Interview: Obsessive Compulsive

Why don't you introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about the band.
We are Obsessive Compulsive, a rock duo from Manchester, England. We've been together in this incarnation for nearly a year. Kelii sings, Lee plays guitar and we co-write all our songs. Our sound is pretty hard to describe really because we have an eclectic range of influences, people will begin to realize more when they see us live that we can be pretty dark and heavy at times as well as knowing how to write a good pop rock tune! We think this variation is good for both us and the fans.

How did the two of you meet?
We met in about 1997, our old bands used to rehearse next door to each other in the same rehearsal rooms. We'd go and watch each other's bands play and got to be good friends through that really, the rest is history!!

I noticed you have a journal on your website. Have you had a positive relationship with the Internet? Do you find it easier connecting with fans?
We LOVE the internet!!! It's done so much for us and given us the opportunity to reach so many people that we would otherwise have struggled to reach. It gives fans a chance to keep themselves updated and informed via our website and mailing list too. We've got in touch with other bands through the 'net as well, which is always useful and interesting!
We have a bit of a love/hate relationship with mp3s though, its great to be able to let people all over the world listen to your music and give you their opinions etc. but as an unsigned band we need people to buy our crash EP to enable us to put money into gigs, recording, updating the site etc. It's a shame when people take liberties with our Crash EP mp3s and just download them instead of buying the real thing, its not really supporting new music that is it?

Now you have an EP out, "Crash EP." What has the feedback been so far from people?
Because we have mp3s on the site, people can preview 2/3 of the Crash EP before buying it so the people that DO buy it have usually already heard it so it's hard to tell! We've been doing a 'free tapes' promo recently though and the feedback from that has been surprisingly positive overall!

What is Obsessive Compulsive working on right now? New EP? Tour? Writing?
Right now we're auditioning musicians and trying to put together a live band so we can tour the UK ASAP!! We want it to be perfect though so we're taking our time to find the right people. We recorded 7 new tracks last year and hopefully we can release a new EP using 4 of those tracks later on in the year. That all depends on funds of course. As far as writing goes that's an ongoing thing and we're constantly working on promoting the band and getting people to listen to us. We're always busy!!

What bands would you like to open for?
There are absolutely loads of bands we respect so that's a hard question!! We have always said we'd love to open for the Foo Fighters because we reckon touring with them would be such a fun experience, they seem like really nice, really funny guys! A lot of the bands we grew up listening to are no longer together, we'd love to have played with queen, faith no more or Smashing Pumpkins! Aerosmith would be a cool band to tour with, they kick serious ass, U2, Radiohead, Creed, Nine Inch Nails, The Manics' there's loads!!

Where do you see the band in 10 years?
Hopefully in someone else's list of bands they wanna tour with or that have influenced them!! Other than that we just hope we're still making music!

What music are you listening to right now?
Despite their bad response from the British press we think Creed rule! Very emotional, introspective songs and fantastic musicianship. The best UK rock band at the moment, in our opinion, is Muse. We're also listening to Jimmy Eat World, Rammstein and Beautiful Creatures as well as all the older stuff that we still like!

Favorite album(s) of all time?
OK we've combined forces and come up with a list in no particular order (bearing in mind these may change depending on mood and day!!)

• Guns n Roses - Appetite For destruction
• Sex Pistols - Never mind the bollocks
• Queen - Greatest Hits I (not strictly and album but a great collection of songs)
• David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
• Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
• Manic Street Preachers - Generation Terrorists
• NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
• The Wildhearts - Earth Versus The Wildhearts
• Counting Crows - August and Everything after
• Radiohead - The Bends
• Marilyn Manson - Portrait of an American family

What bands or albums have influenced you?
Well all of the above have influenced us obviously, these questions are really difficult though because our tastes are so varied! If we said artists that have influenced us it would be easier so (not including artists mentioned above) here is our combined list??
Billy Idol/Steve Stevens, Madonna, Mourning Widows, Aerosmith, Poison, Pantera, Faith no more, Metallica, New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, Leonard Cohen, Kate Bush, The Black Crowes, Goo Goo dolls, Red Hot Chilli peppers, Marilyn Monroe, The Cult, Burt Bacharach, Aretha Franklin, Richie Kotzen, Tori Amos, Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, ... the list could go on forever but these are a few!!

What band do you think is underrated and deserves more attention?
It would have to be Mourning Widows, a band featuring former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, he's sooooo underrated as a musician anyway and they've released two brilliant, creative, well crafted albums and have had literally no exposure over here.

Anything else you'd like to add?
Anything else? Well if anyone wants to hear a sampler of what we do we're giving away free 2 track promo tapes to anyone who emails us with their name and home address (oc_mania@hotmail.com) and we're touring soon so just keep an eye out for us in the press etc.!!