Straight Up Random

Interview: John Whiteside of Versus The Ocean

INTERVIEW: What made you start the band and how did you meet? Me and Mike started playing in bands in 2004 after meeting in high school. We also met Chad around this time when we were playing in one of our old bands and when we started searching for a bassist we contacted him and he joined. Tyler was found on a local venue’s message board, he made a post on there about joining a band and we responded to it. Matt was added later to the band after having issues with previous drummers, I met him through a friend I was living with and when we started looking for a drummer we had him try out and he was a perfect match. Jeremy was added shortly before we changed our name. When we decided to start looking for a singer, Chad searched on myspace under acoustic artists and came across him. Me and Mike started the band because we love playing music and after the breakup of our old band we just wanted to have fun again doing what we love. You guys were signed to Takeover Digital back in April. How was that, and what does it mean for the band? Signing with Takeover was very exciting for all of us and we’re all just really happy to be working with such awesome people and to be a part of an awesome family of bands. Basically what it means for the band is our music will be distributed across all major digital music stores. They have been a really big help so far and we’re very excited for what the future holds. Originally, the name of your band was A World Away, and you decided to change it to Versus the Ocean. Can you tell us more about that and how you came up with your new name? Well we tossed around the idea of changing the name for some time and when we started talking with Takeover they strongly suggested us changing our name because there were other bands using the same name and they wanted to avoid confusion with the other bands. Versus the Ocean was suggested by Mike and the meaning behind it is in everyone’s life they go through hard times and they feel like the whole world is against them and in our name the world is represented by and the ocean so basically its like someone taking on the world. We all thought it was a cool concept for a name. During the summer, you guys were recording for your new album that comes out in September. What’s the recording process like? The recording process was really fun. We spent a week in Ohio and stayed in the studio so we had a lot of time to focus on the music but we also had a lot of time to do fun things like air hockey and foosball tournaments. It was overall just a really good experience of all of us. How do your new songs compare to that of your previous ones? I think the new songs are on a whole other level then the songs on the dinosaurs ep. We started writing this album about a year and a half ago so there is a lot more thought and growth behind the songs as compared to the dinosaurs EP that we wrote in about 3 weeks back in 2006. This album I feel has a little something for everyone. There are some sections of the album that have a harder edge to them but we also have some soft melodic stuff as well. How did you come up with your album title If Only You Knew…? The album title was something that was very hard to come up with. We wanted the title to follow the theme of the album. We tossed around a lot of names but none of them seemed to fit. One practice someone suggested the title and we all loved it. What’s your favorite song off the new album? I personally have a lot of favorites on the album but on the top of my list is a song called “Breaking the Silence”, it just has a lot of energy and passion behind it. A couple of my other favorites are “Resting in the Palm of Your Hand” and an acoustic song called “Something So Beautiful”. How do you decide the tracklisting? We basically just sat down and listened to the songs and arranged them the way we felt made the most sense. What do you want the fans to take away from this album? I just really hope the fans connect with the album and it affects them in some way. Have you been playing any of the new material at shows? Lately our set lists have been all new material off the album. So what’s next for Versus the Ocean? Well we definitely have a lot of big plans after the release. We plan on playing a lot more shows and to start playing some more out of state shows as well. We’re hoping to get a music video shot too but we’re not sure which song we’d like to use yet. Where can our readers buy your music? Right now our music is available on www.takeoverdigital.com, we have our old album available and some ringtones. In September our new album will be available on Takeover as well as all other major digital outlets such as itune Any last words for the readers of Straight Up Random? If you haven’t had a chance to, please check us out on myspace.com/vsocean and www.takeoverdigital.com also watch for our new album “If Only You Knew…” to be released in September.