AN INTERVIEW WITH...
OH OH ECSTASY
Oh Oh Ecstasy is a New York based band led by Peter Carlovich. The band has released almost 20 projects over the past decade and Oh Oh Ecstasy don't seem to be slowing down with an album OOX scheduled to release later this year. I love New York and this was a big deal to land an interview with a New York band, one with a long past and a bright future.
Remove Records: Tell us somethings about yourself and your project.
Peter: I started the band in 2010 when I was still in high school. I was originally influenced by the NYC DIY scene particularly surrounding the Captured Tracks artists. The first stuff we released was that sort of surf rock driven post-punk mixed with mellow surfy sounds a la Real Estate. I soon after got into DIY Cassette Culture and took huge inspiration from one-person recording artists like Ariel Pink and R. Stevie Moore; it changed my whole perspective. I love all types of music and I love making songs vastly different from each other and even doing vastly different styles within the same song. For the next six years I spent endless hours recording while dealing with a lot of personal issues and released loads of music, including unfinished songs and sound experiments. At first, live performance was not my focus. I thought of it as a necessary evil, but through the discovery of performance art, it sprouted my interest in thought-provoking spectacle that parallels my recording techniques. The band has always been made up of a rotating door of friends and it wasn’t until 2016 when I began to solidify my lineup, which fell into place by late 2018. Now I’m working with a new (hopefully) fixed lineup with Savanna Boyer, David Klestadt, Ben Weitz, Ross Pannebecker, Jack Moulton and Djoulde Saul. We’re recording an album currently that has songs for the first time that were written with an entire band contributing, so I’m excited for that.
What are some of your musical influences? And what are some non-musical influences? As I mentioned before, Ariel Pink and R Stevie Moore are big influences in the way I operate the band and execute it. Also: Todd Rundgren, Tonstartssbandht, Marvin Gaye, Frank Zappa, Can, Captain Beefheart, Flaming Lips, The Cure, 45 Grave, Swans, Hailu Mergia, William Onyeabor, Pink Floyd... Recently I’ve been getting into Ministry and Skinny Puppy because those bands are so aggressive but still completely art driven, and I’ve been wanting to explore a more aggressive driven sound myself that accompanies my already dark lyrics. Non-musical Influences are death, weed, altered states of consciousness, impressionist paintings, horror movies, fuzzy tv screens, weird cartoons, Andy Kaufman, Stanley Kubrick, Nicholas Cage, David Lynch, Dario Argento.... the list goes on. What are your favorite venues?
We loved playing at Elsewhere and Baby’s Alright in Brooklyn. We played at a place called Friendship Mountain in South New Jersey and it is maybe my favorite DIY spot I’ve ever been to. I love seeing shows at The Glove and Market Hotel but we haven’t played there yet; hoping to soon. Obligatory nod also to The Bowery Electric. I terribly miss 285 Kent, Death By Audio and Aviv.
I would say, be yourself, explore your unique quirks that can add something special to the mix, don’t take yourself too seriously, and don’t stick to one style of music or limit yourself. If you have a feeling to do something that is out of your comfort zone, take the risk and don’t care what people say about it.
What messages or themes are you trying to convey through your music/art?
What messages or themes are you trying to convey through your music/art?
My main theme would have to be death. It doesn’t have to be feared but must be respected; it’s also a psychedelic experience. While that is the overarching theme, I write about my experiences with mental illness, drug addiction and dealing with losing a close friend. I like my music to have a sort of haunted quality to it. There’s cautionary tales, there’s fictional stuff I make up, made-up words, conceptual continuity. I like my music to exist within its own universe that people can jump into with me. The music is depressing in a lot of ways, but I’m trying to say to people, it’s alright to have these feelings, and you shouldn’t be ashamed. What are you working on next?
We have a new album coming out in the fall called “OOX”. This is sort of our effort to focus the band and shape it into a collaborative unit. We want to start touring more and playing lots of shows and actually get out there. The album was written mostly with core members David and Ben, some with my full six piece band. The album also features contributions from almost every member thats ever been involved with the project along with lots of friends. I wanted to not be the one doing everything this time and plus a lot of my friends are way better at the instruments I play so why wouldn’t I just have them shred it up?
I feel like both music and art have become so blurred with other elements of culture that it surrounds you in ways you don’t even realize. Consuming media has become so vast in the ways you can do it, there are so many elements to it now money-wise that of course the artist is still the one suffering. There will always be artists, it’s never going to go away no matter how bad it gets for the artist, but I think we have remember to be able to separate art from media as it is so oversaturated, and greatness is taken for granted. I also think that sticking to just one art form won’t be as prevalent in the future and that the idea of even being an artist will get abstracted. It’s easier now than ever for anyone to be an artist and art has taken on so many other forms now besides traditional music, or visual art.