The Riverside County area of Southern California is anyone but the hotbed of metal music. Los Angeles and Orange County have taken the spotlight on breeding some of the influential bands coming out onto the scene today. Riverside is better known for pop-punk and indie oriented music.
Oblige is one of the up and coming acts that has spawned out of the Riverside County areas that has latched onto the new wave of heavy metal movement. Cranking out bottom heavy riffage that falls somewhere between thrash and death metal, Oblige has created music that keeping the spirit of the underground movement alive.
They have released their newest disc, Expectants, through Stillborn Records, and have completed recent tour runs across the U.S. with American Head Charge and a recent run with Suicide Silence, The Faceless and Light This City.
The band sat down with Blistering.com to talk about their recent string success, persevering despite lineup changes, and living on the road.
Blistering.com: How long has Oblige been together prior to this release?
Greg Wilburn (vocals): The band formed after I was out of high school. It was late 2002. The only two original members remaining are me and Eric Correa, our other guitar player. When we started the band, it was an on side thing. It wasn’t taken very seriously. We did it for a while. We started realizing like we could do this. We want to do this. This is fun. We rounded up more members. We did a couple of demos, recorded an EP. We recorded an album. After our last tour, we had a couple more lineup changes. They decided that touring wasn’t necessarily for them. We moved on and found Andrew [Holzbaur, drums] and Cheyne [Smith, bass] at that point.
Blistering.com: From the lineup that is on the record, are they the ones that recently left?
GW: When we wrote the album, it was me, Eric Correa, Marten Carillo, and Mike Portellas. Then two of the members left on the last tour. It took a lot out of us. At the time, it didn’t take that much out of us as far as writing.
Blistering.com: The Inland Empire has a lot of metal fans but never a lot of metal bands until recently. How is the scene and how different is it compared to other areas of Southern California?
GW: Not a lot of heavy stuff has come out the Inland Empire and Riverside, California. Alien Ant Farm is from Riverside.
Cheyne Smith (bass): Riverside and Orange County are very hardcore influenced. We’re a straight up metal band. We love metal and that’s pretty rare for people like us.
GW:You’ve heard of Manntis? They were a metal band from Riverside. They did the whole TV thing.
CS: Kottonmouth Kings are from Riverside.
GW: As far as heavy metal, not a lot of bands. I’ve been into heavy metal my whole life. It was extremely hard finding musicians at first. It was me and Eric, which are the two original members that were extremely into metal. When we found our first drummer and bass player, they were members of a pop-punk band that they were doing for fun on the side. As me and Eric continued, we realized that we wanted to do this. That’s when member changes came.
Blistering.com: What bands influenced Oblige’s sound? I hear a lot more death metal than anything else.
Casin Russo (guitar): I can speak really well on this because I heard the album. The album was what made me want to join this band. I am completely rooted to death metal. For this album to pull me in is something else. To me, it’s a complete metal album. You can call it whatever you want…it’s metal. But it is death metal enough to pull someone like me, which is extremely tough to do.
GW: Honestly when me and Eric wrote this, we weren’t on this death metal kick. We’ve always been fans of heavy, devastating music. That’s all we want to play. The more heavy the more devastating, without going over the top and being chug all the time. We want some thought put into it. We want some groove. We want some feeling. I think a lot of music today is lacking that. When it comes to brutal and metal, honestly some of the most brutal bands I can ever think of were death metal. Decapitated, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse were some of the heaviest bands I’ve ever seen in my life. We didn’t want to be over the top with the death metal vocals. I try to keep it pronounceable and do the death metal thing.
CS: It’s not straight blasting. It’s not just fast. They know how to slow it down. They know how to groove. They know when to put blast beats.
Blistering.com: You’ve working with Jamey from Hatebreed. How did he reach out to you?
GW: The Jamey incident was online. We had originally gotten in touch with him. When we had spoken to him for the first time online, he said he had his eye on the band. He knew who we were. He was interested. We told him we had an album that was done and pretty much ready to go. We sent it to him. Then he offered us the record contract. He got us on a few Hatebreed shows at that time and saw us live. That was the deal sealer – the live show.
Blistering.com: What’s the furthest you’ve played outside of LA?
GW: As far as New York. We’ve done two full U.S. tours. Our first tour ever was a different lineup. We went out with Sinai Beach, August Burns Red, and Nodes of Ranvier. That was a two week West Coast tour. It was an awesome experience. Then we got on the American Head Charge tour. That was our first full U.S. tour. And that was the one that went as far east as New York. That’s when we lost a couple of members because they decided they can’t do this. Since then we finished a tour with Five Finger Death Punch. It was the best tour by far we’ve ever done.
Blistering.com: Do you find audiences differ between American Head Charge and Five Finger Death Punch, versus Sinai Beach and even Suicide Silence?
CR: Completely different.
CS: It’s really weird that the nu-metal crowd’s been the most welcoming to us out of anybody.
CR: Those kids have never really been exposed to heavy, heavy shit. They think they like heavy music. We got out there and played. We took over every night on that tour. It’s weird how good they are to us. They’re open to music. They’re not about scene. They’re not about what’s cool to listen to or if they’re friends are going to that show. They want to hear good music.
Blistering.com: How did the name Oblige come about?
GW: I was sitting in my senior year chemistry class. Eric was in that class. We actually met in that class. I came up with the idea of the name all in one day. I think I got a D in the class because I spent the time thinking of band names instead of studying. What are you going to do? I’m here now. The idea of the name – when I said it, it was powerful. It rolled off your tongue. I’ve always liked bands that had one name that is solid. It’s not a long sentence. You see some weird, crazy names nowadays. To me, when you oblige someone, you’re being of service to someone. Oblige is being of service to its fans, the scene and everyone. We think of ourselves as a straight up heavy metal band and that’s all we’ll ever be. That’s all we want to be. We’re obliging those people that want to hear exactly what we’ve always wanted to hear our whole lives.
Blistering.com: What kept you going even though members kept changing? You show a lot of determination for a young band.
GW: We’re like football players on a Saturday after the Friday game. We watch film. We record ourselves and watch it. We critique the shit out of ourselves more than anybody else.
CR: We found five guys that straight up, no matter how hard touring is, love touring. They love being in this band. They love playing live shows. They love heavy music. I don’t think anybody will give it up any time soon. Especially after the way the last tour went.
GW: It was such a breath of fresh air. This was going to work.
CR: Andrew’s [Holzbaur, drums] been in bands for over 14 years. I’ve been doing it for 7-8 years. We’ve all given up school. We’ve given up sports…every other thing we could have been good at to do this.
CS: I went on tour instead of going to class. But I wouldn’t give it back for anything. I’ve done more as a 20-year old than most 40 year olds have even dreamed of. I get to travel and hang out with my best friends. I’ve dropped other people…weed out the weak of friends. I found four friends I don’t get over living in a van with.
Blistering.com: Are there tour plans through the next year?
GW: It’s pretty much from here on out going to be touring. We’re not exactly sure at this point what it’s going to be. No matter what it’ll be, we will be out most of 2008.
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