Interview with OTEP

By Benji Womack- Your Music Magazine/Army of Pit Soldiers Presents

11/30/06

Doing this Interview was a dream come true for me, Otep is the only person that I get star struck in front of when I am around her. If you could hear the interview I did with her, you would have spotted my nervousness by my sudden disabilities to speak clearly. If there was ever an emotion such as love, hate, joy, anger that could take physical presents and be seen, she would be that emotion Otep

Benji -Can you state your name and band name for the record?

Otep- Otep Shamaya and the band is Otep

Benji -First off let me state that this is an honor to finally be interviewing you. There are so many things I want to talk to you about, but I have to admit that there are boundaries I don't want to cross and piss you off. So please if there is anything you would rather me not bring up or talk about please tell me now?

Otep- Anything you bring up and I don't want to answer, then I wont answer them how's that?

Benji -Tell about the new album coming out and what can we expect from it? What where some of the ups and downs while recording it?

Otep- I'm not really sure I remember any downs, we worked really hard during writing the songs for the album. It's an amazing album. I'm very proud of it, there's a certain energy and passion for our first album and there is a certain diligence, I think that bands place on the first album how important everything is and nothing can slip by because it's your first album. So really that's how I wanting to approach the album with the same intensity and diligence as the first album, and I really think we created something really seductive and really powerful and has all the qualities I loved about the first album, all the qualities I loved about the 2nd album sort of fused together. You can definitely tell the parents of the album, but then as any true child it has its own personality and behavior. I really proud of it and I think we created something people will really like.

Benji -Let me just say Otep that everything about your poetic presence, the way you scream, the way you relive your past in vivid detail, is the darkest, purest form of raw expression I have ever seen. How do you deal with your pains today?

Otep- I think that anyone that has experienced anything, any kind of tragedy or trauma or just anything negative, the idea is not to wobble in it but to overcome it. It is to defeat it, and that's what we have to do, otherwise you become a victim instead of a victor, and my goal is to be victorious.

Benji -Do you ever feel like you express your hate in so many ways, that you kind of feel trapped in an, I almost want to say writers block, to where you feel like you are saying the same things , but only in deferent metaphors? The reason I ask this is because I write a lot of poetry and I have been stuck in that zone lately.

Otep-If I get to that point then I need new experiences in my life and maybe its time to try something different, they say its better to light a candle than curse the darkness, and that's what I think I try and do. Every writer suffers writers block very writer and every artist will experience it. You know I really don't want the only thing people to focus on is how angry I am. Or how much hate there is with in me, I mean there's lot more joy and there's a lot more passion and dedication to art in the music then just… I mean rage and pain are there buts there's other things to that I hope people get out of it. Not just a simple sort of focus on, oh this girl is in pain, oh this girl is angry. The elucidation of embracing the void. It's important to recognize there's a hole there, that there is an abyss, but it is also to recognize is to fill that hole and hopefully with something meaningful

Benji -If you didn't have music to channel your pains and experiences with through the fans, where do you think you would be at right now?

Otep- I'm not sure, life might have lead me in many directions, I hope I would be doing something meaningful

Benji - What message are you trying to get out to your fans?

Otep-that who we are is ours to claim and not let any one else create our identities for us

Benji -What can people expect to see at an Otep Show?

Otep-They can expect to feel the passion we live and can expect to connect to a lot of other people that have similar beliefs system, and emotions, and come out to see a great show. The music we play is the music we live, we enjoy playing out music, and otherwise we wouldn't be doing it

Benji -Are there any bands out right now that you find that there writing style relates with the way you look at certain things as well?

Otep-I don't know of any new bands, I'm not turn on or impressed by anything for a long time there's bands that I have always been fans like the Deftones, Radio head, and of course Slipknot But I think bands that challenge thee own genre of music are challenging what music is suppose to say, or what its suppose to mean, how your suppose to listen to it

Benji -Ok Otep I'm going to end this interview for now, but I would love to get a follow up at the Bourbon Street show on Dec 21^st in Concord, CA, and I have one final request before we end this interview only like Otep can, can you scream for me please , anything , I love to hear you scream. No female in the biz can even come close to mosh starter death cries.

Otep-Thank you. I don't nessacerly. Care for the coronation of a woman that can do it, I think that's there very few people can do that type of a scream. I don't know why, that just the way it is.

By Benji Womack