We sat down with Ocean Hands to catch up on overcoming challenges in the music scene, their inspiration and song-writing process. Check it out!
What inspired you Alt. Rock/Electronic Sound?
The early days of Ocean Hands are really what sculpted the piece of art that it is slowly forming into today. A huge influence at the start of the band was The Naked And Famous’ first album, Passive Me, Aggressive You where they used a lot of processed synths and samples in their recording and live performance. We draw our influences in from new groups such as Walk the Moon all the way to the world famous Coldplay to classic rock bands like The Police.
At this point in our musical career we aren’t entirely sure what genre we are or what we are going for it just happens by itself and that is the most natural way to go about making your music- let it bleed from the heart. It just feels safe to label our work as ‘alternative rock’ but the newer stuff we have been writing is turning us into a more ‘indie-pop’ band than any other genre. That’s what is great about music, maybe next year we will produce a gangster rap album and make it big doing that. Ocean Hizzle.
As a band, what would you say your biggest challenge has been so far? Have you overcome said challenge?
Honestly the only challenges we have faced are ourselves. Either we doubt ourselves too much or setting the bar too high for something we have no control over. After being together for what will soon be two years, our run has been incredibly smooth. Other than being the cliche broke musicians playing our hearts out to empty bars, we have been really blessed on our musical journey so far and we are excited to see where this thing takes us.
Your first time performing was at a local open mic night. How different is it going from that to producing an EP and playing at places like House of Blues?
It was definitely a sign of progress for us, which is something we constantly hunger for. We’re not ones to be content on being stagnant. We’re constantly experimenting with new music and trying new and creative ways to get our name out there. In the end our goal isn’t necessarily to be a big name, but more so to share our music with as many people as possible. So to us the change from playing local open mics to big productions like recording or playing the House of Blues is a reward for all the energy we put into this.
What type of experiences have most heavily influenced your lyrics?
I try to counteract whatever is going on in my life with something bigger and better than I am or what I’m going through. It doesn’t have to be about the guys or me. More importantly when writing lyrics I aim to make them as relatable as possible without steering away from whatever direction I intended them to go in. It’s rare for me to sit down pen and paper and just write lyrics. When thinking is involved in the early process of my song-writing the song usually will never take off or I just end up hating it with a passion. Either early morning, late at night, or during the sunset I will just grab my guitar, find a nice chord progression and sing. Whatever I like whether it really makes sense or not gets written down and then I continue on.