With:	Micah Kinard (Vocals)
Conducted by:	itsjoeymoose (phone)
Published:	09.10.2009

Oh, Sleeper are currently on tour in North America with Architects, Bring Me The Horizon and Every Time I Die, following their recent sophomore release Son Of The Morning. Lead vocalist Micah Kinard discussed the reactions of the new album, the labels people put on the band and the journey being in Oh, Sleeper has brought.







You're in Florida right now on the only headline slot of the tour, is that a bit daunting?

No it wont be that bad, we've done a lot of headlining shows before this tour, although you never know what a show will be like in Florida.


Are reactions always mixed there?

There are so many kinds of markets in Florida, so you could play one city and hardly anyone will be there, but another city not far away will be absolutely packed. It's a bit similar to Texas, where we're from, but we haven't figured out Florida yet.


The tour finishes November 1st, afterwards are you hoping to go overseas or do you have day jobs to return to?

Definitely don't have any day jobs to return to! Getting overseas is one of our top priorities at the moment, as it's something we're all keen to do. We did a UK tour with Underoath a while back and just had a blast there. We were accepted really well and had so much fun, so ever since that we've been desperate to come back. Hopefully we'll have something lined up early next year for the UK.


Son Of The Morning was released last month, have you had much feedback on sales or media attention?

We were looking at the figures today actually, and it appears to be selling twice as much as our first album When I Am God, so that's exactly where we want to be with our sophomore release. When we wrote Son Of The Morning, we talked with our fans and gauged people's reactions during the shows. We basically wrote an album that reflected our fan's favourite parts from our first album. The feedback has been really great from our fans and most of them thought we'd never top When I Am God but that Son? really blows it away. Crowds have been singing along to the new songs, which is really cool. Media wise, things have been trickling in, but we're about to release a new video which should boost the media attention.


Are you someone who always keeps tabs on reviews and are you interested in what people have to say?

I'm more interested in what our fans have to say. I try not to read too many reviews, most have been positive but there are some people that really have it against us for some reason or maybe they're having a bad day and give us a bad review. We just want to make sure that our fans are happy with the album.


So you prefer playing live and seeing people's reactions than actually writing the music?

I'm not sure about that, there's parts of both that I really enjoy. Obviously we play live a lot more than we spend writing the music, but the writing process is a lot of fun in its own right. It's nice to be able to be at home and just experiment with the music and writing new material is always super exciting. Playing live shows is why we got into the music business. It's cool to be able to challenge yourself to be as close to the CD version as possible and see how many people come to the show to appreciate it.





Oh, Sleeper are a band that are quite open about their beliefs and I'm aware that Son Of The Morning is a tale of the Devil against God, is that your own tale or a story from the Bible?

The Devil and God being enemies has always been around. The idea came about when I wrote one song called "Son Of The Morning", that was completely voiced by Satan because I wanted to have more emphasis and a face and give him a character. I didn't want to use church terms but really personify him. After that song I wanted some kind of closure, so that's when the song "The Finisher" came, as it's a direct response from God. The goal was to make the side of God that should be feared and have him put Satan in his place. The rest of the album is just showing humanity's role in between and personal struggles, which are personified in different characters.


I hate the term 'Christian Metal', but have you found that tag has a lot of negative aspects to it?

Oh definitely, it's the same with Satanist metal I guess, as there would be a large demographic of people that wouldn't listen to it no matter how good the music is. People on both sides of the spectrum are equally narrow-minded. It's a shame but that's why when we play shows we never preach from the stage or anything, as we've put our message into the music. I'm already screaming my lungs out on stage, so I don't need to force any message down people's throats. Chances are there's someone there who has been burned by a Christian or the Christianity umbrella and the second they hear we're a Christian metal band, even though I hate that tag as well, they're going to turn the other way. We try to write something that's more than surface level and something that people can actually dig into. Some of the best comments I've got are from people who say that they don't believe in God but this or that song really helped them through a rough stage in their life. Those kinds of comments are huge because it's proof that we can reach across those boundaries that this tag has built around us and maybe they'll realise the band members aren't so different from anyone else.


You write a ton of lyrics in each song, with parts rarely repeated, do you ever forget the words on stage?

There's defiantly a lot! It's funny you say that because normally I'm pretty good with remembering the lyrics, but on the last tour, a few times I'd completely forget the words for the second verse to our song "We Are The Archers", like my mind would just go blank. I would just end up screaming nonsense, give the microphone to the crowd or just pretend I had mic problems! Sometimes people would ask me to recite a line from one of our songs and I'll say "Hold on a sec, I'll have to run through the whole song in my head". But we practise for that so it doesn't happen often.


You should get a karaoke type scrolling screen with the words.

Yeah that would be nice actually!


Your music is very rhythmic and progressive based and you don't use a lot of guitar melodies with a lot of the power coming through the vocals. Was that always the musical direction you intended?

Well everyone in the band listens to completely different music, but the bands we all enjoy reflect that progressive side of Oh, Sleeper. I can't take much credit for the music as I don't write it, but we like to have music that hopefully people wont pick it up on the first try and challenge the listener.


I guess it's tempting to throw everything but the kitchen sink into a song, when does a song or indeed an album feel finished?

That's probably the main difference between our first and second album.When I Am Godwas very experimental and we would have parts and where we would specifically want weird guitar leads and breakdowns then a really beautiful bridge section. For Son Of The Morning, we wrote songs that made more sense structurally and looked at the songs in context of the whole album. We'd write songs to showcase cool parts of a song which made things flow better I think. It's a little less stressful because you know you don't have to put everything you can think of into one song, as you have nine more songs to express yourself. Every band matures as writers and I'm sure it's something every musician goes through.





What do you feel you've gained the most from being in a band, that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise?

Well first off all, definitely not money! That's something we certainly don't gain. We're all making about the same if we had regular jobs. I can't speak for everyone in the band, but the whole traveling experience and interacting with different people is something that I know I couldn't get anywhere else. Whenever you're doing something as personal as music and you have someone who loves the music as much as we do, so you get past a bunch of barriers that you would have in normal conversation. Sometimes it's as if they sit down on the couch and we're physiologists, as they pouring out to you that they're going through a divorce or whatever and the music has helped them. You have the chance to influence people and also listen and learn from what other people are going through. You can be inspired and in turn inspire other people hopefully. You learn a lot of patience and how to deal with the same six people in a van for three months. You're forced to put yourself second and other's first just to make the whole thing work. You also learn how long you can live off double cheeseburgers at McDonalds!


And how long is that?

I can go a solid week eating double cheeseburgers everyday for breakfast, lunch and tea before I start feeling sick.


Finally, who's the last person in the world you would want to be stuck on a desert island with?

(Consults band mates) Shane (Blay, guitarist) said anyone in the band. James (Erwin, guitarist) said Joan Rivers, so we'll stick with that.


Hopefully that day will never come.

Yeah, you never know, so fingers crossed.


That's great, thanks for your time Micah. Good luck with the rest of the tour.

Thank you very much. We appreciate the support.


Thanks to Micah Kinard and Jerry Graham at Warm And Fuzzy Publicity. www.myspace.com/ohsleeper