Various artists — Never Give Up: Celebrating 10 Years of The Postal Service
Big Worm — Bench All-Stars
Code 22 — Going Soft: The Acoustic Album!
Eureeka — Polysynthetic Fields
Tom Skinner — Tom Skinner
Oklahoma City folk band O Fidelis doesn’t take too much seriously.
After all, this is the group that named a song “Peggy Sue Pepperoni Pants” and seriously considered naming its debut album after a Harley-Davidson T-shirt slogan. So when I asked its members to let their iPods do the talking, they were all about the unconventional interview style.
For every question I asked, they answered with the song or artist randomly selected by the shuffle feature on two iPods. We sat down at the southside Joe’s Crab Shack and got crackin’.
OKG: So what is your upcoming album going to be titled?
Brian Gilliland: “A Letdown.”
Isaiah Sharp: “Slurring the Rhythm.”
Gilliland: They’re both very O Fed. Two years! All for nothing!
OKG: So what is it actually going to be called?
Gilliland: “Bible Promises and Dinosaurs.” It hopefully will come out in June.
OKG: What is the album going to sound like?
Gilliland: “Black Hawk Down” by Hans Zimmer.
Sharp: Randy Newman?
Gilliland: It’s going to sound like a children’s movie or a musical score. At the end of this CD, your radio will explode!
Kyle Mayfield: Michael Bay produces “Toy Story 4.”
OKG: And actually?
Gilliland: Very, very diverse. Not complete bluegrass, not complete indie rock.
Mayfield: I like “newgrass.”
Gilliland: Right now, we’re messing around with ambient sounds in the background of the songs. There’s not a single one that sounds like stereotypical rock.
Mayfield: If an animal farm had a prom, no age limit, and dancing was allowed.
OKG: Who are you touring with? Do you have plans to tour after the release?
Gilliland: Celtic Woman.
Sharp: The Clash. It’s actually going to be all three bands.
Gilliland: We’re looking at touring with Moon. We want to go up to Chicago again.
Laney Coker: Stop more in Missouri, Iowa.
OKG: What record label would you guys be on?
Sharp: Midtown. Aren’t they on Drive-Thru Records? We peaked six years ago!
Gilliland: Who are The White Stripes on?
OKG: Third Man. And have you looked at record labels for the album, or will it be an independent release?
Gilliland: We haven’t gotten that far. Once we have it done, we’ll look at shopping it around.
Coker: For a label?
Gilliland: No, probably for a distributor. That’s more our type, anyway.
Mayfield: We’ll sell them out of the trunk of our car.
Gilliland: We’ll be like those guys who go around selling roses in bars.
Mayfield: Find the drunkest guy in the bar and say, “Here, you want four of these.”
Gilliland: And a shirt. You want a shirt.