally, I really want to focus on the band and get us to the level we should be at, perform a lot, continue to create and evolve and get even more creative and aggressive with the music, diversify with different types of sonic experiments, and really just bury our heads into work. The more we do it, the better we get. As long as we don’t ever feel like we have mastered this, as long as we maintain that we are willing apprentices, and don’t ever think the journey is over, that we have yet to reach our destination, whatever that is. We will continue to stay strong, and as explosive, and as hungry as we are. I want us to make the myths, become what it is I think artist are supposed to be.
Otep is Crave's FEATURE Artist! Click here
Review of Otep's "House of Secrets" here
Check out the Live Ozzfest review here
