Interview with OATBLOOD!

Oh my Gir- big thanks to Mr. Cris Oatblood for coming onto the blog! Go check him out, all the links to his socials at the end of the interview!

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Q: I am absolutely honored to welcome OATBLOOD to the blog! Thank you so much for the interview, please tell us a little bit about yourself! (Feel free to say as much or as little as you'd like!)

A: Hi! I'm honored to be included on the blog! My name is Cris, I am a 29 year old artist hailing from the state of Nebraska, I have made music under several different genres under several different names ever since 2012, I started the project OATBLOOD in 2020 and it has been my most active project since! 

Q: How were you introduced to scene culture & what got you into it?

A: It's actually a funny story! It all starts with me getting into Emo first. Back in 2004 when i was about 9, one morning I was watching music videos on VH1 and the music video for Coheed And Cambria's song A Favor House Atlantic came on and I was just blown away by that song, it was the first Emo song I had ever heard although I didn't know what Emo was and i didn't hear the term "Emo" til a bit later, so at that point, that song was just "Rock" to me, lol. I saw the term "Emo" pop up in late 2005 but never searched it up to see what it was as i wasn't super internet savvy yet, but I got into the mainstream side of Emo and Metalcore between 2005-2007 (ages 10-12), bands like MCR, Fall Out Boy, Panic, AFI, and learned slowly that they were associated with that word, and though they sounded milestones different than Coheed but definitely sounded like they came from a similar place and so it kinda made sense, and I was fascinated with it (some might refer to that era as Mall Emo), so I would always be looking at things on YouTube having to do with Emo, trying to figure out what defined it, and eventually in 2008, i came across this video called "Emo/Scene kids suck" and that was the first time I had ever heard the term "scene kid", and so naturally, i spent time trying to figure out what exactly it was; hair tutorials, what differentiated it from Emo, if there was a difference in music. How i got into Scene culture in the musical side is pretty tricky, I got into bands like Bullet For My Valentine and Atreyu sometime in 2006/2007 and although some people may not consider them Scene, people who were in the scene back then usually consider them as such, as far what we know as Scene music today, i would say probably say when i heard some of Jeffree Star's music in early 2008, although still hadn't heard of Scene yet, later in 2008 (age 13) i did discover [the band that shall not be named, but if you know, you know] which was the first time i had ever heard screams on dance beats and I was blown away, shortly afterwards i did discover stuff like Medic Droid, Millionaires, Brokencyde, and Breathe Carolina on the Crunkcore side of things and  Attack Attack, Eyes Set to Kill, A Day To Remember and Escape The Fate on the Post-Hardcore/Metalcore side of things and later in 2009 would be introduced to a plethora of Metalcore bands by this guy i met in high school. I would go onto download songs from all those bands off of Limewire, as well as some music from the aforementioned bands/artists (I had downloaded every Breathe Carolina and Medic song i could find on there!) As far as my style, in 2008-2009 i kinda dabbled with flat-ironed Emo hair and skinny jeans and by 2011 i would say i looked very Scene. Unfortunately I do not have any from when i was on Myspace in 2009-2010, but i do have some 2011 era pictures you can find on my instagram!

Q: What are the biggest inspirations for your music? What are your main artistic influences?

A: There are a ton, but as far as OATBLOOD goes, my main primary influences are definitely Medic Droid, Breathe Carolina, Nickasaur, Attack Attack, A Day To Remember, some honorable mentions would be The Millionaire's, Brokencyde, Dot Dot Curve, Asking Alexandria. As far as secondary, it can be ANYTHING. I listen to almost everything and will find inspiration from the most random things lol. As far as non-music things, anime has been a common theme in my lyrics, and every once in a while a real life thing can inspire my music.

Q: Who is an artist you look up to and why?

A: I would have to say Skrillex/Sonny Moore, because he's always just kind of done his own thing, he's done everything from Post-Hardcore to Dubstep to Reggaeton, and as someone who has enjoyed every era of him and has been a music lover in general since birth, i really resonate with it. An honorable mention though, would probably be Chris Motionless of Motionless In White, not only because I've always been a fan of MiW, but in the early to mid 2010's, unfortunately a lot of lead singers of bands in the scene started to develop savior complexes, and I really admired how he called it out and humbled them, reminding them that we're all human, and I think it may almost have served as a catalyst to the way we hold people accountable in the modern scene.

Q: You produce a lot of music for other artists, what's that process like?

A: I would say it really just depends, I've mostly produced for people within the crunkcore and scenecore sounds. I know one thing I can say about the process just really trying to figure out keeping stuff nostalgic and raw, yet fresh, which i really try to do with my own stuff, and so i really do my best to apply that same approach when producing for other people. An example i could give, is Korra Rain's song Lemon Drop, I really did my best to help Korra make something that is as much scene/crunkcore as it is hyperpop. 6arelyhuman's songs Yummy and Hypocrite on the Sassy Scene album. With Yummy, i really tried to go for an early 2010's dirty electro house pop sound, and with Hypocrite, i really tried to tap into Cupcakes Taste Like Violence era Jeffree, and although both styles are over a decade old, i think i definitely found a way for them to translate well in the modern scene sphere. Another would be Lil Warped Tour's "Make Hot Topic Scene Again", it was the first time i tried producing something Pop Punk-esque for someone (and with synths too!), it definitely takes notes from late 2000's synth-y neon pop punk of bands like AmyCanFly. 

Q: What is something about the community revival that makes you the most excited?

A: Honestly, all the vastly different ways of musical innovation and the evolution of it all.

Q: Tell us something you're really passionate about, can be related to music or anything else!

A: Music is definitely the biggest, but besides music, i really do enjoy arts and crafts, I've gotten really crafty this year especially because there's so many cool weird ideas to innovate on and with lots of the new aesthetics (and some older aesthetics finally being established and given a name) spawning out recently - think Dreamcore, Weirdcore, Frutiger Aero, Liminal Space, etc. - there's lots of cools ways to bring that stuff to life in ways besides digital art that haven't been tried yet and I really enjoy doing it!

Q: Care to talk about a few of your latest releases? (Particularly I'd be interested in hearing about your track 'Let Go' but more recent tracks as well!)

A: To tell the truth, in 2024, I did slow down with releases a bit to nurture them more, market them better, and get them better treatment overall but I did put out two singles from my end so far this year and did have some fire collabs come out in between the two singles. One of those singles was 'Let Go', which is the first track i put out in 2024. I had made that song in late December 2023 and I think it is definitely the most emotional song I've ever recorded. I'm not kidding when I say this, i had to take breaks in between recording at least twice 'cause i would start crying lol. There's so much i can say about Let Go. If you're familiar with my discography, you know that the themes in most of my songs can be chalked up to "MYSPACE SCENE PARTY" or "EMO ANIME ROMANCE UWU" and there has been one or two pissed off tracks in the mix but never a vulnerable emotional release before Let Go. The modern scene is basically built on nostalgia nowadays, so the concept is no stranger to the community. But, whereas most people are going for the "listening to Ke$ha and 3OH!3 in 2009! myspace and kandi bracelets! :3" type of nostalgia, i wanted to go for that "The world you grew up in no longer exists" type of nostalgia. With Let Go, instead of a hypothetical scene queen being the main character, the places you grew up with that no longer exist, as well as liminal spaces are the main character, a new experience for both me and the listener. The process for writing the song went so smoothly, the beat was just perfect, it was melodic, emotional and even SOUNDED like racing against time (shout out 44clover, the producer of that beat). I had wanted to write a song about the subject for a while and when I found that beat, i knew it was the one that I needed to make that song on. At the time, the mall in my town was getting torn down and it really just added fuel for the song and lyrics really just flowed out of me. As far the second single from my end "I Can't Stand It" with fellow Gutz N Glam member Carter Coffee that came out almost a month ago, it was such a fun process, i made that beat a few months prior and I knew i wanted this to be one of those "it's not that deep" songs and with Carter's verse, it really just made for a perfect scene anthem and a big shout out to Justin from HollowGhostDesigns and BunnyGutz Apparel for the amazing art cover! So fuckin iconic.

Q: Can you share a little bit of your music process? How does something go from an idea to a published song?

A: I really just like getting a beat, whether off YouTube or self-produced, and just really trying play around with lyrics and cadence and figure out what I feel is meant to be there. When I use a beat off of YouTube, i strive to make the most of the beat, i really want the producers to hear the song and be like "Damn, it's like I made the beat specifically for that song!", and since I am my biggest critic,  it's no different when it comes to my own beats. For lyrics, it usually just depends, sometimes they'll come naturally on the spot at the mic and sometimes they won't. Though I don't use the BandLab app, i love using it as kind of a "voice notes" thing. Sometimes lyrics will come to me when I'm just chillin in my room and nowhere near my recording equipment, so what I do sometimes is I'll send a beat to my phone and plug it in to BandLab and just kind of record impromptu lyrics through my AirPods when I'm just waking up if I need to and then record them later in FL Studio. As for how it becomes a published, really just depends on if I feel I'm satisfied with the song and I feel it's finished, I really just go with my gut feeling that if I absolutely feel it, others will too.

Q: I am incredibly curious about this, where did 'OATBLOOD' come from as your name?

A: I love telling this story! And this actually ties in with how the OATBLOOD project had started. Sometime in February 2020, i was attempting to do a Punk Goes Pop style Metalcore cover of Waste My Time by Reddish Blu (she's a very talented and underrated artist in the underground SoundCloud sphere), and I was doing both clean vocals and screams on it. Well, I decided to put autotune on the clean pop punk style vocals just for fun and I unironically just LOVED how it sounded, it was giving very Medic Droid type of vibes, so having knowledge with electronic beats already, i whipped up this rough sounding electro dance crunkcore beat to test the vocals on, and that song ended up becoming E-Girl Energy, I did let it sit while i built up other songs for the project before debuting it, but that was the first OATBLOOD ever made as well as the first that was ever released! I knew i didn't wanna put the music from this project out under previously used names, i wanted it to have it's own name and identity, i knew i wanted sort of a neon cartoon monster aesthetic for it and everything,  so I needed a random zany eye catching name, edgy but not overly edgy name that was also going to match the aesthetic I was going for. Well, about a month after  making the at the time unreleased E-Girl Energy song, I was trying the oat milk brand Oatly for the first time, and my thoughts when i drank it were "Ok, this is built different than other oat milk, this is way thicker, it's almost like straight drinking the blood of oats" and THAT is when it hit me, Oat Blood! It's zany, eye catching, random, edgy but not too edgy, and i could definitely see it going perfect with a neon monster oatmeal bowl or something like that!

Q: When did you start making music & what got you interested in trying it?

A: I had always wanted to make music every since i was a pre-teen but had no idea where to start, especially with music production knowledge being nowhere near as accessible as it has since the mid-2010's. What really kinda pushed me to try is being into Punk/Hardcore and how it showed you don't have to be a skilled musician to make good music, so in early 2010's, me and a friend started sort of a punk/metal crossover project, then when Skrillex got popular in 2011, i was really fascinated with his music and all the other Electronic artists i found through Dubstep/Drum'N'Bass and when i saw there were a bunch of tutorials for that type of music on YouTube (circa 2012), i downloaded free software to try to learn how to make that type of music, and then in the following years would download FL Studio and start to take it a bit more seriously, and from there i have always tried to attempt every type of music i possibly could.

Q: Anything you want to share about any upcoming projects?

A: As far as upcoming projects go, i have some amazing collabs with members of my collective Gutz N Glam coming pretty soon! Planning on more raw crunkcore sounding releases this year, and I also plan on putting out material in the same vain as Let Go, and really continue to tap into the dreaful side of nostalgia, both in sad and comedic tones.

Q: Do you have any other artist recommendations to send us off with?

A: First I definitely gotta shout out my entire collective Gutz N Glam Records (you can find all members in the following list on our SoundCloud), definitely wanna shout out Korra Rain, MP3Mez, k1dzheart, Nitrah Neon, LoneHusky!

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If you somehow don't follow this super cool guy, give him a follow on all his socials & tell him SceneWeekly sent you ;3!

SoundCloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/TBdH8Lg81WpdwCpLA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oatblood/

Tiktok: @oatblood

Twitter: https://tr.ee/ECGvGh6CDq

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@oatblood?si=GrFt646TmTus4Bc0

Gutz N Glam's SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/gutznglam-records

Link tree: https://linktr.ee/oatblood