Dead Rhetoric: I know you recently did a video shoot. What can you say about how it went over?
Emig: It was a really good time, but if I don’t hear “Hellhound” for another week, I’ll be okay [All laugh]. Going through it 20 times – the crew were really great guys, they had 4 cameras and different angles…the whole professional drill. We haven’t seen any of the footage yet so I’m anxious. I think the fun thing was that we threw it out to the fans, in terms of “what do you want?” It was 60% “Hellhound” but the rest was pretty spread out between the other songs. So there’s a lot of other sub-favorites that people were rooting for. As far as the video goes, there’s no story for it. We just wanted to shoot it at a show, playing the song and just catching the vibe and having a good time. There was just a lot of crowd people – nothing planted. We just encouraged people to have as much fun as they normally do, and if you puke we will get you on film! But nobody did though dammit!
Morrow: The support we got that night super awesome to see. Everybody coming out to give us the support and the love and the bands were all very cool.
Emig: It was just crazy fun, hopefully it will come across on film. Going to a show, being a part of the show – audience, band, whatever. That is where you have a good time.
Dead Rhetoric: As an independent band, you are doing a professional video shoot and trying to get yourselves out there that way, what is the best way to go about the promotion of yourself other than just word-of-mouth?
Emig: I think the best thing, for any band, it to make good contacts and network with good people. We are working with Skateboard Marketing right now and we have been charting on CMJ, and that’s been pretty exciting. The more you can network and get to people at different levels, word just keeps going. You have to always work hard and don’t expect anyone else to do it for you, at any level.
Dead Rhetoric: What is going on touring-wise, for the band?
Emig: We have a few things going on. With Cleveland, we can branch out to Chicago and Detroit. Hopefully latching onto some festivals – we are in talks with some people but nothing’s confirmed yet. We’ll be coming up to Brooklyn in April, that’s in the works. We are trying to shoot for things that are more festival type or a really good club to play, as opposed to just doing a show trade with another band at just a bar. We want to play where you want to see a show.
Dead Rhetoric: Going back to the whole self-promotion thing – if you are looking to get a gig of some sort, is it better to be more selective and make sure that you are going to make a good impact when you go, rather than working yourself to death and grabbing just everything you can?
Morrow: I don’t want to grab anything we can. I’ve played plenty of gigs in front of 5 people at 2 o’clock in the morning in a place I’m not familiar with. I don’t care to do much of that anymore. Like Chris was saying, if we can latch on to some festivals or good events that are in Cleveland or the surrounding areas – basically getting the best bang for our buck. The travel will be worth it and maybe get some compensation, at least for food and gas. Go out and have a good time, and maybe make a few good friends. To travel the distances that are on deck, it would be a waste of time to not get a good turnout or get screwed over by a promoter – I’d rather sit at home and watch Netflix.
Emig: If you jump on everything, you will get burnt or discouraged. There’s a worth to what we are bringing to the table – if people don’t know you they don’t know you. I get that, and someone has to take a chance. But when you network enough and when people see that you are doing things on a certain professional level, like the video, they see that you aren’t bullshitters. You have to create something where people want to work with you as well, and that’s what we are doing. It takes a lot of legwork and talking to people, and saying what are are doing/staying in contact. If you do all that, it works out – don’t sweat the small stuff then.
Dead Rhetoric: Do you have a goal of being involved with a label, or would you rather work on your own?
Emig: It would be great to have someone who wants to back you financially but on the other hand, we are still so new and figuring out the way that we are writing. It’s great having that creative freedom. If someone comes knocking we are going to talk to them, sure we will talk to them, but it’s okay if it doesn’t happen right now too.
Morrow: I agree, it’s alright if it doesn’t happen right now. We are all just having a good time. At this stage of the game, it takes a bit of time to do it ourselves and it’s a lot of hard work. You can only do so much at once. But at this stage of the game, to sign away your rights to a label that only offers digital distribution and a couple of web pages, it would be kind of ridiculous on our end. We can create a merch website that people can go to and get a few dollars from it – we can cycle that money. It’s the same thing with the discs. We aren’t in it to get rich obviously, but just to get the music out there and get more people turned onto it would be super.
Emig: When we were recording Hunters with our friend Noah here in Cleveland, we had tossed around, “should we put more tracks on this,” since it’s on the short end for a full-length. He said absolutely not. You are still developing. You are better off doing even EP or EP to keep developing your sound. Don’t commit to making it a big project, and that was really good advice. Really, there is so much you can do on your own, just keep doing it as long as you can.
Dead Rhetoric: I know Hunters is fairly new. Have you considered doing any more writing currently – any to look for in the future?
Emig: Actually in our live shows right now, we are doing like 3-4 new songs that will be on the next cd. I think we’ll probably hit the studio in the early fall to get it recorded. I think we’ll do 8 tracks for that one, but we’ll see. We are writing all the time – we set goals. We gotta get songs out there [laughs]!
Morrow: We’ve been in this period right now where we haven’t been able to focus on just writing. We’ve had the video and the transition with JD coming it, so it’s been pushed to the back for a bit. We just recently we able to just sit down and get into that mode again.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s next for Olathia in the next 6 months or so?
Emig: You can see us more on the road and the Internet with the video. Just kicking ass, drinking beers, and doing shows. When you saw us that night, we only got to do 4 songs – we were supposed to do a longer set. Stuff happened and the promoter said sorry, you only have 20 minutes. I said, that’s alright – if you can’t kick ass in 20 minutes, you aren’t going to do it in 30 minutes…we’ll just do our thing. Live – I think everyone is very ‘lets do it, and make it a show,’ something you want to remember. We might do a full live show recording at some point in the fall, multicameras and all that, and I think it would be really sweet to give people an essence if they can’t see us or spread the word more. It’s amazing the people you can reach through Youtube and those formats.