Interview With OddFellas

Firstly, introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the band and how you came to be?

Yo, I’m Drake Fisher! I happen to have the pleasure of singing for this bad ass band of mine! We’re basically just the black sheep of our little home town, that finally started the band of our dreams.

We’ve got who we like to call the, “glorious metronome” on the Drums! His name is, Mason Galaviz.

On his beautiful Strat called “Rosa Lynn”, we’ve got the 6 string wizard, Dako Ryan! On Bass, we’ve got the most bad ass, energetic bass slappin, crazy haired dude of all time, Davey Ellis!

We’re all pretty much the same age (23-24) and have always had the dream for music since high school. Mason, Dako, and I actually went to school together most of our lives and have always jammed together off and on. You could say this band has been in the works since we were young teenagers to be honest.

Mason was the drummer for just about every band in our home town, and has been rocking in bars since he was just 14. I always knew he would be my drummer one day. Same with Dako, we’ve always jammed together and every time it was just magic. Eventually a kid from Oklahoma moved to our small town in Texas..guess who?? Yeah..freakin Davey Ellis. As soon as he moved to Pampa he joined the music scene! I was so jealous of this dude for joining bands just after a year that he was here, because I had not been in one! Well, the thought in my mind started to appear that I would eventually have him too!

Let’s just say we all had our own little projects for awhile, got tired of shit that we were doing on our own, push came to shove, and finally, we formed this little group that we now call, OddFellas. Now we tour just about every weekend and have a damn good time doing it!

What were you all up too prior to the band, was this always the chosen path or did you have other dreams and aspirations?

Well, I was working dead end jobs that always pissed me off since I graduated highschool. I’m sure all the other dudes could say the exact same thing. Mason is probably the only one who has actually kept the same job since after highschool. I think we were all just waiting for this to happen. We’ve always wanted to be on the big stages playing our hearts out. I mean what musician wouldn’t want that?

I guess you could just say we know all this is very well meant to be. We’re just on time though, I can promise you that!

Tell us about your latest release and why our readers should check it out.

Dude..we are so excited to show the world our music! We have taken our sweet time to develop the original sound we have, and the unique songs we have written. We released our first single this January, 2019. It’s called “Reason”. It’s a banger for sure. Although this song is very outspoken, I don’t want people to get the wrong idea of it. As we release another single, EP and eventually an Album, everything will make perfect since. Every song on the album will mesh together just right. I do believe these songs we have written could easily be interpreted in anyones own way, but they are about very specific things going on in my mind. The music that the guys have written behind my lyrics are just “out of this world”. You can expect us to get a little psychedelic, a little heavy, and a lot of emotional. We’ve been told that Rock 'N Roll needs our sound, I guess we’ll see. You check us out, but really, our live shows are where it’s at! I promise we will be able to capture the emotion from our live shows on the record too!

Who would you say is the bands main song writer or is it a group effort and where do you draw your inspiration lyrically and musically from?

Nothing with this band is a one man effort. We all work together no matter what it is. So when it comes to writing music, you could say it’s pretty magical. We all throw ideas on the table, sometimes it takes minutes to write a song, sometimes it takes weeks, or months even. There’s been a few times the dudes have helped me with lyrics, but for the most part I write the lyrics. We all write our own parts with a little help here and there. I’m pretty sure most of our sound as a band, is influenced from the Grunge scene in the 90’s (Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Days of the New), but we also get influence from bands of today (Queens of the Stone Age, Highly Suspect, Nothing More, Bad Flowers, All Them Witches).

We also listen to a lot of Metal and Hip Hop! Country music or “Butt Rock” will never be played on the trips in the van. Because fuck that shit... Although these bands influence us, we have definitely developed our own style and sound. The album is going to be so good!

As a band what do you believe is your greatest achievement to date and why?

Honestly, our biggest achievement to me, is sticking together through all the bullshit being in the music scene. We love it, but it’s hard sometimes. We got this shit though. We’ve become brothers.

We’ve done a lot of huge things that we’re proud of! I know competitions may not mean anything anymore, but we’re 5-0 competing in 5 different battle of the bands here in Texas! We’ve got to play multiple festivals such as, Hell & Heaven Fest Mexico City, Rocklahoma, and Sturgis Buffalo chip rally! So that’s pretty cool to have done in the short time that we have been together.

Have you ever come face to face with someone within the music scene who has left you awestruck and why?

Yes!! There was that one time in Mexico that we got to hangout with Fuggin Jack Black and Kyle Gass of Tenacious D back stage before their set at H&H Fest!!! We were all so damn shocked that we didn’t even speak to them, haha! Jack Black was mainly the reason why, because if it wasn’t for School of Rock, I wouldn’t be typing this about my band right now!

What do you enjoy most about touring?

I think all of our favorite part is just feeling like we’re actually doing something with our lives. We all just enjoy being in different places, meeting new people, and other bands! My favorite part is the van chills, we’re pretty much best friends, so we get vent and talk shit to each other. It’s good to have. We are all very passionate about what we do, so every show, we try to make it very special for each venue we go to. We love meeting new fans and finding out we aren’t the only weirdos out there! Oh, and don’t let me forget, Buc-ee’s! “BUCNUGS” ARE LIFE.

If we were to head out to one of your live shows what can ourselves and others expect?

Uhm, loud ass original Rock N’ Roll, very high energy, loud Rock N’ Roll, busted glass, little blood, loud Rock N’ Roll, not to request covers, and a connection to music you haven’t felt before. No politics, no stupid bullshit, just good music from some kids that are best friends.

If you had one artist/band that you could go on tour with tomorrow who would it be and why?

This question is a very hard question to answer, yet so easy.... I’d have to say Pearl Jam. Why? Because they’re the best band in the world. I don’t think it will happen tomorrow, but it’s meant to be I can tell you that!

You can spend an hour with a musical icon living or dead, who would you pick, why and what would you speak about?

Dang, this is hard too. Dave Grohl for sure though! Who wouldn’t wanna chill with fuckin' Dave Grohl? He’s also a huge inspiration to us. I think we’d just talk to him about banding...and music of course. We may have to take up 30 mins of that time to jam though. Got it, Dave?

And finally and most importantly is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?

Duhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Peace!

Website - oddfellasband.com

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/oddfellasband/