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Interviews  Ogre
by Chris
Barnes
 Ogre
takes me back to a better, more innocent time in heavy music - a time
measured in 2 inch analog tape and and bathed in the warmth of tube amplifiers.
It's no wonder that they were voted one of Portland's best heavy rock
acts in the Portland Phoenix Best Music Poll... incredibly inventive heavy
tunes, kissed with a touch of Prog with their surprise odd time changes
and overall feel. Fans of Cirith Ungol, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and
vintage Rush would do well to check out their just-released debut album
Dawn of the Proto-Man. Hellride talks with guitarist and co-founder
Ross Markonish about the band.
Hellride Music: Gentlemen, please introduce yourselves and
tell us what instrument you play.
Ross Markonish: Ross - guitar
Ed - bass and vocals
Will - drums
Hellride
Music: Will
and Ross actually teamed up initially in a prog band, I think. Tell us
about that. How did Ed come into the picture?
Ross: Yeah, Will and I first started
playing together in an all-instrumental prog/drone/trance band called
Hello Monster. It was pretty cool and different sounding, but it wore
thin pretty quickly. Will was especially frustrated because it wasn't
his favorite type of music and he didn't have many chances to kick out
the jams. Will's a metalhead through and through. Anyway, one day, Will
showed up to practice with a KISS t-shirt on and I knew that we needed
to get a side project going… So, every time the other guys in the
band stepped out to have a smoke or take a piss, Will and I would jam
out on Sabbath and Kiss tunes. I also started turning Will onto some of
the more obscure 70's bands like Sir Lord Baltimore and Dust, and we just
started talking about forming a new band that would show all those influences…Pure
70s hard rock.
So, Will and I started jamming and writing riffs together, but we knew
we needed vocals and bass. We liked the idea of a power trio---especially
after playing in a band with 5 very different personalities---so we put
an ad in the local newspaper looking for a singer/bassist into Rush, Sabbath,
etc. etc. We got only one reply and it was Ed. At our very first practice,
we instantly clicked musically and the rest, as they say, is history….
Hellride
Music: Nice.
That was easy. Let's talk about your album Dawn of the Proto-Man
for a bit. This recording was a long time in coming, I understand. What
delayed you guys from getting this out? How do you guys feel about it
now that you've had some time to soak it in?
Ross: Well, making this album has not
been easy… We started the process over two years ago when we decided
to re-record some of the songs from our 2000 demo as well as write a few
new tracks. We had a friend who was starting up his own studio and he
let us record for cheap. Unfortunately, the recordings sounded like digital
crap…The performances sucked, the mix was thin, and it just was missing
the warmth and edge we were looking for. No offense to the engineer -
he's a great guy and does amazing live sound --- but it just didn't work
out with him.
So, we scrapped that idea and decided to focus on writing more tunes.
Then, in the summer of 2002, we went into a local studio to record the
album. We had a bunch of new songs and also wanted to re-record "Jaded
Beast", which we always thought sounded kinda crappy on the demo.
We also thought it would be good to re-mix "Ogre" and "Skeletonized",
which were originally on a compilation put out by Water Dragon Records
in France and sounded real muddy.
We were working with a great sound engineer and the basic tracks sounded
killer, so we were pretty psyched about it. Unfortunately for us, though,
the engineer had a major falling out with the recording studio and he
quit, leaving our project in limbo. Almost six months later, we headed
back in with a new guy to help us mix it. The mixing went alright---we
still think the final mixes on the CD are missing some of the heaviness
that those rough mixes had---but we were ready to just get the damn thing
done with at this point!
And that's about it… We're pretty happy with the CD as it stands.
All three of us are perfectionists so we always find something that bugs
us, but we're proud of the album, especially considering what we went
through to have it made and that the entire project from start to finish
was completely self-funded. So, all you readers out there should buy our
album and help us make some money back!
Hellride Music: Ogre
oozes '70's hard rock. The list of influences you guys garner from ranges
from Black Sabbath to Rush to the more obscure like Dust and Buffalo.
What is it about that era in music that strikes a collective chord in
you guys?
Ross: It's kinda hard to put into words,
but there's a simplicity and honesty to the music back then that's just
so cool… Guitar, bass, drums, vocals… Totally simple and stripped
down, but you don't need anything else to make heavy music. I mean, music
today, even a lot of the stoner stuff, is so contrived and so manipulated
in the studio that it loses all of its magic. Contrary to popular belief,
heaviness is not a matter of tuning down to "C" or "B"
and turning your Sunn amps up as loud as they go… Listen to "Suicide"
by Dust or "Review Your Choices" by Pentagram (70's line-up,
of course) or anything off of Buffalo's Volcanic Rock---that's
what heavy rock is all about. It's got soul and it's got riffs and it
comes from the blues.
I also just love the sound of those albums. There's nothing better than
a saturated tube amp recorded on analog tape… Hopefully, we've captured
some of that on our album.
Hellride Music: Even though there's
an AC/DC simple three chord stomp or two in Dawn of the Proto-Man,
you guys have a decidedly progressive edge to many of the songs on the
album. Is this due to an affinity for Rush, Dust and Trapaeze? Or was
this just how the songs progressed as you guys put them together?
Ross: Well, Ed and I are both Rush
freaks, so that's definitely gonna come through in the music. I mean,
we jam on almost all the tunes off Rush's first album during practices.
And I think we're the only band who likes to play "I Think I'm Going
Bald", which most people think is one of Rush's stupidest songs ever!
I'm also a closet prog-head, so it's nice to throw some curves into the
mix. Nothing too complex, and you certainly won't ever hear a synthesizer
on an OGRE record, but a few odd time changes are nice every now and then…
Hellride Music: I
agree - I love "Suicide Ride". Gawdamn that kicks some arse,
as does the doom epic "Black Death". Can you tell me a bit about
the story behind those numbers?
Ross: It's funny that you mention "Suicide"
because a lot of people have told us that's their favorite song on the
record. It's sorta turned into the "sleeper hit" of the album,
which is kinda funny, because it almost didn't make the final track list.
It was the last song we wrote for the album and, at first, we didn't think
it was as tight as the other tracks, so we almost scrapped it… But,
I dunno, I guess there's some energy there, maybe a little looseness,
that makes people like it a lot…
As for "...Death", well, that's almost the opposite of "Suicide"…We
just wanted a super-heavy doom track to end the album. We've had that
song bouncing around for a while now and it just seemed to fit…We
don't play that one live all that much, because it clears the room every
time we play it, ha! Audiences in Maine just aren't ready for true doom
I guess…
Hellride Music: If
there was one thing you wanted to get across to the people about Dawn
of the Proto-Man, or Ogre in general, what would it be?
Ross: Well, the 70s influence is pretty
clear and that's what we're all about, but we don't want people to think
that we're just stuck in the past and blindly imitating our idols. That's
the great thing about heavy music---it's timeless and will always hit
you in the gut the same way, whether you're playin' it in 1971 or 2003.
Hellride Music: So, how do you guys
like the power trio format? Will you keep it this way? Any temptation
to mess with the musical chemistry the band already has?
Ross: I think we're gonna stick with
the power trio… We have such good chemistry with each other that
another person could set it all off balance. We like it stripped down
and minimal, with very little excess instrumentation, just like the best
of the 70's hard rock bands. As a matter of fact, when we first recorded
"78", Will and I kinda wanted to put some Jon Lord-style Hammond
organ on there, maybe make it less like such an obvious AC/DC tribute,
but Ed wouldn't let us….In hindsight, I think he made the right call!
Hellride Music: Speaking
of "'78", I may be wrong, but the lyrics seem autobiographical
to me. No matter what you do, you never lose the rock. Does this seem
to apply to you guys?
Ross: Definitely… Even though
the lyrics to "78" are sorta tongue-in-cheek, I think they're
pretty accurate for a lot of bands out there…We all have day jobs
and other crap going on in our lives but, when you plug in, you forget
about all that and just give yourselves over to the rock for an hour or
two…That's what music is all about, in my humble opinion.
Hellride
Music: What's next for Ogre?
Ross: Right now, we're just promoting
the album and working on a bunch of new material. The new songs seem to
be a bit darker in tone than the stuff on ...Proto-Man, so it's
kinda cool to be playing around with some different sounds and sonic structures.
Of course, I'm sure that, by the time we're ready to record the next album,
we'll have a bunch of fist-pumpin' bombastic anthems on there as well….
Hellride Music: Excellent! Thanks
for the interview guys, I really appreciate it. Anything you'd like to
leave us with?
Ross: Just wanted to say thanks for
the support, Chris. Stay heavy, man!
 Purchase
Dawn
of the Proto-Man at the Hellride
Music Superstore
Read
the Hellride Music review of Dawn
of the Proto-Man
Download
an MP3 of Skeletonized
Visit
the Ogre website at www.ogrerock.com
Copyright 2002-2003 HellrideMusic.com, LLC
Interview by Chris
Barnes 12/10/02
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