By: Rob Pierce

San Francisco, California – A bright neon sign out front announced The Bottom of the Hill (1233 17th Street), a small, austere venue in the sticks of San Francisco.  I walked through the doors and ordered a beer. Four bucks including tip. I’d gone to interview O’Death — an up-and-coming and somewhat inexplicable band out of New York. I’d listened to a fair amount of their music in preparation, and I suspected, as I stood there drinking my beer, that the smallness of the venue and cheapness of the drinks belied something altogether sensational.

The intensity was palpable, as O’Death took the stage. The hip crowd had already been whipped into a near frenzy by the opening acts, and now they chomped at the bit, drinking and cheering as the headliners grabbed their instruments. Somewhere in the mob, a yeehaw rang out…and then the place exploded.

As the band let loose, The Bottom of the Hill was transformed from venue to electric gypsy ho-down — a mass of checkers and wild hair undulating to the tremulous cries of Bob Pycior’s fiddle and Greg Jaime’s piercing falsetto. Behind them, David Rogers-Berry hammered at his bricolage drum set with all the passion of a man possessed, torturing his instruments without mercy — a Jameson-fueled demon. The walls of the room stretched, struggling in vain to control the wild energy of the music, and all at once it became clear: behind this humble quintet lies a force of nature.

What has been described in turns as bluegrass, rock, punk, and (according to the band’s MySpace page) gothic music is, expectedly, hard to classify. They are at times country, at others rock ‘n’ roll. They are Will Oldham smooth, DeVotchKa weird, and Charlie Daniels Band cool.

In between last minute set-list changes, cigarettes, and shots of whiskey, I sat down with O’Death to talk about their new album, Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin.

Rob Pierce: I’m gonna start out with a very serious question. Your listeners want to know: you’ve been seen with Jack, you’ve been seen with Beam — what is it, Jack or Beam?

Greg Jaime: [Grabbing a whiskey bottle] This is the young man right here.

Bob Pycior & Newman: Jameson!

Newman: Yeah, it’s actually this old guy.

GJ: Jameson — we take him with us everywhere.

Newman: Yeah, this is the guy.

David Rogers-Berry: Yeah, that’s the go-to — unless you’re going super top shelf — that’s the go-to guy.

GJ: Sorry, America.

BP: Gabe’s probably out buying whiskey right now.

RP: Noted. All right, let’s get serious for a minute here. Broken Hymns seems like a big departure from Head Home…

GJ: Do you think so?

RP: I thought so.

GJ: Shit. Well, we fucked up. [Laughs] What do you think is different about it?

RP: I thought Broken Hymns was much more aggressive and that Head Home was a little more folky…

CJ: Yeah…

Newman: I think Head Home might be a little more abrasive.

BP: Yeah, Head Home might have more imperfections in it, but I think this new one is heavier. I mean, heavier and darker — more consistently darker.

RP: Were you going for the live sound on this album as opposed to more of a studio sound?

DRB: Yeah, and rock. A rock record.

Newman: Whatever it is, it’s more cohesive than Head Home.

RP: In doing a rock album, do you feel that you are getting away from your sort of country/appalachia/bluegrass influences?

BP: I think we’re coming back to our more personal roots, in some ways. In one way or another, our individual, close-to-heart influences are coming through more and more, and this album shows that, for sure. A lot of us grew up listening to rock.

RP: Like who?

Newman: There ya go. My father took me to my first Who concert when I was three years old.

GJ: I’m not a big fan of The Who.

Newman: I’m not a big Who fan either; I just can’t get over…I’ve seen The Who a dozen times.

RP: Greg, who were you listening to growing up?

Newman: Greg’s one of the ones who didn’t listen to rock.

GJ: I listened to rock. I listened to Faith No More and The Pixies…

DRB: I’ve really been digging the Faith No More lately.

GJ: I loved those guys in, like, fourth grade.

BP: What are you trying to say?

RP: What was it like working with (producer) Alex Newport on the new album?

Newman: Very cool. Alex is a good guy, a lot of fun to work with.

DRB: We loved that guy.

RP: Do you think he had a big influence on the way Broken Hymns came out?

BP: I think in the sense that he kinda let it be what it was. He didn’t try to do too much.

Newman: No, I wouldn’t say he had a big influence on the way it came out. He definitely worked with us and put in input, but we were the big influence.

GJ: He was really good at mixing things.

DRB: He totally got what we were doing from the beginning. His approach was basically to set up mics and let us play, and that’s how we were working.

RP: He does a lot of experimental, cross-genre work — his stuff with Mars Volta and The Locust, for example. David, it seems like you bang on a lot of strange things in this album, more than in Head Home…

DRB: It was captured a little bit better on this album, I think.

RP: Did he encourage a more experimental sound?

DRB: I wouldn’t say he encouraged a more experimental sound.

GJ: He entertained us.

DRB: We wanted to make a rock record, and he was a good guy to do that. He knew how to get a real big sound out of what we were doing and how to capture what we sound like in general.

RP: On the topic of collaborations, O’Death just came out with a pretty kick-ass video for “Low Tide” with Ben Zeitlin. Are there any plans to work together in the future?

BP: As long as he’s not making any feature films…

GJ: Which he will be, immediately.

DRB: Yeah, he’s got his own stuff that he does. But they spent like a month working on this thing, but they work in small crews and they did it on a low budget. So when they were working on it, it wasn’t like they were putting in 12-hour days, which is what it can be like on set sometimes. He’s capable of making something in a casual way, but that’s not what it looks like.

RP: Would you like to hook up again in the future?

GJ: At some point, yeah. I don’t know. Hopefully with this record we can do another video.

DRB: Yeah, hopefully we’ll be able to work with him again. I mean, there are other people out there to work with as well.

RP: It seems like every genre is desperate to lay claim to your sound, from bluegrass to punk to gypsy ho-down jug band. No one seems quite sure what to call you.

Newman: Have you ever listened to Bluegrass music? How is our music like Bluegrass other than the fact that we have a banjo and a fiddle? The banjo and the fiddle are in a bunch of different types of music, that doesn’t necessarily make it Bluegrass. I’ve always had a beef with being called Bluegrass because Bluegrass is a very specific, sectioned type of music, and we have so many things that are the opposite of Bluegrass. We don’t play old standards. We don’t take solos. We have a drummer. I play an electric bass.

RP: You had said that Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin was largely about catharsis and rising above, which can be a very personal theme. Is it important for that message to come through to your audience, or do you just want them to rock out and have a good time?

Newman: I think they’re the same thing. I think that rocking out and having a good time is getting the music in the same way that, in a lot of the songs, the subject matter tends to be very dark but the energy is very high. I guess it can seem a little manic, but, for me, it’s more playing the songs live that I enjoy, that I find the catharsis in.

RP: Speaking of catharsis: Obama, anyone?

Newman: Yes!

BP: We played in Toronto on election night, and in the middle of our set, between songs, the sound guy came on — just on the monitors, not the main system — he told us that it had been decided, so we got to tell a large crowd of Canadians that, and they lost their shit. It was pretty awesome.

DRB: We went crazy too. That’s definitely a moment that I’ll remember for a long time.

GJ: Yeah, it was pretty special. A special night.

RP: You guys are wrapping up your tour in December. What’s next for O’Death? Are you taking a break or going back to the studio?

Newman: We’re going to work.

DRB: We’re hoping to get into the studio. We don’t know if it’s going to happen yet or not. We’re hoping to get into the studio because we only have seven weeks before we go back out again. We’re doing the Southeast in February, and then doing a big European tour in February and March.

For more information on O’Death, including music and tour dates, visit their website.