The Vista interview with Daniel Brummel - April 3, 2003
| Print interview with Daniel Brummel | |
|---|---|
| Publication | The Vista |
| Published | April 3, 2003 |
| Interviewer | Andrew Killion |
| Interviewee | Daniel Brummel |
| Title | Weezer bassist Brummel forms Ozma |
| Sub-title | With the release of their new album, Spending Time on the Borderline, Ozma reveal intelligent side |
| Format | |
| External link | Archived via core.ac.uk |
| References | See where this article is referenced on Weezerpedia |
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Weezer bassist Brummel forms Ozma
Ozma's new album Spending Time on the Borderline, released on Kung Fu Records destroys the band's old image of being "More Weezer than Weezer," as Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) once said to "Rolling Stone." Instead of trying to claim the crown of nerd-rock, Ozma makes a grab at the throne of intelligent rock, a pursuit masterminded by bass player and vocalist Daniel Brummel. "I know he [Cuomo] respects us for our songs but every artist wants some originality attached to them," Brummel said in reaction to Cuomo's comment. "We really kind of fell in love with Led Zep and AC DC and Boston," said Brummel, regarding the band's listening selection between albums, and Spending makes this very apparent. The single "Bad Dogs" demonstrates Zepplin-esque raw rock edge, and the lead guitars, permeating nearly every track, scream of Boston. "We definitely, with this record, wanted to branch out a little bit," and they succeeded by incorporating many different styles. Songs like "Utsukushii Shibuya," incorporating some eastern exoticism and "Come Home Andrea," an Ozma experiment with country. A lot of what came through on the album was done in the studio however, and required extra instruments and overdubs, some-thing that could not be done easily during practice sessions. "A lot of [the additional parts were] planned out but a lot of the guitar solos were just kind of improvised in the studio by Ryan... he's amazing." Brummel, on lead guitarist Ryan Slegr's contributions to the band, said, "I'm more impressed with him every record we do." Slegr and two other members of Ozma, Jose Galvez (guitar/vox) and Patrick Edwards (drums), have been playing together since middle school. "They started looking on AOL for a bass player and found me," said Brummel, regarding the beginnings of the band in 1995. They went through one key-board player quickly for "creativity" issues and later came across Star Wick, fan-turned-member, who is their current keyboardist. The synthesizer's influence is very noticeable on this album and Daniel attributed this to Electric Light Orches-tra, whom Brummel admired for their layering of "Strings and synths over heavy guitars," and openly said, "We kind of ripped them off on a couple parts." The ELO influence however, more than the influence of other bands, detracted from the album. Brummel, a music composition major at UCLA, is well equipped to write many different tracks for each song and have them move smoothly. Whether it is necessary or appropriate to do so was unclear. Many of the overdubbed strings and background vocals, which are not performed live, make the songs busy and distract from the main themes of the song. Brummel said, "I don't want it to get to a point where there's overkill, and we're over layering too much," but Ozma tends to approach the point of overkill, if not actually reaching it. This isn't a big issue but there are other aspects, such as vocal melodies, that seem overdone, especially for an indie-rock album (a genre notorious for simple and droning vocals). Commenting on the "Baroque" (overdone) quality that this album took on, Brummel said, "One of my close friends who knows a lot of Classical music told me it reminded him of Haydn," and that it had many of those weird, musically "dorky" things that he and his friends love. Dorky indeed, but definitely lovable. Although he does not see Ozma as trying to "bring rock back," he does have a bone to pick with artists in the industry who are (i.e. The Hives, The Vines) and says, "They're putting the lo-fi, Nirvana, type sound back in the commercial arena without the same songwriting backing it up... I just want some memorable lyrics or melodies or just give me a songwriter." The band's live performance on March 26 at The Scene stripped away all of the extra tracks that were unnecessary and rocked The Scene's small crowd. All the mode mixtures and secondary dominances that got covered in the album were bold and emotionally stirring in the live performance. The overembellished vocal melodies were stripped to a less clean, less produced style and had more feeling than precision. Yes, very dorky. The band opened up with one of their Weezer old songs "Domino Effect" but played an entirely new set for the most part, only regressing momentarily to play the much beloved "Korobeiniki" (the Tetris song). If you've never considered the Tetris song "mosh pit music," Ozma encourages you to reconsider. Ozma is touring currently with Superdrag and played with them and Agent 51 at The Scene. And for those of you who don't know Superdrag, go find (don't download now... dirty music pirates) "Who Sucked Out the Feeling" and enjoy. |