Ohtis: A brief Interview with Sam Swinson
Ohtis, a three-piece indie folk band out of Normal, Illinois, put out an album at the end of March entitled Curve of Earth. The album, concerned with trials of faith, struggles with addiction, the efforts behind friendship, and the need for forgiveness, inspires a lot of questions about the songwriter and the company he keeps. To understand a little more about the frontman and songwriter Sam Swinson, I shot him an email, and asked him some questions.
How’s the tour going?
Tired but good. Looking forward to the Netherlands.
And the UK?
Love it. We went to Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds and climbed really high up into the trees branching out over the river. Ran into some teen hooligans or maybe punks who were catcalling girls on the trail and chatted about how to sneak inside the old Abbey and what would happen if we were caught. They suddenly just bounded right over the spiked fence and began running around inside the ruins like loonatics.That was enough for us. Last night our manager introduced us to a British network TV program similar to Blind Date called Naked Attraction but they show close ups of the contestants penises and vaginas for all the kids who aren’t occupied with their iPads to see. Not sure how we feel about that yet.
As a band, had you guys performed in NY prior to Union Pool back in April?
Yes, once we played Idio Gallery which doesn’t exist anymore because they needed another SoDoSoPa in Brooklyn.
You performed these songs several years ago and uploaded them with tag “wrist-cutter songs”. Where did that performance take place, and what inspired the change of names?
To YouTube? That was at my friends Jessie and Steve Hinrichsen’s house in Peoria Illinois.
“Wrist cutter music” is a genre. Anything that makes you feel real sad. Thought about using it as an album title too but went with curve of earth instead for whatever reason
I know you guys had had a pretty long hiatus, having released an album back in… 2008? How did you make the call to pursue music-making again?
I just had to convince Adam to quit his other band he was in in Detroit which i didn’t feel bad about because he was mine to begin with. Then I had to talk Nate into quitting his cozy office job in Chicago
Alongside this album, have you got any plans to reproduce any of the music from “If This Country Had a Heart…”? The music has disappeared from the web, but some of the thematic focus there seem to be echoed in “Curve of Earth”. Was the removal of the album from the internet also a component of the new marketing push?
Somebody told us we could sell our music instead of giving it away for free on the internet so we’re going to do that from now on and hopefully it works because I’m tired of being completely destitute. We might record some of those old songs in a real studio and put them out later, who knows. Hopefully we’ll be rich soon. For now, anyone upset about it can listen to Bach Lute Suites or something — you’re better off that way. In a perfect world music shouldn’t be a commodity but that ship sailed long long ago and we got facetwitgram.
On your website there is mention of a history with an evangelical cult. What relationship did you and your family have to this cult, and what is your appraisal of that experience today?
It’s just a denomination of Christianity that I hyperbolically refer to as a cult. They aren’t any different than anyone else— in that they’re gullible and too afraid to accept what we don’t know and too busy shopping on Amazon to learn about what we do. They’re generally nice people who actually do attempt to be kind at least to the people their religion and Fox news hasn’t pitted them against.
Check out Curve of Earth below:
— Jackson Blau
Jackson Blau is a freelance writer working out of Brooklyn, New York. His other writings can be found at net.art.
