Start Listening To: O.
Get ready to dive into the wonderfully weird world of O., where genre boundaries blur, live energy reigns, and embracing your inner weirdo is the ultimate goal.
Consisting of Joe and Tash, hailing from Oxford and Leicester but rooted in South London, O. brings a unique sound that defies easy categorisation. Their music, a fusion of dub, rock, metal, hip hop, and dance, is all delivered through the unconventional combination of a baritone saxophone and a drum kit, enhanced by an array of guitar pedals.
As they prepare to release their debut album WeirdOs, we caught up with Joe and Tash to delve into the inspirations behind their music, their creative processes, and the experiences that have shaped their journey. From their formative tour with black midi to their intense studio sessions with producer Dan Carey, O. shares the highs, challenges, and philosophies that fuel their artistry.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
We’re Joe and Tash, and we make up O. We’re from Oxford and Leicester respectively, but we met and are based in South London. Our music is a pretty weird mix of dub, rock, metal, hip hop, and dance. Oh, and it’s all just played on a baritone saxophone and drum kit, but through a load of guitar pedals.
Congratulations on your upcoming debut album, "WeirdOs"! Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the album title and its significance to your music?
Right after we started the band, we were lucky enough to head out on tour with black midi. Someone came up to us after one of those shows and really enthusiastically told us that we make ‘music for weirdos’. We loved that. Especially because during that tour we were finding our feet in writing and playing music with pretty weird instrumentation in a pretty weird style.
Nowadays, we get asked a lot what genre our music is and ‘music for weirdos’ seems like the best description there is. Plus, we think everyone is a bit weird, really and we should totally celebrate that.
"176" is the latest single from your album. What was the creative process like for this track?
We’d been revisiting a lot of our favourite hip hop records when we wrote 176. Tash had just finished reading Dilla Time and Joe recently bought De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising record back from Rough Trade. We’d been out touring with Gilla Band around that time too, so we were also writing a lot of heavier noisy tracks. 176 is us putting those two influences - hip hop and heavy noise - together in our own way.
Your live shows are an assault of sound, encompassing everything from euphoric dancefloor vibes to menacing doom metal. How do you translate this energy from the stage to the studio?
We very much treat the studio like a gig. Such a big part of this band is really pushing ourselves physically, so when we record we usually play three or four tracks non-stop like we would at a show. It means the recordings aren’t perfect, but capture the raw, ‘could fall apart at any moment’ energy that we have when we play live.
Could you share some insights into your collaboration with producer Dan Carey on "WeirdOs"? How did his approach contribute to capturing the essence of O.'s live performances?
Dan really pushed us in the studio, which we completely loved. We’d finish a day of recording, and then he would suggest going to the pub for a few pints and coming back and playing the whole album in one take. He got his family in for us to perform to at one point. Crucially, he also stopped us from overthinking or overplaying the tracks, and limited the number of corrections or overdubs so that the songs retained their live feel.
When it came to the tech side of things, Dan also had an amazing way of recreating the feeling of being hit by a sound system at a gig. He re-amped the sax in loads of cool ways, and ran elements through the modular synth. He used loads of cool analogue delays and reverb to do live dubbing too.
"WeirdOs" features 10 tracks recorded live to tape. What challenges and advantages did this approach present during the recording process?
Recording to tape feels really high stakes, and we’ve experimented with it while recording our EP and album with Dan. The main appeal is always the mindset it puts you in. It’s not like digital recording in that you know if you mess up a certain part, you can do infinite takes until you get it right. With tape, you’re really in the gig mindset of wanting to play your hardest all the time. We love that.
Can you share any memorable moments from your tour with black midi and Gilla Band that particularly influenced the direction of your music or live performances?
One of our favourite ever gigs was at Vicar Street, Dublin supporting black midi. It was soon after the lockdown had lifted over there, so the crowd was super pumped. It was about our seventh ever show, and it was the first time the crowd had properly moshed to our songs. Both black midi and Gilla band have really inspired us to make heavy music that people can both mosh and dance to. We feel very lucky to have got to go out with both of them.
You formed a bond during the pandemic by jamming together every day. How did this intense period of collaboration shape your artistic vision and strengthen your musical connection?
The uncertainty of that time meant we didn’t have preconceptions when we played together. We didn’t think about starting a band, really, when the world felt like it was ending a bit. Instead, we just focused on writing some songs. Everyone was figuring out how to live their lives under restrictions and limitations at that time, it seems kind of apt to think about making music with the limited instrumentation of just a saxophone and a drum kit.
What’s it like working with Speedy Wunderground?
Gnarly. Very cool. Going into Dan’s studio is like going into a playground when you’re a kid.
What do you hope listeners will take away from "WeirdOs" after experiencing the album in its entirety?
It’s okay to be weird, in fact it’s actually pretty great.
What do you love right now?
Tash: Noodles, Brat, pigeons, piccolo snare drums
Joe: Filipino Adobo chicken, Wulu’s new EP Learning to Swim on Empty, my Old Blood Noise Beam Splitter pedal
What do you hate right now?
Tash: Bird deterrent pigeon wire.
Joe: The monarchy, the patriarchy, shaving.
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
Joe: Evil Empire, Rage Against The Machine. For the sounds, riffs, and lyrics.
Tash: In Rainbows, Radiohead. For what will always be some of my favourite drum beats.
What does the future hold for O.?
Even weirder music.
