Kludge Magazine interview with Ozma - 2002

Original article (archived by Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20040903182126/http://kludgemagazine.com:80/interviews.php?id=100

The following interview transpired in 2002 while Mary Guilliams was filling in for keyboardist Star Wick, who had been recently injured in a car collision.

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Interview: OZMA
Author: Mike McClelland
Photography: N/A

The Cast (in order of appearance):

Daniel Brummel- Bass, Vocals (sometimes)
Jose Galvez- Guitar, Vocals
Mary Guilliams - Keyboard

The Show:

Mike McClelland: Give a bit of a bio, real or fake. Whatever you want people to think they know about Ozma.

DB: (in Russian accent) Well… Vee were born en Russia… (laughing) Jose and Pat and Ryan met in middle school and high school and jammed together all the time. [They] had a couple bands. Then, Jose met me on the internet in, like, ’95 and they needed a bass player so I came in. We didn’t even really start playing shows until we had been together a couple of years. Like club shows - that was seven years ago. We went through several keyboardists.

Mike McClelland: Obvious question- How’s Warped Tour going? How is it this year? High points, low points…

JG: It's sort of snuck up on us, I think. It’s a long tour, but we realized we only have two shows left and it’s sort of weird. It’s always been like… (pause) school. It starts off really slow and then when you get in the groove of things it goes by really fast.

DB: It took us like a month or a couple weeks to really find our groove and start playing good shows…

JG: And getting used to the routine of things.

Mike McClelland: Best spot so far?

JG: San Francisco had a good crowd. Milwaukee. Minnesota was very energetic.

Mike McClelland: That’s the second time I’ve heard Minnesota today…

DB: Minnesota was rad. It started raining when we played and the merch tent got completely flooded. But, uh, that was great! (laughs) Sweet!

Mike McClelland: I think you guys got a lot of attention when you toured with Weezer. Comparisons, associations to them, are those flattering? Annoying?

DB: It’s definitely an honor to be compared to them, but if we start to hear it so much then people start to write us off as just like a rip-off band. That would get to any artist’s sense of originality and that kind of sucks. I think we’re maybe, as a result, trying to branch out; trying to find out own sound, new sounds. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, you know, we love straight up pop rock, and probably our next album won’t be pop rock.

Mike McClelland: When do you think that will be?

DB: Probably going to try and get the recording done by the end of the year and put it out early next year on Kung Fu.

Mike McClelland: Which would you rather watch: The Wizard of Oz, or the HBO miniseries, Oz.

JG: I’d say The Wizard Of Oz.

MG: I’d say Wizard Of Oz

JG: That HBO show Oz… that’s pretty brutal.

DB: Wizard of Oz.

Mike McClelland: Wizard of Oz all around.

DB: I was always a big fan of Homicide, the TV show.

Mike McClelland: I actually loved that show.

DB: It’s a great show and some of the same guys make Oz on HBO, but it’s not the same.

Mike McClelland: Who do you guys like to watch when you’re here?

DB: We like to go see Recover.

JG: Yeah, that’s my favorite band on the tour.

DB: And Flogging Molly is probably my favorite band on the main page. I really like NoFx, Bad Religion, and well everybody’s pretty good. If you just walk around, there’s probably a pretty good band playing on one of the stages

Mike McClelland: Which, is the best part about Warped Tour. So, we’re trying to get people to describe their tour busses.

JG: Well, our tour bus is more spacious now. It’s… (pause) okay, it’s better than our last tour bus I would say. The satellite TV sucks.

MG: It’s just a hair ghetto.

JG: Uh, we’re still trying to figure out the temperature.

MG: (laughing)

JG: That’s always weird. It’s either too cold, or way, way too cold.

Mike McClelland: What’s the worst part or best part about the tour bus?

DB: The driver’s from Louisiana. He’d never left the South before this. Like, he’d never been to California. He drives, like, 90 all the time so it gets real rough. It’s hard to sleep sometimes.

MG: Not to hate on people who are from Louisiana, though.

Mike McClelland: They got that West Nile thing going on; got to cut them a bit of slack. (to Mary) How long have you been with the band?

MG: I’ve just been doing some tours with them filling in. (Ed. Note: Band member Star Wick left the Warped Tour circuit after the band’s stop in Vancouver for personal reasons. Mary Guilliams, who filled in for Wick during a club tour in April, covered keyboard duties for most of Warped Tour.)

Mike McClelland: Your name has gotten out there quite a bit in the last couple years. At what part did you sit back and think, this is really a good time?

DB: The first Weezer tour we did was the first time we had ever left California. So, finding out we got that, we were all pretty ecstatic. And that was when things really started to pick up. I mean, it really helped start our career and we’ll always be thankful for that.

JG: I think when we also did our second tour it was just a smaller club tour [with] Nada Surf. We realized how many fans we had around the country. Cause a lot of the kids that were there were there for us. 200, 300 kids a night came to the club shows and left after we played…

Mike McClelland: You guys are fairly young, right?

JG: Between 20 and 23.

Mike McClelland: That’s what I thought. I mean, wow. This has to be so much fun. It’s like a college kid’s wet dream.

(laughing)

JG: Seriously. That’s our quote. I’m going to go back to my high school reunion September 5th and I’m sort of looking forward to it. When the jocks come up, ‘Hey what are you doing?’

Mike McClelland: National tour.

MG: (laughing)

DB: Hey, you beat me up in ninth grade...

Mike McClelland: One of the things I like most about your music is this really great, especially the keyboard, very Nintendo-esque sound. You guys must really love video games.

JG: I think we like video games as much as the next band, but we seem to be a little bit more influenced by the music of it more than other bands.

Mike McClelland: So on your influences for music, you’d have all these great classic bands, and Mario Bros.

JG: Yea. Whenever you beat the video game, the best music is during the ending.

Mike McClelland: What is your favorite video game?

JG: Right now the only game we play on the bus is NHL 2002 for Playstation. We’ve already played one season; we’re in our second season playoffs. It’s an 82 game season and we’ve already played about 160 games.

Mike McClelland: Who’s good at it?

DB: We’re all pretty good at it.

MG: I’m not good at it.

JG: Actually, Daniel improved. He gets the most-improvement award, cause Pat and I have been playing that game for quite a while now and Daniel just picked it up this tour and is already just as good as…

DB: It’s so realistic.

Mike McClelland: Particular teams that you like?

JG: We’re Kings fans. I’m a big hockey nut, freak. Like, it would scare people how much I like that sport.

MG: I won’t touch that game. I stay true to Mrs. Pac-Man.

Mike McClelland: Stay true to the classic. You guys have any questions for each other or me? I’m running out of questions…

MG: Daniel. So, I’ve always wanted to know… (laughing)

Mike McClelland: How easy is it to keep in touch with people from home when you’re on the road?

JG: Um…

DB: National cell phone plan.

JG: Yea, it’s easier now with national cell phone plans.

MG: Email cell phones.

JG: She just got email on her cell phone, so it’s easy for her…

DB: (with bizarre accent) It’s all about Tel-a-com, baby.

MG: (laughing)

Mike McClelland: (speaking into microphone) Buy. Telecom. Stock.

JG: When we didn’t have cell phones, we had phone cards and that was a pain, but it kept me regulated. I always afraid when I go home and open the phone bill…

MG: (laughing)

DB: Could be 80 bucks, could be 500…

MG: Who knows.

JG: You never know.

Mike McClelland: Hey, well, that’s about all I’ve got. However, I’m a DJ up at a station in Syracuse…

JG: Hell yea. I love this part.

DB: Always fun.

See also

• Ozma