O.A.R rocks Veterans Memorial Field House
By Brandom Woolum

Wednesday WMUL-FM conducted a live interview with rock band O.A.R (Of a Revolution). HuntingtonNews.Net entertainment correspondent, Brandon Woolum was allowed to sit in on the event and here’s what went down. The interview was conducted my T.J. King and compiled by Woolum. The following is an EXCLUSIVE from your friends at 88.1 WMUL-FM and HNN.

King starts the show by welcoming O.A.R. to the studio and talks about them coming back to their old college roots. O.A.R.’s reply was "It enables us to act like we’re in college. It gives you a free ticket to act 21 and remain 21." The rest of the interview is as follows:

WMUL : How did the name "Of a Revolution" come to be?

OAR : Most band s we know, most bands we’ve had experience with, they generally just come up with their names a lot of the times with the nonsense of when you’re young. You know 13 or 14 years old. You know you want to name your band, you’ll say, green t-shirt or just something and I think we kind of didn’t go that route. We just wanted a name, you know we had names before like Exposed Youth, Elephant, head and all those silly names and then we got our bass player and we found our sound, you know and we were 15 years old or so and we said hey what lets do, "Of a Revolution" because it represents new music. We weren’t trying to make some huge statement. Lord knows we were really young, no one was listening to us. We had like the 2 stoner kids in the corner that always partied with us and that was it. So it was for them and us. So we made the name just for us. Then people started coming and listening to the music and the shows, and now we have to live up to that name. It’s our goal as a band to live up to the high standards set and tr hard to make it that, you know what I mean?

OAR then played the smash single, "Hey Girl" off their new album, "In Between Then and Now". It was played live in the studio acoustically in front of a live studio audience of about 15 fans.

WMUL: What kind of feedback are you getting from the new album seeing as how the sound has changed?

OAR: Right off the bat there was, not negative feedback, but people like yourself, just curious why the change. Really its not a change, its just it was about 8 years ago when we recorded "Poker" and all those songs. Those songs, and I mean we were 16 and 17 years old and now we’re able to get in studios and really explore those things and for us, everyone has a job and you just want to get better at your job. You know like you want to explore higher levels of things so for us we want to grow that way and its fun for us. And to answer your question we do get questions. People do ask why the silkiness, why the change? But really all it is, I think we’re growing, we’re learning more. If we could capture that raw sound that we had back then we would, and we’re trying to. But that happened those days because we were young and we were driven and we were poor and we were in these studios and that was it. You know, you only had one shot. But if we could capture it again we would, believe me. But we’re just siked that we’re growing and moving on.

WMUL: What did you think of Bonnaroo this summer?

OAR: It was unbelievable. It was probably one of the biggest crowds we’ve ever played in front of. On top of that it was a very emotional time for us because we lost a dear friend and we were kind of in a zone when we were playing. I didn’t really realize how many people were there until we actually finished and I looked up. It was a amazing. We drove up to the stage that we were playing on receiving a phone call that we had lost one of our co-workers and friends. It was like alright this could go one of two ways. This could be like hey lets not play or hey lets play. We explained it to the crowd what had happened. It was Fathers Day and we were just kind of like we want to dedicate this to our guy and I think, and I’m not trying to sound cheesy, really the crowd depicted what happened that day. They took that energy and supported us. And we weren’t necessarily a band that was Bonnaroo like. We weren’t invited with open arms. We were more of a test run and they didn’t want us there. But I think people showed up and they liked us and we had a good time. We earned our way there and that is a day that will always remain in our memories.

WMUL: What do you see as the kind of message you want to send to people as you continue to grow?

OAR: You know when I set out on this thing I was younger. I was 16 or 17 and I didn’t really know anything about anything but I had these ideas. And I think I wanted to be someone who could bring a positive light to someone’s day. I hadn’t been through hardships that were too hard, and I hadn’t grown up in a area too tough, and I didn’t really have anything to complain about. But I really don’t even think you need that. I just thought it doesn’t matter. You can be a happy person growing up and still spread that positivity. You don’t have to be a hardened person. Over the years being on the road, things have happened and all these negative lights and we still have taken that negativity and turned it positive. Our goal is to really promote 2 hours of enjoyment regardless of what you do during your day time. We all work, but you know those two hours you can enjoy yourself and the people your with. So if I see a fight at a show, I make sure those people are ejected. If I see anything negative, I try to really bring the group together. I really feel like these people at the shows, they feel that energy.

The band then talked about the story behind their song, "Dareh Meyod", followed by a live acoustic performance of the song to wrap the in studio session up. The band then traveled to the Veterans Memorial Field House where they performed live with Michael Franti and Spearhead. Their set featured intense lightening effects and a crowd full of energy. The band played many of their favorites, both new and old. Unfortunately HNN was not able to get a photo pass for the event so we were unable to provide you with our normal concert coverage.