OTEP SHAMAYA: THE METAL ARMY INTERVIEW
Artist, poet, author, actress and political activist; Otep Shamaya wears many hats in addition to being the front woman of her band OTEP and she is adding new roles all of the time. She changes guises naturally like snake shedding its skin and she slips comfortably in and out of every role. Out on the road supporting the recently released Atavist album she checked in with us for the interview, which was unlike any one we’d ever done before. Much like her performances, she attacked our questions with all authority and seriousness. Graciously, she touched on many topics from the songwriting process, album artwork, song meanings, activism and even her social media prowess.
MAA: You are out on the road supporting Atavist (Victory Records). Please tell us how the new record came together.
OS: Well the album sort of formed as a savage little atom inside my soul and burrowed its way deep. Then it flourished forth out of every pore of my body. It became this unyielding force that needed to be born. I wanted to go back a more personal, private, authentic, sort of not really political, a little bit personal, a little bit cultural, but more of an emotional album where the subconscious could take over and drive the record to its competition.
MAA: Do you write poetry and lyrics all the time and then fit it to the music or does sometimes a piece of music come up and inspire some concepts and phrasing as well?
OS: Yeah, it’s both. Whenever I am writing with people and I enjoy their contributions and if they are bringing in song ideas or riff ideas then I’ll add something I’ve written. I’m a prolific sort of scribble writer. I write all of the time. It’s called hypergraphia and I just write all the time. If something comes from that I might think that idea would go perfect with this thing I wrote. Sometimes I will try to give someone some intention, and idea or direction towards the song or sometimes they will hear something I’ve written and they will write something really remarkable around it. Sometimes we will just write something together. There is something about the creative process that I am really addicted to and really take so seriously. It’s not about what you can do it’s about leaving your ego at the door. It’s about allowing the songs to be born between the two of you or however many of people are in the room.
Artist Joey James Hernandez and Otep created the Atavist album cover.
MAA: I found the Atavist artwork to be really distinctive and that it tells a story. Some friends of mine freaked out when they saw it. Can you tell me about the album artwork and what it sums up to you?
OS: I like the fact that people can make their own interpretation out of it. I use a lot of universal imagery inside our symbolism and so forth. I know what I wanted to do was have all of the different elements from the all the different albums I’ve written included in this cover. This album number five, 2 and 3 become 23 with numerology and things like that were fitting in to creating this piece. I also wanted it to touch beyond fences and back into the subconscious and into the umbra. Where true passion and our true selves exist beyond all of the piles and piles of life with cultural identities and costumes there we throw on each other. I hoped this artwork would trigger and ignite a very primal piece of the viewer.
Poetess and provacateur….
MAA: Overall I found the sound of the record to be really heavy. However, the song “We Dream Like Lions” jumped out at me the first time I heard it. What is the meaning behind the song?
OS: “We Dream Like Lions” was initially written as a reaction to the death of Matthew Sheppard and to all of the bullying and suicides that have been going on in the Gay and Lesbian community. Then it occurred to me that there are so many other people who are bullied in this life other than people like me and for other reasons. People that are just different, they listen to different music, they think differently, act differently and just are different. So they are picked on and chosen, pointed out, exposed and exploited, pushed to the side, outcasts and cast aside. So I wanted to write a song for all of those people I wanted to tell that no matter what life throws at them, they need to continue to fight. Even though we are told that we might be ‘timid as sheep, that we dream like lions’.
MAA: You are well known for your passionate activism on a variety of issues. Why is it so important for you to speak out on these issues at a time when apathy and ignorance seem to be at an all time high?
OS: When I was a child I was smaller than most other children. I was born premature. So I was a small kid, but I was smarter than most of the bullies. I was smarter than all of the rich kids. They seemed to always get all of the privilege and all of the attention. So then I stopped respecting them at that level they wanted to be respected, or the level they were given respect at. I stopped respecting them at that level because I was better than them at a lot of things. Not many of them could draw. Not many of them could write. I could do all of that. Not many of them could fight, or fight as well as I could fight. I stopped respecting people who were bullies. I saw it happening every day. People who had more money or thought they were better looking, came from a better home, their parents had better jobs, raised in a better area and just thought they were better people. I stopped respecting them. Growing up I felt like I had to fight my own battles and I never felt like I had anyone to fight next to me. So I felt that if I got to a point in my life someday that I could be a voice for people that were like me. People who felt like they had no voice and who had nobody on their side, that they did have someone. They could find me online, they could find an OTEP record and they could listen and hear songs about themselves and feel inspired and feel empowered. They could feel like nobody out there could ever define their lives and they could go on to be better than they thought they ever could be.
Loudmouth Radio debuted on July 4th.
MAA: What is Loud Mouth Radio and what is it going to be like for those who aren’t aware of it yet?
OS: Loud Mouth Radio is going to be a blog and talk radio show primarily focus on art and activism. I will be co-hosting with this wonderful insurgent, passionate woman named Dee who has experience in radio. I’m not sure if I can say her full name in case she will get in trouble with her current job, but already she works in radio. We’re not going to be holding back or pulling any punches. We are not going to be hippy-dippy liberals. We’re going to be Loudmouth liberals as liberals are; fight the good fight and take it to `em. For too long the airwaves have been conquered by conservative cronies and these folks who want to divide our country and suppress individualism. We’re no longer going to allow that. So Loud Mouth Radio is going to be for anybody who feels the same way we do and it will be a platform to listen and be a part of it.
MAA: I think that platform will be really key, because we are seeing a real groundswell of action and activism with a lot of internet radio and podcasting sites. For instance like what Kevin Smith has done, changing his career from film directing to podcasting.
OS: Yeah I’ve been following that. I think it’s really cool. Right on!
MAA: Lastly, you seem to be really great at energizing your fan base through social media channels. What is your secret to being so adept at it?
OS: It comes very naturally to me. I try to connect with people. I do it online seemingly better than I do it in person sometimes. I really don’t know. People are drawn to the message. People are drawn to a sense of community and a sense of safety they have with us. We are exclusively inclusive. We don’t exclude anybody. We try to support, endorse, incite people and inspire people to follow their own dreams and to find the artist within them. That’s what draws people to us. With social media, I’ve been doing since it started with all the different social media sites. I feel like they finally caught up to me with what I have been trying to do since I first started the band. We’re on Twitter and Facebook, Tumblr and Foursquare. We’re on it all.
