DJ Interviews: The Ocean Beneath

Hey there everyone DJ Dizzy here & I had the pleasure of interviewing a band who call themselves The Ocean Beneath who had a lot to say on their musical beginnings.

How'd you get started in music?

I've been playing music in all different forms for years. From acoustic folk, rock and metal to electronic music and synthwave! I guess I got into actually playing music around 18 years ago, I bought a guitar from a kid at school and set about teaching myself to play it, I wanted to learn how to play it but also record it and get sounds I didn't hear elsewhere from it. From there I just always played any instruments I could get my hands on, recording them all for EP's and constantly writing music, changing with my tastes and hopefully always evolving.

Who are your inspirations or influences?

The huge influences on me would probably be David Bowie, Talk Talk & Pink Floyd, I listen to all music so it's really tough to answer this one. Right now I'm pretty deep in to LCD Soundsystem and Gunship but i'm quite happy to follow that up with some Doves, Lydmor and SiKth

What advice would offer aspiring performers?

From the days when I used to perform live with bands I would say the biggest thing for live performance is to take an energy to the stage and give people the truth, honesty works! For people wanting to make music I would say try not to overthink things, try as much as you can, use a guitar riff and replace it with drum samples, record any sounds you can and experiment. 

How do you set yourselves apart from other bands or singers?

Within the kind of synthwave, electronic scene we probably fall I would say we set ourselves apart a lot with textures of sounds we go for, some of the stuff can be a bit computerised and never seen real instruments, we try to use mainly analogue synthesizers and I think this included with actual playing brings a human element to what we do. We also try to stay clear of the cliche neon soaked artwork that comes with the synthwave scene, we've seen it too much now, let's mix things up.

Any new gigs or albums in the future?

Today is the release of our latest single Fortunate Son, an 80's inspired re imagining of the 1969 classic by Creedence Clearwater Revival. You can get this over on our Bandcamp page right now or stream it in all the usual places. We're looking at some live options for next year as well but more on that as things develop.

Special thanks to them for doing this interview & lot of luck in their music. So until then I'll catch you on the Flipside! Stay awesome & rock n roll!