Pat Edwards, Jose Galvez Interview, Super Radio X, Summer 2001

[Not Jason]

quoted from http://www.superradiox.com/articles/interviews/ozma.htm

SUPER RADIO X TALKS TO PAT EDWARDS AND JOSE GALVEZ OF CALIFORNIAN SUPER ROCK GROUP
OZMA

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Interview by Nick Burgess with Mike Gintz and Sarah MacDonald

We did this interview for play on radio back in the Summer of 2001. Ozma was on tour with Rilo Kiley and Nada Surf, and we caught up with them at their stop at the Middle East in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We probably annoyed them with all of our questions about video games, but, hey, it's not every day they get to talk up their love of Blaster Master and Dr. Mario.

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SRX: Introduce yourselves and the band to the listening audience.

JOSE: I'm Jose Galvez and I play guitar in a band called Ozma.

PAT: I'm Pat Edwards; I play drums. Not with us are Star Wick, keyboards, Ryen Slegr, guitar and vocals, and Daniel Brummel, bass and vocals.

SRX: Super Radio X is basically oriented toward video game music. We have lots of very obsessed listeners who are into that sort of stuff. You guys have done the Tetris cover, actually the old folk song cover, but everybody else knows it as Tetris. How did that song come about?

JOSE: Our bass player was already kind of into this Russian theme, and it just seemed like the Tetris song was a perfect fit for it. We felt like we could rock [the song] out.

PAT: And he's always had a sort of thing for Nintendo.

JOSE: 8-bit, and Game Boy stuff.

PAT: Plus, it works great at shows just because everybody knows it. Everybody recognizes it, and it's sort of a unique rendition of it, but it's blaringly obvious what it is from the start.

SRX: There are lots of Nintendo references not only in your music but on your website. Is that the doing of all of you, or is their one obsessed member of the band? (*Note: at the time of this interview, Ozma's website prominently featured a picture of an NES)

(laughter)

JOSE: Yeah! Our bass player is pretty, pretty into it. [But] we all love it, and we all grew up on it.

PAT: [Daniel] is the one who just can't get over it. You know, he should be here talking to you. You guys would be perfect.

SRX: Well, you can let him know later. He'll be quite jealous.

JOSE: He will. He will be.

SRX: Do either of you have a favorite game, old or new?

JOSE: I play a lot of Dr. Mario. My brother and I would just sit and listen to CDs until five in the morning playing Dr. Mario, trying to beat each other.

SRX: (Nick points to Mike, who has been silently watching) We've got a Dr. Mario freak here, too.

MIKE: Yeah, I play some Dr. Mario.

SRX: Favorite game for you, Pat?

PAT: Um, I've been playing a lot of Perfect Dark and James Bond on the N64. But, old school, I always thought Blaster Master was a well-made game, even though it wasn't fun to play because I always died and never could figure out how to advance. But it was [cool] with the different viewpoints. I don't know what the technical terms are. Like, there's a car and you're walking around, and then you're swimming, and you go to the door and there's this big guy with the spikes, you know?

SRX: Speaking of the new systems like Nintendo 64, do you think in maybe fifteen years you'll be writing Nintendo 64 based songs?

(laughter)

JOSE: Probably not. I think definitely not. I don't think Daniel even has a Nintendo 64.

SRX: Okay, well you're probably the only signed artist that we play on the show, as most video game music cover artists can't seem to find record labels for some reason. (laughter) So tell us about the album that you have coming out soon.

PAT: It's basically a rerelease of an album we recorded at the end of 1999 and put out in early 2000. We put it out ourselves, and they heard it and liked it. So they're putting it out again, remastered, so if you put it in your computer it's got lyrics, history, two videos. The computer animated video for Tetris is on there. They're trying to make it a new thing and rerelease it worldwide, basically.

SRX: Are you working on anything else coming up after that? Any other albums or songs?

JOSE: Yeah, we're trying to write. We have almost half of [the new record] written. So we just have to find the time where can just sit and write five more songs. I don't know when we're gonna' record it, but hopefully soon.

PAT: Yeah, it's coming along.

SRX: We were talking about this earlier; we were trying to figure out if any of your musical style is -- we're stretching for video game questions here -- we're trying to figure out if any of your musical style is influenced by video game music not including the Tetris cover.

JOSE: I think a little bit of it is. Video game music is very melodic. It doesn't have any lyrics or anything, so it's very melody-based. I think Ozma is [influenced by that].

PAT: I'd say "Domino Effect" is. I mean, the way that they created the main melody for that song was on a little Casio. They played it sort of slow and [then] sped up the tempo so it was played really fast. That's how they found the melody, and I think that's a real video game sort of sounding song.

SRX: Lots of keyboards.

PAT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SRX: Where can the listeners find more information about you guys? Tour dates?

JOSE: At our official website at www.ozmaonline.com.

SRX: Do you have anything else to say to the rabid fans?

PAT: Mp3.com/ozma has mp3s. (*Note: Mp3.com has since gone down. Just go to Ozma's website)

JOSE: And a tour diary so you can see what's going on.

SRX: Well, Okay!

JOSE: Bye!



Since we did this interview, Ozma put out the album that they were working on at the time, called Spending Time on the Borderline, featuring the video game reference-laden "Game Over." Check out their website, Ozma Online, for more information and tour dates. Also, if you want to get your hands on their Tetris cover, "Korobeiniki," it's available on their double EP release, the Doubble Donkey Disc.