Otep

OS: What they are very good at is taking advantage. They had to switch it around. We had such an amazing opportunity to right some wrongs back then, and I think the larger conspiracy, if anything, lies in the Bush/Bin Laden family connection. This is a bigger thing, not if Bush had CIA remote control planes. Look at how, when it happened, everything was so lax and the Bin Laden and Bushes had known each other for 20 years and been in business, and we can't find Osama and pull our troops off the hunt! Supposedly the mastermind! That's a bigger question than the others combined. They could've built a conservative utopia in 8 years, but 'cuz of the scandals and Larry Craig and the sex and preacher scandals and all the things behind the flag waving that said they were the moral majority eroding, when they'd said the rest of us were pagan, heathen scum who didn't appreciate America, y'know, "Love it or leave it!"

MYE: I got you're moral divide right here, buddy! [grabbing crotch]

OS: I used to tell people if you don't like the Bill of Rights or Constitution then change them, but until then I have free speech so you can get the fuck out've MY country!

MYE: [laughing] Word.

OS: I'm owning it 'cuz I research my opinions. I wanna know why. They've been counting on us being ill-informed for a long time. Now, people are getting active, and it's thrilling.

MYE: Your new tour is called "Secrets That Kill."

OS: It's a line from our song "Ghostflowers" that seemed apropos with everything going on in the world.

MYE: Musically, some songs in Otep have almost carnival, funk bass or touch on a lot of metal or other styles and use piano, or the new song "Perfectly Flawed" is not a ballad but has a dreamy quality. How'd you become so comfortable expressing so many sides of yourself? I always love bands, like Life Of Agony, for example, where they use a lot of different sides of the voice or in the music.

OS: I don't see us as one category. Our strength is as a fusion band, primarily. When I was assembling the players in Otep, I wanted them to have different backgrounds in music, not "I can play thrash" only. Can you play jazz? Can you play funk? I was lucky to find amazing musicians, like my bass player Evil J., who is a graduate of Berkeley School of Music and plays everything from psychedelic rock to every head on the hydra of metal. The drummer, Brian Wolff, is a graduate of the Musicians’ Institute in L.A. and can play Cuban, afro-centric stuff to rock to metal to odd time signatures. This kid comes up with ridiculous stuff. Our guitarist, similar to Evil J. can play blues to rock to whatever. We bring all those in. For me, this is my first band, and I never thought I'd be a musician. I was never in choir. [laughing] I thought I was going to be on the road , some sort of graffiti artist/ political pundit.

MYE: Just had to say this stuff.

OS: I was at Ozzfest as a fan with a friend who worked for a management firm in L.A., and we were watching a terrible band totally disrespect their fans. I looked at my friend and said, "I'm gonna be here next year." He said,"You don't even have a band! You're gonna be here? Ok." Next year I was on Ozzfest.

MYE: [laughing] Right on.

OS: When I get my teeth into something, it's hard to let go. For us, the music I listen to is classical, Nirvana, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, and underground hip hop.

MYE: Really? You've got to check out the Listener Project, this cat Listener. He's from Arkansas and pretends to be a traveling knife salesman, and is Christian, but not in an asshole way. More the "treat each other right" way. He's pure hip-hop and travels around with his wife and will even play people's houses, not just big venues.

OS: Wow! That's cool. I listen to lots of things. I'd never listened to metal much, but then liked System of A Down, Korn, Mudvayne, Slipknot. Those were the kinds of bands I listened to and liked, and Nirvana and Radiohead of course. But when I started to do music, I wanted something where we could be as loud and angry or joyful or sad and melancholy as we wanted and also victorious and conquer and celebrate conquering our obstacles. Open the book and let it be. That's what Otep came out as. We're more and more comfortable with that, and as we go on you'll see even more of it. We had some songs on the new record that are pulverizing like "Crooked Spoons" and "March of The Martyrs" and some that are beautiful like "Perfectly Flawed" and “Invisible". We're gonna keep writing what makes us happy.

MYE: Cool. Talking about being all inclusive, here's a two part question. You've started working with AllShapesAndSizes.org. Did you start the site? I'm not sure. It promotes people's differences as beautiful. The second question is, that being as you're an outspoken gay performer, with a lot of things happening in a good way for Gay Rights lately, hopefully it'll keep steamrolling, but do you think society will ever see past gender and some of these differences to the point where it isn't an issue and people are just with whoever they're with?

OS: Umm...I don't think so. I hope they keep getting better, It's been 40 years since the Civil Rights Movement and people are still judged by the color of their skin even though we don't have some of the restrictions on People of Color that we used to. I hope we're gonna move forward to a place of tolerance and people understanding that just because it's different doesn't mean it's wrong, and I hope as citizens of this nation we get the rights of every other tax paying citizen of this nation.

MYE: I can't imagine what that must be like. It's so wrong.

OS: Y'know, other people don't have to agree with it and that's fine. We're not looking for acceptance in that regard. We are looking for our equality. We're not trying to give folk’s children "the gay" or covert anyone's straight kids.

MYE: [laughing] DO IT!

OS: Well, y'know, I might be guilty of giving certain people insights into this world, and it's up to them if they stick around or not. I'm not to convince anyone, which is the big scare tactic evangelicals use. "It's gonna be debauchery in the streets."

MYE: Well, at least people will be dressed better, fuck!

OS: Thanks. [laughing] That's why I hope, that people get past this bias they have. As a woman who finds love with other women pleasing to me, I don't look down on heterosexual couples, even though I might find the way they dress or take care of themselves sometimes to be revolting. I'm not gonna discriminate, so they shouldn't have the right to do that to us. We're just trying to find companionship like anyone else. It's people who are ashamed of themselves that condemn. They shove it away into this "degenerate" area and because of those partial to this addictive nature in their minds, it becomes a sexual deviancy to them, when in fact, for people who've embraced who they are, it is as normal as anything. I hope things will continue to blossom. There's always some bias, even in places where people are similar. In Ireland they fight over religion. Humans are competitive and need something to feel superior about, but hopefully the laws restricting it won't be there anymore.

MYE: Yeah. Absolutely. And AllShapesAndSizes.com? How'd that come about?

OS: It stems from the message of our song "Perfectly Flawed". If you look at it, a lot of the way people's lives develop, and what they base a lot of their life decisions on, it's usually, if it's regarding weight or who they are in relationships with, abusive people that continue in a shame of abuse anyway, it's usually because they're trying to fill a hole in themselves from a lack of self-esteem. We're inundated with false visions of beauty and body types, and what I was hoping to do was reaffirm new ideas of self-esteem and self-love. I think a healthy body is good, but you don't have to only be 104 lbs. Take care of yourself but love yourself. You only have one life, so be happy while you're here. If that means picking the righteous fight, pick the righteous fight. But with All Shapes And Sizes we're trying to reinforce new ideas and teach people who you are is who you were meant to be. Love that person. You don't need someone else to fill that hole for you. Do it yourself. A lot of teen pregnancies stem from injured self-esteem and self-image and trying to find something worthy of love to utilize and love you back in this world. If we can reinforce that you can love yourself, then that settles a lot of issues people are constantly juggling and living within the chaos, in the whirlwind. Once the dust settles and you have an anchor of self-esteem around you, you can really focus on whatever else in life is important to you as goals that you wanna conquer.

MYE: It's nice that you're doing this, however big it gets, for it offers some kids and people a forum they can use, you know?

OS: It's nice. Thank you. What I really want to do is connect people. I think communication is the most powerful weapon that we might have—talking to others who feel the same. Isolation and loneliness, most people can deal with pretty much anything, but when you feel absolutely alone and no one else feels this way, it pushed people further down the hole into the darkness. For us, we're trying to celebrate that old phrase, “it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness". If you're around people who're lighting their candles, pretty soon the world's gonna be a pretty bright place.

MYE: Yeah, absolutely. That's a poetic image. Well, hey, it's great to get to talk to you, and I love your music and drive, and good luck with everything.

OS: Thank you very much, man. Thanks for the interview, I really appreciate it.

MYE: Peace out.

OS: Bye.

		OTEP by Morgan Y. Evans
		LINKS: otep.com myspace.com/otep allshapesandsizes.org carbonrally.com
2004: A hot, murky night on the Lower West Side, I was watching TV with my friend Peewee from the longstanding NYC politi-punk band Intensive Care Unit (ICU). We were looking forward to seeing the new video "Blood Burden" from my friends in the sludge/gutter/protest band Crisis. It was a revelation as well as what was also shown on the program. To my surprise and enthusiastic pleasure, the music show also showed the blessedly aggressive, mind-blowing intense animated and totally head-bursting metal extremity of the band Otep's anti-war anthem "Warhead" (from their 2004 release House Of Secrets). I knew Otep was cool from hearing their Jihad EP, but this was a whole new level. Peewee and I got chills seeing such powerful artists (and both amazingly female fronted metal bands showing the boys how it ought to be done!) speaking out and somehow getting air-time amidst the draconian dross and gloss of the start of Bush's second term. It was a "you're with us or against us" era, so this was a huge cause for celebration. It was audacious and compelling and beautiful to see some brazen and meaningful shit invade the boob tube, not just Scarborough Country's cocksure, fact-amending conserva-spin. Cut forward a few years and Otep Shamaya, front woman of the band that shares her name, hasn't slowed down a bit. In 2007 she released The_Ascension, perhaps her band’s best collection yet of commanding riffery, soul-searching lyrics and compelling themes. As a performer, she is hard to match in terms of on stage energy these days. As a person, she is also an important beacon as one of the few openly gay metal artists. As an activist, she is tireless, finding time in between opening for Static-X to blog for MTV about depression and constantly criticize political corruption. Otep has also started working with Carbonrally.com to help people learn how to reduce the carbon footprint easilly in their daily lives. The group she started on the site catapulted to hundreds of members in minutes of her joining. This Ozzfest alumni and multi-faceted talent knows what she's doing. Even when the band use some of the arena-tinged trappings of Nu Metal, it's done with more depth than mere hackneyed mosh heads could pull off, the messages of the songs fitting the muscular riffs better than average boasting or temper tantrums. She can bridge the gap easily between styles, especially on her latest LP, be it spoken word-esque rapping or chilling screams, like on the song "Crooked Spoons", to penning catchy and uplifting yet somber choruses like in the song "Perfectly Flawed". That song is inspiring fans more than ever on Otep's newly founded AllShapesAndSizes.com, a self-esteem boosting site where people can discuss issues of self-hate, discrimination and bias, and how to overcome them and be accepted and love yourself for who you are. All this and she is still touring as hard as ever, currently doing some West Coast Dates on her band’s "Secrets That Kill" tour (and looking great with black hair in her new promos, I might add...though she's strictly for the ladies). I was very happy to talk via phone with Otep about art, politics and hypocrisy and the power of communal participation whether it be rock n' roll, activism or just offering fellow humans emotional support in trying times. She was succinct, contemplative, confident and, as I'd hoped, a born artist, observer and impassioned citizen.
MORGAN Y. EVANS: I'm excited to do this and talk music and politics with you. I saw you at the Knitting Factory with Candiria once and you've got a great live presence. First let's talk about the environment. You've got some great stuff going on with Carbonrally.com, working to reduce the carbon footprint. You've inspired your fans to get involved. How'd this come about? OTEP SHAMAYA: I came across the website and was really inspired by the way the site was set up and what they were doing, so I started a team and immediately started recruiting people to join, and the response was overwhelming. People want to get involved. They just need to know how. What makes CarbonRally so wonderful is it's simple, easy and effective in what they're asking us to do. Change your light bulbs to better types, minimize shower time to decrease water use, every little bit tends to help. Small steps take us in the greater direction.
MYE: Even washing your dishes, soaping up all your silverware together and then rinsing them afterwards uses a ton less water and helps. OS: All kinds of things. They even have tips on drying clothes. If you have a dryer, try to use the auto moisture setting. I'm vegetarian, but one of the things they ask is people to try giving up meat even for a week, and that helps minimize pollutants from slaughterhouses more. It's a really interesting site, chosen by TIME MAGAZINE as one of the "50 most important sites on the web." We're honored to be involved and make a positive impact. MYE: It's great. You're also bridging how a lot of people take for granted that people who are into metal sometimes are really passionate and not just angry. It's guided anger, sometimes, like yours and some of your fans. OS: Right. There's definitely metal elements in what we do, but that's the fascinating part about it is our fans span the gamut in lifestyles and ages, but again, I suppose you're right. It does destroy the stereotype that people who listen to eclectic or aggressive music are all apathetic people. In fact, they do care but are looking for direction. Sometimes they inspire me. Sometimes I inspire them. It's really this amazing community. MYE: Talking about needing direction now, but on a world scale, people talk about overpopulation as a huge problem and it seems to me that the earth could sustain us all but our politics and distribution is so fucked up, our lifestyles. The Earth has plenty of abundance and will keep giving if treated right. OS: Sure. It tends to be more about the tyranny of the folks in charge who aren't making the wisest choices fiscally. Instead of feeding or maintaining the health of their people, they are buying a new yacht or a plane. If we're smart about it, we can live on the Earth in ways beneficial for it and its' inhabitants, but you're right, too often people take advantages of situations. MYE: Two things I read recently, I knew this interview was coming up and really wanted to hear your reaction to them. One was the topic of more offshore drilling to fight gas prices. McCain has advocated it, and even T. Boone Pickens, who's an oil man and maybe only cares about the buck and was behind the John Kerry swift boating attacks, even Pickens is now spending $60 million for wind energy and saying offshore drilling is a bullshit solution. It's embarrassing other Republicans greatly. OS: I agree. I was a little disappointed to hear Obama giving in a little bit. MYE: As far as what? Tapping into the national reserve oil? I thought that seemed smart. OS: Offshore drilling. For me, everything I've read, it isn't gonna impact us. There isn't an oil shortage. There's plenty of oil. It's people setting the oil prices that are causing the biggest problem. Oil itself is the problem! We need to get off it. I was actually really, really impressed and reached out to Mr. Pickens endeavor with wind power to see if we could help somehow spread the word or promote his ideas as well. To me it seems reasonable. I don't see why the entire South Western United States isn't running on solar power when 360 days of the year they have nothing but sunlight all the time! The small monsoons that they get, say, in Arizona last about two hours and you'd have to rely on back up batteries then. Whatever, but it seems to me Mr. Pickens is making the right decision. It's flat land and perfect for wind energy. It's nice to see someone who's actually an oil man saying this. It's pretty dramatic, someone from his world. I mean, as far as I have read his whole fortune was built on oil! He's saying it's gone too far and it isn't about wealth, it's about his country. MYE: Hopefully it is that and not only motivated by money but even so, who cares?! It is still moving in the right direction. OS: I'd rather the money be in America then shipped off overseas, especially with the economy that we're in and the money actually going to people. MYE: Definitely. OS: Better than us sponsoring all this terror we're supposed to be having a war on. MYE: On that note, and back to the topic of people buying planes, I heard about this Air Force program called S.L.I.C.C., which ironically sounds like "Slick". It's "Senior Leaders In Transit Comfort Capsules". The Air Force had top brass luxury boxes built into the fuselage area of planes using $16 million in counter terrorism funds! To have these guys fly in style in mini-apartments! How the fuck does that fight Al Qaeda!? OS: In the meantime, our soldiers on the ground for the first part of the Iraq invasion didn't have proper body armor and their vehicles weren't equipped well enough, but we're building the officers this, the guys not on the ground, using things for purposes like that? This is one of the most corrupt administrations we've ever had. There's always gonna be crookedness in politics and rotten apples, but at least pretend instead of cultivating this atmosphere. MYE: At least Nixon said, "I am not a crook." [laughing] OS: At least he lied about it. These guys just laugh in our faces and say, "What are you gonna do?" Basically.
	MYE: Or say nothing. I remember the DVD Extras of Fahrenheit 9/11. I often mention this. Press ask Bush if the families of 9/11 victims shouldn't have access to hearing Cheney's testimony to investigative committees and Bush smirks and chuckles at the reporters! OS: Hopefully this will be a stain on our memories for a long time so we don't easily forget how quickly someone can come in and destroy a large part of the spirit of America. I guess, perhaps things happen for a reason. That's for the scholars to ponder. But for a long time there was this apathy in America about voting, being involved and taking responsibility. Now after 7 years of this moron we have people clamoring in the streets to make this world a better place. I'm optimistic all of this we've endured will lead us to greater things as a catalyst to make sure we don't forget too soon. A stark reminder. MYE: Hopefully. The ‘70s should've been enough! Still, it's nice that despite some of the white noise of political rhetoric that some people have sifted through it all along and saw the real shit going on. Even the media bias issue. McCain says the media's so biased but a few years ago you couldn't listen to Rage Against the Machine or John Lennon on the radio in America!
OS: Exactly. You say we're going after the terrorists and invade Iraq and say the media is biased but Fox News? Face the facts. O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh want people to think that because if there's any good news then it stems from a "liberal media" so it must be 100% true, and they can intimate that there's all this other good stuff about Bush. That's what's great about this propaganda system. By telling someone there's a "liberal bias" they can say anything they want because people won't believe any of the bad news, any of the truth of what's going on! That worked for a long time. Then there was a subtle change. Thanks to people like Keith Oberman on MSNBC and John Stewart and even Colbert bringing back a daring side of news. When I think back to even where we were a few years ago, it was a scary time for freedom of speech and the ideas I hold dear about America. It seemed we were headed towards the style of government in V For VENDETTA. MYE: I was honestly very relieved when I saw your "Warhead" video on TV. That was awesome. OS: Thank you very much. When I first wrote that song, it was 2003 and the record came out in 2004. Bush had a 60% approval rating and the war had an 80% approval rating. For me to say, "The people who hurt us are not the people we're killing and we should not be there," at first at concerts when we'd perform that, I'd dedicate it to the military and there'd be scattered guys in the crowd showing me their dog tags. Then I'd go into my Bush rants about five years of irresponsibility and ineptitude and a large portion of the crowd would say "Oh, don't say that. You can't bad mouth America." They equated Bush to America. MYE: [shudder] Yay. OS: Now, even in Texas, I go out and say the same shit I always said, like when people used to say I should probably cool it 'cuz that's Bush country down there. And I'd say, "It's still America and I have an opinion." These guys can walk around with their, "These Colors Don't Run" shirts everyone had, and I can look at that and agree or disagree, but I'm a proud American, and part of what makes me that is utilizing the rights and freedoms that exist under that flag. You don't have to agree with me. Now we play the song and [laughing] there isn't a single person in the crowd who says that. They're like, "Get this guy!" [giggling] MYE: [laughing] OS: "We're sorry, Otep! We got duped!" People believed and wanted to believe. Fear is a strong motivator. If people are afraid for their kids, they want an enemy. That's what they took advantage of. When Bush and his collaborators started hurting their base of the ordinary working folk, of which I come from—when they started spoiling that yolk with gas prices rising and diesel to $6 a gallon and the middle class slowly disappearing, the curtain got too small to hold back the corruption they'd been filling their pockets with, pilfering our treasures. MYE: Absolutely. OS: Republican voter registration is down, way down for the first time in a long, long time. John McCain is in trouble. He's hurting. MYE: Even at the Republican National Convention coming up, how are you gonna say you're an authority and have your shit together when you can't show Bush and McCain together without it being an embarrassment?! OS: Isn't that odd?! Worthy of an applause line. I'm very happy about that. I'm disappointed in McCain. He was always one of the few Republicans I admired, though I was always against his abortion stance. He was one of the few who was reasonable. MYE: More progressive. OS: Exactly. He could recognize that something might be against his party's politics but was still right to do for the working people. After what Karl Rove and Bush did to him in the 2000 election, calling his wife a pill-popper and saying he'd had an illegitimate black child, which of course made many Republicans throw up in their mouths a little. MYE: [laughing] OS: In fact he'd adopted this orphan and done this really noble thing, remarkably. They ran him into the ground, and I think he was just beaten. A few years later, he's towing the line. He'd stayed his course, but now he's been towing the line and hugging Bush at times and copping a lot of what he's said. I think one of the reasons, especially, that he is sticking to that now, even though Bush has an 18% approval rating and probably only in the rural areas of Appalachia or Montana and Utah where they don't have cable... The way the country is heading, if McCain says anything else people will say, "That sounds like the Democratic position. I'll just vote Democrat." They've had enough of Republicans. MYE: Yeah. OS: He'd have had a stronger case if he'd come out as the new face of the Republican party and said he was bringing it back to what it should be and had been against George Bush in 2000. He's missing it. I shouldn't be giving him any tips, I guess. MYE: [laughing] Yeah, no tips! OS: [laughing] Sorry 'bout that. He's let me down, and I think he's let his constituents down. On the other side, Obama goes to Europe and 200,000 people come to see him waving American flags, where a few years ago they were condemning America or the leaders, anyway. It feels like change is coming, and that's exciting. You don't see this often in your lifetime, y'know. MYE: It feels like stories my mom used to tell me about the ‘60s, being at the March on Washington. OS: Exactly. That's what my mom was saying, about being a kid and watching stuff on TV, and students organizing and all her friends were involved in politics. She said that people wanted and felt their energy could make a difference. That's the difference, when people think again that being informed and active can help, and that, to me, is the strength of our nation. MYE: One more political thing. You mentioned V For VENDETTA and Alan Moore, who wrote that, also wrote Watchmen, one of the greatest comics, and they're making a movie of it for March 2009. In that, there's a hero who wants world peace and so creates a horrible disaster in NYC so bad that all the wars around the world stop and people unify out of terror. This was written in 1986! OS: Wow. MYE: Now, I don't think 9/11 was about world peace, but some people think it was an inside job or furthering other’s agenda within the U.S. Government. I think it was extremists angry at aspects of our foreign policy, I don't know for sure. Hard to say. Regardless, they talk about Republicans being "tough on terror" but how lax was security to let 9/11 happen on their watch!? OS: Exactly! I don't think it was an inside job 'cuz these guys are complete idiots. They are good at being opportunists, though. They're the frat boys who when something goes wrong they say, "Let's tap a keg!"
MYE: [laughing] It’s Miller time! OS: They can just make something happen for their benefit regardless of what's gone on. I'm not gonna excuse the people that actually hurt us. I think there's other conspiracies possible. The 9/11 Conspiracy, I don't think is accurate. They probably knew it was coming, but we're so boastful and narcissistic that they thought there was no way. MYE: That seems more likely. OS: Then they said, "Oh Shit! This happened! We're not taking the hit on this! We're not gonna be blamed!" If you think about it, Republican control of Congress. Republican President. Republican Mayor of New York City. All three elements when we were attacked. I saw a billboard afterwards that said, "Please Don't Elect A Democratic President," and showed the towers, intimating that if you elect a Democrat we'd be attacked again. Democrats weren't in power when we were attacked. MYE: That's what I hope. "We Will Never Forget." And Republicans say they never politicized 9/11!
OS: What they are very good at is taking advantage. They had to switch it around. We had such an amazing opportunity to right some wrongs back then, and I think the larger conspiracy, if anything, lies in the Bush/Bin Laden family connection. This is a bigger thing, not if Bush had CIA remote control planes. Look at how, when it happened, everything was so lax and the Bin Laden and Bushes had known each other for 20 years and been in business, and we can't find Osama and pull our troops off the hunt! Supposedly the mastermind! That's a bigger question than the others combined. They could've built a conservative utopia in 8 years, but 'cuz of the scandals and Larry Craig and the sex and preacher scandals and all the things behind the flag waving that said they were the moral majority eroding, when they'd said the rest of us were pagan, heathen scum who didn't appreciate America, y'know, "Love it or leave it!" MYE: I got you're moral divide right here, buddy! [grabbing crotch] OS: I used to tell people if you don't like the Bill of Rights or Constitution then change them, but until then I have free speech so you can get the fuck out've MY country! MYE: [laughing] Word. OS: I'm owning it 'cuz I research my opinions. I wanna know why. They've been counting on us being ill-informed for a long time. Now, people are getting active, and it's thrilling. MYE: Your new tour is called "Secrets That Kill." OS: It's a line from our song "Ghostflowers" that seemed apropos with everything going on in the world. MYE: Musically, some songs in Otep have almost carnival, funk bass or touch on a lot of metal or other styles and use piano, or the new song "Perfectly Flawed" is not a ballad but has a dreamy quality. How'd you become so comfortable expressing so many sides of yourself? I always love bands, like Life Of Agony, for example, where they use a lot of different sides of the voice or in the music. OS: I don't see us as one category. Our strength is as a fusion band, primarily. When I was assembling the players in Otep, I wanted them to have different backgrounds in music, not "I can play thrash" only. Can you play jazz? Can you play funk? I was lucky to find amazing musicians, like my bass player Evil J., who is a graduate of Berkeley School of Music and plays everything from psychedelic rock to every head on the hydra of metal. The drummer, Brian Wolff, is a graduate of the Musicians’ Institute in L.A. and can play Cuban, afro-centric stuff to rock to metal to odd time signatures. This kid comes up with ridiculous stuff. Our guitarist, similar to Evil J. can play blues to rock to whatever. We bring all those in. For me, this is my first band, and I never thought I'd be a musician. I was never in choir. [laughing] I thought I was going to be on the road , some sort of graffiti artist/ political pundit. MYE: Just had to say this stuff. OS: I was at Ozzfest as a fan with a friend who worked for a management firm in L.A., and we were watching a terrible band totally disrespect their fans. I looked at my friend and said, "I'm gonna be here next year." He said,"You don't even have a band! You're gonna be here? Ok." Next year I was on Ozzfest. MYE: [laughing] Right on. OS: When I get my teeth into something, it's hard to let go. For us, the music I listen to is classical, Nirvana, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, and underground hip hop. MYE: Really? You've got to check out the Listener Project, this cat Listener. He's from Arkansas and pretends to be a traveling knife salesman, and is Christian, but not in an asshole way. More the "treat each other right" way. He's pure hip-hop and travels around with his wife and will even play people's houses, not just big venues. OS: Wow! That's cool. I listen to lots of things. I'd never listened to metal much, but then liked System of A Down, Korn, Mudvayne, Slipknot. Those were the kinds of bands I listened to and liked, and Nirvana and Radiohead of course. But when I started to do music, I wanted something where we could be as loud and angry or joyful or sad and melancholy as we wanted and also victorious and conquer and celebrate conquering our obstacles. Open the book and let it be. That's what Otep came out as. We're more and more comfortable with that, and as we go on you'll see even more of it. We had some songs on the new record that are pulverizing like "Crooked Spoons" and "March of The Martyrs" and some that are beautiful like "Perfectly Flawed" and “Invisible". We're gonna keep writing what makes us happy. MYE: Cool. Talking about being all inclusive, here's a two part question. You've started working with AllShapesAndSizes.org. Did you start the site? I'm not sure. It promotes people's differences as beautiful. The second question is, that being as you're an outspoken gay performer, with a lot of things happening in a good way for Gay Rights lately, hopefully it'll keep steamrolling, but do you think society will ever see past gender and some of these differences to the point where it isn't an issue and people are just with whoever they're with? OS: Umm...I don't think so. I hope they keep getting better, It's been 40 years since the Civil Rights Movement and people are still judged by the color of their skin even though we don't have some of the restrictions on People of Color that we used to. I hope we're gonna move forward to a place of tolerance and people understanding that just because it's different doesn't mean it's wrong, and I hope as citizens of this nation we get the rights of every other tax paying citizen of this nation. MYE: I can't imagine what that must be like. It's so wrong. OS: Y'know, other people don't have to agree with it and that's fine. We're not looking for acceptance in that regard. We are looking for our equality. We're not trying to give folk’s children "the gay" or covert anyone's straight kids. MYE: [laughing] DO IT! OS: Well, y'know, I might be guilty of giving certain people insights into this world, and it's up to them if they stick around or not. I'm not to convince anyone, which is the big scare tactic evangelicals use. "It's gonna be debauchery in the streets." MYE: Well, at least people will be dressed better, fuck! OS: Thanks. [laughing] That's why I hope, that people get past this bias they have. As a woman who finds love with other women pleasing to me, I don't look down on heterosexual couples, even though I might find the way they dress or take care of themselves sometimes to be revolting. I'm not gonna discriminate, so they shouldn't have the right to do that to us. We're just trying to find companionship like anyone else. It's people who are ashamed of themselves that condemn. They shove it away into this "degenerate" area and because of those partial to this addictive nature in their minds, it becomes a sexual deviancy to them, when in fact, for people who've embraced who they are, it is as normal as anything. I hope things will continue to blossom. There's always some bias, even in places where people are similar. In Ireland they fight over religion. Humans are competitive and need something to feel superior about, but hopefully the laws restricting it won't be there anymore. MYE: Yeah. Absolutely. And AllShapesAndSizes.com? How'd that come about? OS: It stems from the message of our song "Perfectly Flawed". If you look at it, a lot of the way people's lives develop, and what they base a lot of their life decisions on, it's usually, if it's regarding weight or who they are in relationships with, abusive people that continue in a shame of abuse anyway, it's usually because they're trying to fill a hole in themselves from a lack of self-esteem. We're inundated with false visions of beauty and body types, and what I was hoping to do was reaffirm new ideas of self-esteem and self-love. I think a healthy body is good, but you don't have to only be 104 lbs. Take care of yourself but love yourself. You only have one life, so be happy while you're here. If that means picking the righteous fight, pick the righteous fight. But with All Shapes And Sizes we're trying to reinforce new ideas and teach people who you are is who you were meant to be. Love that person. You don't need someone else to fill that hole for you. Do it yourself. A lot of teen pregnancies stem from injured self-esteem and self-image and trying to find something worthy of love to utilize and love you back in this world. If we can reinforce that you can love yourself, then that settles a lot of issues people are constantly juggling and living within the chaos, in the whirlwind. Once the dust settles and you have an anchor of self-esteem around you, you can really focus on whatever else in life is important to you as goals that you wanna conquer. MYE: It's nice that you're doing this, however big it gets, for it offers some kids and people a forum they can use, you know? OS: It's nice. Thank you. What I really want to do is connect people. I think communication is the most powerful weapon that we might have—talking to others who feel the same. Isolation and loneliness, most people can deal with pretty much anything, but when you feel absolutely alone and no one else feels this way, it pushed people further down the hole into the darkness. For us, we're trying to celebrate that old phrase, “it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness". If you're around people who're lighting their candles, pretty soon the world's gonna be a pretty bright place. MYE: Yeah, absolutely. That's a poetic image. Well, hey, it's great to get to talk to you, and I love your music and drive, and good luck with everything. OS: Thank you very much, man. Thanks for the interview, I really appreciate it. MYE: Peace out. OS: Bye.