Oats

We are honored that Sim Wilson of Undercover has agreed to sit in with Oats on a Sunroom Session! We dont have a date yet but look for that in the next couple months or so. We are also working on other collaborations with more favs coming up..

When I finally committed to pursuing the Oats band- I will go into a more full musical history at a later date- I thought of a few famous musicians for encouragement. Dave Grohl was an obvious choice bc he was not the singer or frontman for Nirvana. He recorded his first record by himself- I recorded 'a tear and a sneer' basically on my own playing and singing nearly everything except drums. He almost immediately shifted back to a more collaborative stance when he got the Foo Fighters together- and that has been my tendency with regard to Oats since Brian and Rob joined the band. He is not the typical frontman type- hardly a David Lee Roth. Grohl is not a guy that demands attention naturally- perhaps he was more comfortable in a support role like myself. But hes a very serviceable writer- and I feel I have yet to hit my stride with regard to writing.

Another person I thought of was Toby Mac of the Christian band DC Talk. We are acquainted because my former band The Waiting used to open for them a good bit. Now Toby IS a natural frontman- hes genius at it- but they were a rap trio so he didnt sing he rapped. I took encouragement because at the time he was learning to sing on the job as he transitioned from DC Talk to a solo career- and I knew him so I thought if he can do it why not me? And he HAS done it in spades- he sells out dome shows these days.

The other person I thought of was my brother Brad. As the singer for The Waiting Brad is one of the best frontman Ive ever seen- including all the famous rock stars you can name. He is a Pastor now and lives out of state so when I was getting the Oats band together I called him to see if I was barking up the wrong tree because singing lead is NOT my natural default comfort zone. I remember his reaction clearly- he was very matter of fact about me singing lead. He didnt come across as worried about it- while I was VERY worried at the time. He seemed to think it wouldnt be a problem- my impression was that he thought I would pick it up as I went along. And it seems my brother was right- Im progressing rapidly these days. I just need to play- with more experience I feel sure that all will be well because Im onto it now.

I watch a lot of bands on YouTube and now that I know more about fronting a band and singing lead I see a lot of frontmen that obviously have a similar personality to me- I know because I recognize the quirks. That is heartening- I wasnt always convinced I had it in me to be honest. I just knew I had a lot of songs left in me and I felt like I was supposed to be the one communicating them because the songs I was coming up with were so personal. Thats it for now- thanks for reading my boring blog!

Oats

On the OatsTube tab there is a new montage of our recording trip to North Carolina. It was a blast! And we almost rescued a stray dog on the way there but it ran away from us when we stopped to pick it up..

Howdy! Going forward we plan this blog space to be the main outlet for my thoughts and ideas on music and life as well as announcements and breaking news relating to the Oats band and The Waiting..

Todd Olsen (aka Oats)