Getting down to the business of getting down with Ozma

PHOTO and ILLUSTRATION by STERLING ANDREWS

At their best, the ’90s were a clusterfuck of brilliant and weird pop bands that now either sit comfortably idle on pedestals (Nirvana, that dog., Ben Folds Five) or uncomfortably idle in a debilitating vegetative state. These bands (names withheld to protect the guilty) are tragic reminders of what could have been—but what really happened? Did they abandon us? Or did “maturing” tastes render them prematurely obsolete? Ozma offers an explanation. The five-piece started in a Pasadena middle school in ’95 and spent their formative years haunting Koo’s. Ozma has always found the best in that bygone era—sincere and artful power-pop that was a love note to simpler times. Their newest record Pasadena extends that reach to new decades. For example: cool ELO-vs.-Gary Numan love-jams like “Lunchbreak” or “No One Needs to Know,” which takes on 19th century Russian folk just as vigorously as it does the Cars.

Bassist and singer Daniel Brummel speaks with us now about jazz fusion, AOL and the Japanese “Weird Al.”

Do you think it was easier to be a pop band in the ’90s?
Yeah, I definitely can see that, and I’m sort of a little bit nostalgic for that time. But there’s a lot of really cool things happening now, new ground being broken . . . though I’m honestly not really paying attention to all of it. I’m just focused on my material, my process, my craft within the band and working on stuff with Ryen and working on acoustic music—I’m really into folk music and that stuff! I’m still just writing songs. It’s not the only thing I do, but it’s still my No. 1 goal. I actually have played experimental stuff—last December I went to Europe to play bass for my friend’s band called Gowns—it’s a really amazing band! I was basically playing drones! I had a delay pedal, a looper pedal, and I would just play one or two notes that would sustain through the entire piece. Then I would vary them, sort of modulate them in certain ways. That was a real improvised and eye-opening experience for me. I do stuff like that all the time in the privacy of my own home. But when it comes to putting out records, I like to hear song structure, lyrics, hooks, all this sort of old-school stuff that is getting over with these days.

You have an old song called ‘If My Amp Had Wheels.’ Assuming they didn’t then, do your amps have wheels today?
We did have amps with wheels for a brief time. But we found that when we’re on tour and trying to roll around our amps, the wheels would just break off! So after we had wheels we decided it would just be better to take them off again.

You joined the band through Internet networking, and that was like in like 1995—way before MySpace and everything. What website did you use?
It was through the AOL profile searches. Jose found me because I had bands like like Weezer, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins in my profile.

Do you still use AOL?
No! I’m with Gmail now.

Are you aware of DJ Ozma, from Japan? I think he plays J-Pop.
Yeah! I think they actually see him as more of a comedian than anything else, kind of like a ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, because I think he does parodies and these bombastic and out-of-control songs and videos. He actually seems pretty interesting. It was cool to see his stuff, but it does suck to have the same name. People do get confused over there. There was some confusion the last time we went to Japan. We played some shows with this band called Asian Kung-Fu Generation who are huge over there. I don’t think we had too much crossover, but it was an issue that kept coming up and kind of annoying us.

One of my favorite Ozma records was the Doubble Donkey Disc [a full album made up of two concept EPs, one with a Russian theme, the other a “flight” theme]. What are your favorite concept records?
I feel like Return to Forever’s album called Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy is sort of a concept album. There’s no lyrics, but thematically it’s all about a space voyage—it’s a jazz fusion record from like ’73. It’s one my favorite records. This famous producer, Joe Meek, was a really interesting character. He killed himself when he was 37! He wrote a concept record about the moon [I Hear a New World] that was really good, too. I don’t know why, but they’re all about space!

OZMA WITH THE VANDALS AND CHUPA COBRA HOUSE OF BLUES | 1530 S DISNEYLAND DR | ANAHEIM 92802 | SUN 7PM $15-16 | ALL AGES | 16 AND UNDER MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY ADULT | HOB.COM

Tags: anaheim, house of blues, Music, ozma