To listen to the ASA Oceanis song “Animals”, click the “PLAY” arrow right here:
Pat Miller (left) & Aaron Reynolds
ASA Oceanis plays this Saturday night at the Carousel Lounge in Austin, as the band gears up to release their debut album, Nobody Knocks Anymore. The duo–Patrick Miller and Aaron Reynolds–grew up together in Austin in the days of Liberty Lunch and Psycho Ditch.
ASA Oceanis’s unpretentious, driving construction rock stands out, especially in a town packed with guitar-playing hipsters from somewhere else. And Miller and Reynolds are proud to be native sons. When the topic of bands that move to his hometown and then claim to be “Austin-based” comes up, Miller says, “If you didn’t skate the Drag in ’89, your legitimacy is questionable.”
ASA Oceanis morphed from Miller’s former solo-loop project, Julian Decided, in 2008. Miller writes the band’s songs, sings vocals and plays guitar; while Reynolds plays drums. When asked about drumming, Reynolds says, “I’m inspired by Chris Stutsman. I try to hit them as hard as I can.”
Neither Miller, nor Reynolds is technically trained, though Miller jokes he’ll take guitar lessons once he “sells a bunch of albums.”
Neither of the two feels comfortable describing their own music. “We’re untrained,” Miller explains, “and we don’t really know how to conceptualize our music. We can only play the music we play.”
Reynolds chimes in, “I think the fact that we don’t even know how to talk to each other about our music is exactly the point. But I like to think that we manage to pull off the mutual independence achieved by Mike Watt and D. Boone of the Minutemen.”
But it’s the music itself that’s the point. Miller’s simple, but profound lyrics–often consisting of one or two repeating lines–are both funny and haunting. In the song “Animals,” Miller sings, over and over, “We are animals–and I’m just now getting to be okay with that.”
Pat Miller (left) and Aaron Reynolds
In “Far From Home,” Miller writes of losing his way during a stint living in New York City, and only being brought back from the edge by a promise to his mother.
All alone, far from home/I filled my veins up, I shut my life down/Came back home, to be alone/Guess you could say that I tried to end myself, that’s it/Made you a promise, I’d stick around, just as long as your feet were on this ground, and that’s it
Dr. Kevin Lee–who holds a Ph.D. in Physics from UT–joins the duo on their album, playing Moog, bass and guitar. Lee also recorded and mixed the album at his Seoul, Korea Studios.
Sound engineer Erik Wofford—who has helped such preeminent rock bands as My Morning Jacket and What Made Milwaukee Famous to develop their sounds–mastered the duo’s nine songs at his Cacophony Recorders. Wofford and Miller were childhood friends as well. “It was pretty awesome of him to work on the album,” Miller says.
Nobody Knocks Anymore will be released on Rare Dust Records in December 2009.
ASA Oceanis plays this Saturday night at the Carousel Lounge in Austin, TX at 10pm. For more info contact Patrick Miller on Facebook.
ASA Oceanis’s Influences: The Ghetto Boys, Iron Maiden, Azatat and First Aid Kit.
ASA Oceanis’s Favorite film: Conan the Barbarian “And I will tell you of times of high adventure…”
That Aaron Reynolds is totally hot. Can’t wait to catch him in action.
Looks great..I will be there..
great review, would love to see a link to their music on youtube or myspace!
Hopefully they’ll have a link up soon. And the album release is coming up, too!
It was a great show..on to Letterman..
It was an amazing show. There’s been buzz about it, too.
The Mercers have been talking it up on their facebook page, for one.