Adelaide four-piece OVTSIDER recently released a new track and video – COWARD. This was all created while navigating Covid and all the things that happened in 2020 so Shelley decided to catch up with Tom to find out more:
Kia Ora!
Hello!
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So who is Ovtsider?
Ovtsider is Harry Mason – Drums, Coen Miller – Bass, Jake Lawrence – Guitar and Tom Drizners – Vocals
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How was your 2020 and how has your 2021 been so far?
2020 was odd! We released our previous single ‘Blood’ pretty much as lockdown began so had to cancel the release shows we hadn’t announced yet, but then we all kept working through the lockdowns as ‘essential services’ so I guess we were in this sort of ‘semi-normal’ bubble.
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We moved our writing sessions to Zoom calls and kept writing a bunch of new music that way and then that’s how ‘Coward’ became!
2021 so far has been pretty good! Its been nice to finally release ‘Coward’, we’ve started organising some covid-pending shows interstate too which we’re pretty excited about!
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I also have to ask, why the ‘v’ in the spelling? Was it just the look or is there more to it?
The ‘v’ came from our old bassist, Joel. We’d started praccing under another name and then out of nowhere one day he said we should change it to ‘outsider but with a V’ and its been that ever since.
It’s made finding our stuff easier on streaming services which is a positive, but the questions on pronunciation do come up!
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So the earliest track I saw on Spotify is 2018. But how long have you been creating music for?
We’ve all done our own stuff for a long time, but collectively Ovtsider really only started at the beginning of 2018!
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Your sound seems to have definitely developed in that time. Everything seems stronger. Obviously that’s my opinion but is that something you have noticed?
Thank you for the compliment! But yeah, 100%! Up until ‘Blood’ everything was written by our original guitarist, ‘Blood’ became a culmination of Joel and Jake writing together, and then ‘Coward’ was all Jake. We’ve worked with Sam Yates (Dregg Music) with Recording/Production since ‘Ache’, but he really took it to a new level in ‘Coward’ with some vibes we’d been talking about for a while. Due to Victoria being locked down when we were planning to record we ended up doing it all in-house, which gave us the chance to really go ‘What if we did it this way? Worst case lets hit undo’ and then listen to demos for a few days before finally sending it off to Sam to work his magic. I 100% did that with vocals haha, we had exported everything and sent it off and about 3 days later after listening to the demo I called Jake and went back to re-do a whole bunch of lyrics.
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What, if anything, influences your music?
Without being generic, we all listen to pretty different music. Harry and Coen play in another band ‘Agapanther’ which is more alt-pop-punk-ish, but then send screen shots of songs from Bodysnatcher and Loathe. Jakes favourite band is TDWP, and also loves Taylor Swift! And then I love anything from Neck Deep to Gideon; but also listen to movie soundtracks for ideas on backing samples.
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How would you describe your music to someone?
Hardcore; we have breakdowns and two-step, done. I like to keep it simple!
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What is the process like for you when you create a track?
99% of the time its Jake starting with the bones of the track or an idea, I’ll usually go to his house and try and give a different set of ears to parts, then Harry comes in and re-does all of the drums, Coen gives his thoughts, then it usually goes to me over-thinking lyrics, Coen again giving thoughts on some placements once I’ve done a demo, then we’ll send it to Sam for his thoughts, we’ll make some more changes, that’ll happen a few times, and then I’ll change the lyrics a week before we actually record because I’ve over-thought them again!
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You recently released ‘Coward’. How has the release been for you?
The release has been a lot of fun! We were fortunate enough to be premiered on Triple J’s The Racket, and also have a video premiere on Maniacs, which was great. The release plan leading up completely thought out as well with content/social posts etc, and the feedback we got from that was all really positive!
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You also released a video for the track as well! Where did the idea for the video come from and what was the shoot like for you?
The overall thought was to just be as in-your-face as possible; I want you to feel what I feel through more than just the lyrics. That’s how the fisheye and closeness came into the discussion, and I had already done the cover art which included the green smoke so then that came into play to keep it all consistent. As for the old tv with lyrics etc, that bounced between Caleb (Vitality Visuals) and I a little when talking about ideas and it seemed fun so we ran with it! The shoot was HOT!!
We’re lucky that Harrys dad owns a big warehouse where we’ve been able to do lots previously (‘Ache’ music video, some promos), so we hired a bunch of stuff and set it up ourselves, Caleb came in and did his thing, and then as we left at 2am I realised we forgot to shoot one take so Caleb and I went back a few days later to set everything up again all for a 5 second clip. Filming Harry, then putting that footage into my computer, then back through the TV with the intro titles layered over for Caleb to then film again was fun to do as well; just another idea we had bounced off of each other last minute so I’m glad that made the cut.
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Was the green theme across everything intentional or just something that has happened because of the video and artwork?
Before we released ‘Coward’ we all sat down and really worked on where we wanted to go with our sound, image, the content we put out etc, that’s where the entire green theme came from; the thought of ‘you see green, you think of Coward’ type of branding for this release.
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Do you have much planned for this year (as much as planning can be a bit hard with everything) or are you just going with the flow?
It’s a bit of 50/50 at the moment! We’ve got a show with Anticline in Ballarat late Feb which will be sick, we played our first show with those guys and have stayed friends with them since! Then there is the rescheduled (and sold out) Heavy SA in April which will be cool because we get to play in front of a lot of new faces, and we have another couple of shows that we’re yet to announce. Hopefully they can stay going ahead. We had a tour booked last year that obviously didn’t go ahead, so hopefully things can stay safe and going in a positive direction and that can be rescheduled as well!
SOME FUN QUESTIONS:
Fave snack?
Choc chip cookies
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Overused phrase?
Either ‘cant wait to show you what we’ve been working on’ or ‘keep your eyes peeled’ (I also used these way too often when we started).
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If you could start a rumour about yourself, what would it be and why?
I’m really good at playing the drums; because I am not haha