Oblivia story / interview
It's amazing what a difference a year makes. In around that time, Sydney based 5 piece Oblivia have turned from unsigned hopefuls to major label rostered artists, having signed publishing deals with the highly acclaimed Alberts, plus a recording deal with RCA/BMG.
I recently caught up with one of the founding members of the band, Tony Juke, who was still obviously excited about the deal with BMG & of course, the impending debut album, as well as the sterling support shown by Triple J & community radio to the current single My Friend.
We started off by talking about the band's fortunes in getting to the point they're at now.
"Yeah,
we're truly lucky as far as getting signed to a major label's
concerned. I'm still hyped by it. Not that we didn't earn it. We did
all the hard slog to get where we're at now. You know what I mean?
Recording & funding demos, shopping them round, doing gigs all
over the place."
Tony's equally vibed about the possibilities that are presented to other bands by their own signing.
"What I mean by that is that other bands have something of a chance as well. I mean, as I mentioned before, we did all the hard work & we were lucky enough to get signed, which goes to show that other bands can do it too. Look at other great Australian acts that have been signed & you only have to believe in your talent enough & be committed enough to keep going with your music."
Something else the band have gotten into, like so many other bands, is to have their own website already up & running.
"We thought it was definitely worth our while investigating this new technology & a lot of bands have spoken about how it lets the fans get a lot closer to the band as well as giving the band the opportunity to let people download some samples & music from our site. There's certainly a lot of things you can do with a website that I don't think would have happened before the Internet became popular."
Moving onto the single, I spoke about the airplay the band's single My Friend has already gained.
"It's really excellent. Triple J has certainly gotten right behind us as far as that track is concerned. Triple J's certainly a good resource for helping out new bands. Community radio is just as good too. One of the great things about community radio is that the name says it all, with the surrounding community supporting it, so you know that those same people are listening to what the station is playing. Certainly Triple J is supported in a different way & they have an exceptionally diverse playlist as well as the advantage of being a national network."
Finally, one would hope that with a single this good, the band will have an album out & I wondered what sort of music we might expect to appear on the album.
"It's always a hard question to answer, what sort of music you play or that you're writing, but I certainly think that what we've done to date is worthwhile. I'd have to say that we're hoping that everyone likes what we're doing now. I think the best thing to say would be that we're doing our best to come up with more music like the single as well as having some different things for people to check out, you know, surprise people."
For the moment, check out the band's single My Friend, available through BMG.
