Grit: Memoirs of a Musician pt. 2

OTIS

The name of my very first band in high school was OTIS. No, it wasn't a good band name. No, it didn't stand for anything (though hearing people guess at what it meant was humorous at times). And, yes, we hated the name but we developed too great of a following before we could change it. So we were stuck with OTIS.

We were a straight-up, no-frills, in-your-face rock band with a ton of attitude and just enough talent to get by. We flew in the face of the nu metal movement of the day, and we wore that like a badge of honor. We.hated the direction mainstream rock was headed, so we played classic rock that most of our generation had never heard before. Apparently we were on to something because before we knew it, we had a bit of a cult following. One fan loved us so much he decided to staple the name of the band into his arm just to prove his loyalty. You can't make this stuff up...

Probably the most memorable gig we did was a battle of the bands we did for the local sorority. We had no idea we'd be playing in front of a few thousand people on a stage that, a month later, would be occupied by Jackyl, whom we all respected.

It was a 30 minute set of mostly original music. Our drummer, Jason, was freaking out before we went on. His kit was now fitted with clip-on drum mics, which he had never used before, and he was terrified of nailing one of them. I assured him he wouldn't and we went on. One of our originals started with a drum solo, so when we got to that one in the set list

 

Just posted Part 3... Thanks for the read!