ODO is a young, energetic rock band from Belgium that is well-known for their great, creative rock and thrilling live performances. Resurfacing with their much-awaited debut EP, The less we are, the more I am, their lively sounds highlight their excellent work on the seven tracks that offer a genuine and touching experience to listeners. The tunes combine sad high-intensity rock choruses with soul-stirring acoustic ballads to convey themes of loss, love, struggle, and grief.
We sat down with ODO to discuss their music and much more. Here is what they had to say:
Hey ODO, welcome to FLEX! How are you?
Hi FLEX, things are going really well for us at the moment! We played our release show last Wednesday at the Charlatan, a well-known venue in Ghent, and it was incredible. The place was completely sold out and the audience was amazing. So yeah, we are living on a pink cloud for a while.
Congratulations on your brand-new EP 'The less we are, the more I am' - what inspired this particular project?
The inspiration for this EP can actually be found in all three of our love lives. We have all taken very different paths over the last two years. It is therefore a project with songs that were formed over a long period. We really gave ourselves time to let the songs grow and fall into place so they sounded how we wanted them to. That was very important to us because it was such a personal piece of material. Some of the songs were written by one of us individually and other songs came more from a jam during rehearsing. It was really nice to see how our three separate stories ended up being very compatible. With one story that slowly started to emerge. You can compare it to a spectrum of different phases of feelings, love, and life in general. Not everyone has to feel and experience everything on the spectrum, there is no logical order to it, but everyone recognises something on it anyway.
And do you have to be in a certain mood to write?
Yes, it's different for everyone but I think we're pretty emotion-driven songwriters. As I said before, this EP is carried by personal feelings expressed through the songs. Certainly the songs first written individually by one of us are often written during periods of deep and intense emotion. An example of this is the song "One Last Time" . The song is an ode to the deceased grandmother of Max (drummer) and James (guitarist and singer). For James, writing this song was a way to deal with grief, it was actually a form of therapy. Of course, the love songs on the album were also created during periods when emotions were at their fiercest. So yes, a certain mood is very important in our songwriting process.
How was the recording and writing process?
The recording process went very smoothly. We met our producer Jérôme Pringiers at the beginning of the summer. It immediately clicked very well between us, both personally and musically. This made the recording process so incredibly enjoyable.
The recordings were made at Studio Chauffage where there is a tremendously homely atmosphere. Within a week we had recorded everything. This was followed by a long period of mixing and mastering. We wanted to get it absolutely perfect and that just takes a lot of time. But we are incredibly happy with the end result.
For viewers who don't know ODO, how would you describe your sound?
We try to touch people with our music. We know ourselves how important music can be, especially when it deals with feelings that many people can relate to. We try to convey this in our sound and lyrics. If we had to choose a genre I would say pop rock, but we don't like to describe our music that way. We make music that we love, that gives us satisfaction and that can make people feel. Apart from that we are just three young guys who love to be on stage and give it our all!
And what are some of those activities that you engage yourself in when you aren't writing or recording in the studio?
All three of us are studying. It takes a bit of time, but we still have enough time to do what we love most. As for the rest, we try to enjoy the freedom of student life! But ultimately, music is in everything we do. Be it in the foreground or in the background.
Comments