Q&A: Oceanic Talks Touring and College Town Beginnings As They Release Their Debut Album ‘No, Human’
SHARED PASSIONS AND UNLIKELY CREATIVE INFLUENCES — inspire the visuals and sounds of Oceanic’s debut album, No, Human, released Jan. 27. The Charlotte-based pop band began playing shows in their college town after meeting in 2016. Since then, they’ve been releasing singles and playing shows across the East Coast.
Composed of Nathan Wyatt, Sam Goodwin, and Jacob Johnson, Oceanic has been in the process of creating No, Human for the past few years and has toured more than ever in preparation for its release. The band stands out for the high level of production, creativity, and energy put into each of their live shows. If these innovative performances alone are any indication of their talent and potential, Oceanic is definitely a band to follow.
No, Human, they say, has changed a bit in its long production and release process — which began pre-pandemic but was altered by 2020’s uncertainty — but it ultimately came together in an honest representation of their thoughts and inspirations.
Oceanic took time to have a conversation with Luna about how they breathed life into their debut album. Read the interview below.
LUNA: First, I’d love to talk about the album. You’ve been releasing singles pretty consistently over the past few years. I’m wondering what made now the right time for a full album?
WYATT: We made the album and finished it in 2020, so we couldn’t play any shows. Funny year 2020 was — some weird stuff happened. So we’ve just been playing shows and working up momentum to be able to feel good about releasing it because we worked so hard on it. I was just like, “Okay, we’ve waited long enough.
GOODWIN: We were about ready to start releasing the album in March 2020, and then everything happened. Since it was our debut album, we didn’t want to not be able to tour and market it, so we waited. We changed some of the album. We swapped some songs out in the meantime. Now is just the time to finally get it out.
LUNA: Can you tell me more about who worked on this project with you? Any influential players outside of the band?
WYATT: We didn’t have a drummer at the time so we used a studio guy named Aaron Sterling, who we were excited to use because he did Harry Styles stuff and Taylor Swift stuff. He came to Charlotte from LA and tracked at the studio that we use. Our producer, Glenn Tabor III, tracked everything. I think the people we used were Erin and Glen. There was some writing help that we got from our friend Zach in Ohio. That was kinda it — it was a very small crew. I didn’t want other people to touch our music.
JOHNSON: We had Dan documenting everything with the camera.
GOODWIN: We borrowed our friend Avery’s bass, so shout out to Avery. Probably more him than anyone.
WYATT: I feel like we would, these days, have a more open mind with who could work on our music. But it’s fun to have a debut release that’s just us working on it in our houses, pretty much. Our process is definitely making it in our house then going to the studio for high-quality drum, guitars, vocals, and stuff.
LUNA: Is there any one song on the album that you’re most proud of or most excited for people to hear?
WYATT: “Skydive.”
GOODWIN: Yeah, “Skydive.” I would say the same.
LUNA: Why “Skydive”?
WYATT: Well, it’s the newest, so we’re not tired of it yet. I think it just came together in a natural way, and we were all really happy about it. It came together quickly as well, so that always feels good. It feels alive and inspired and interesting while you’re making it. I just think it’s a good song.
GOODWIN: I’m a sucker for slow ballad, sad kind of stuff. It was definitely that, but in a fun and interesting kind of way. There’s a lot of cool elements that I just really love.
LUNA: How did you initially come together? What were those first few shows like?
JOHNSON: That’s a fun story. Nathan and I lived in the same hall our first year of college. There was this moment where everyone who plays music all brought their guitars to the common area, and Nate was the only one who I was like, “Oh, he can play music!” and I was that to him. We kinda gravitated toward each other. Then we wrote “...You,” which was our second release ever. His roommate was like, “You guys should play that at the open mic.” We were like, “Nah,” but then we did. It was probably terrible.
GOODWIN: I didn’t really know Jacob or Nate yet, but I was in the audience at that open mic.
JOHNSON: Sam and I had a class that semester together, but he wasn’t our first bass player. It was our friend Naoto.
LUNA: You released your first single, “Party Song,” in 2018. It’s cool to look back and see how you seemed to have a good grasp of your direction as a band but still have grown so much in your own style since then. Are there any inspirations or practices that have led to you finding your sound?
WYATT: I want to say, first of all, our starting place was because I would make a demo and send it to Jacob and he’d be like, “It doesn’t sound good.” Then I would work on it a ton and make it sound good so that Jacob would be like, “Oh, I get what you’re doing. That sounds good.” As far as our sound and forming our fingerprint of how we make songs, I feel like that was the early stage of me realizing that I couldn’t just half do something. I had to really try to impress Jacob.
JOHNSON: Me not knowing anything about production was the reason you got good at production.
GOODWIN: I think learning each other, finding out what each other likes, and finding out how each person can flavor a song [is how we do it]. I feel like at this point when we write, we kind of know what to expect from the other person. I can kind of know the guitar that Jacob’s gonna write, or they can kind of know what bass part I’m gonna do.
JOHNSON: We always try to “serve the song.” Just openly talking about how it’s “this” kind of song and needs “this” to really serve that point of the song.
GOODWIN: I think the practice of us all listening to different artists’ music and then dissecting it [helps]. We’ve had so many deep conversations about one single song where we just pick it apart and figure out “Why is this good?” or “What happened here?” or “What’s this trend about?”
JOHNSON: We definitely use specific references a lot in the writing process. Like, “Oh, I think it needs a guitar part that adds an energy, like that one The 1975 song when it comes in on the verse.” I know there’s a lot of people that don’t really write like that or don’t keep songs in their head like that, but definitely one the main parts of our formula is being inspired by stuff that we like.
GOODWIN: Nate said the other day that the more that you intake creatively — music, art, poetry — the more of that you take in, the more you’re able to creatively put out. I agree with that a lot.
WYATT: These days it’s been anything but music, really. Whether it’s a good movie or contemporaryartdaily.com or whatever. In a context that I don’t understand well enough to pick it apart technically, I can just see something emotional or interesting.
Photo courtesy of Jacob Ingle
LUNA: I noticed you’ve been touring this past year more than ever before. What has that been like? Are there any big lessons you’ve learned playing so many live shows recently?
JOHNSON: It’s been really fun to just run the road with the boys. Lots of good stories that I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.
GOODWIN: First of all, you just learn how to get better at live shows. Learning how to read a crowd and play off the crowd’s energy. We experiment a lot with video and audio and lights a lot, and [are] just learning how those elements can serve our show. One of the biggest lessons for me with touring is that being a band or artist is way more business and logistical work than you think. If you don’t have a booking agent, that’s a lot of work. It’s so weird to put together a tour yourself. It’s hard, and it’s always changing.
JOHNSON: You can’t be like, “We’ll hit these dates on these dates, and we’ll plan out our whole year.” It just doesn’t work that way. Not for an independent band, at least.
GOODWIN: It’s tough, but that also makes it really rewarding. We put this whole thing together and did it ourselves, and it’s awesome.
JOHNSON: It’s also really great to meet people who listen to us or have listened for years, which was kind of crazy. Or people who just found us or people who didn’t know we existed before that night. It’s just cool meeting all different types of people and connecting with them. That’s why we got into music. It’s fun. It’s like going out, but with a twist.
LUNA: Having been to a lot of your shows over the past few years, you really have always stood out in the amount of production put into each show, no matter the venue size. What inspires the creativity in your live shows (other artists you admire or any influences)?
WYATT: I used to watch so many live shows on YouTube because I just really liked them and I hadn’t been to many concerts growing up. I mean, some of it’s embarrassing… Like, I would watch Ed Sheeran videos or something like that. A lot of people [such as] The 1975, Coldplay, or even COIN see it as an all-senses experience that you can do so much cool and creative and fun stuff with. I think the shows that we gravitate toward are the shows that just feel like they’re “giving,” for lack of a better word. The artist is really thankful that people are there and just wants to give something [to them] that’s super cool. I think that’s what we try to do as much as possible.
LUNA: Along with your live shows, you guys have really unique visuals that go along with your releases. The cover art for your most recent singles stands out to me with those human figures — I’m not even sure what to call them. Whose idea was that, and who did you work with on these visuals?
GOODWIN: That would be our sweet, sweet friend Daniel Carrai. He is definitely the mastermind behind anything visual that you see when you engage with Oceanic. Whether that’s social media or a live show or whatever, if you see it, Dan’s fingerprints are on it. He’s like a member of the band in that respect. We’re like a company, and the product we make isn’t just music. It’s an experience visually, and Dan is a super huge part in creating that. Those little people that are on our singles… The album is titled No, Human. The whole point of it is to get you to think inwardly and to think about what it is to be a person. Maybe it sounds a little too deep, but it’s just a representation of humanity in a way.
WYATT: First of all, the fact that you don’t have a word that you would use to describe it is cool to me, so I like that. The idea kind of first came from something I found on Pinterest. This dude made a whole bunch of artwork for a psychology book. I wish I could remember his name but I don’t. They’re very interesting images that use a lot of linework, use depth in a really interesting way, and use figures of people in a really interesting way. That’s how we made the first single artwork for “Care More.” It’s like a giant head with a staircase inside it and you can see a person in there. That’s very directly inspired by this artist’s work. It was just an initial idea for me and then Dan took it and ran with it. The way that body [is posed] without a face you can really see can mean something. I think it’s pretty sick.
LUNA: I love learning about the local music scene of different cities. How have the Charlotte artists, venues, and audiences influenced you?
WYATT: I forgot until you were just talking about it that there’s probably less shows that you weren’t there for in Lynchburg because I remember looking out and like, “Oh yeah, Emma Jean is here” basically every single time, so that was sick. It was a really supportive place to be. It was awesome. In Charlotte, we kinda moved here at the beginning of COVID, so that was weird. Since then, I feel like we’ve met a bunch of different artists that were cool.
JOHNSON: It feels like the scene, as a whole, is shifting. In our college town, it was smaller. There were kinda waves of musicians who were on the same page and wanted to do the same sound. It seems like that sound has even shifted a little away from our sound, which is cool to see. It feels like Charlotte is still trying to figure out what it is now because we’ve heard time and time again that all these bands split up during COVID or they just were older and kinda done with it. I feel like it is a young man’s game. It’s a big city, so I’m sure our world is only, like, 25% of it, if that. People are just itching to get out and listen to live music and looking for bands to follow around.
GOODWIN: I like what you said about how it feels like the scene here is shifting. Charlotte is a town that used to — and still very much does — really love rock a lot. The scene is kind of shifting in our experience, and the indie scene and pop scene are growing. We’re able to find our groove in that vein of the scene. I don’t know if I’d go [so] far as to say we’ve helped the scene here. I don’t know, maybe we did.
WYATT: We built this city on rock ’n’roll.
GOODWIN: Whoever built Charlotte did that.
JOHNSON: And we’re trying to move it away from that a little bit. Only a little.
LUNA: Now that we’re in the new year, I’d love to know if you had any new favorite musicians you discovered in 2022 who you’ll keep listening to in 2023.
WYATT: Definitely the most recent one that’s like, “Oh dang, that’s exactly what I wanna be doing” is this guy Jim-E Stack. He did some stuff with Bon Iver, some stuff with Caroline Polachek, who is definitely the other person I’m really excited I found last year. Again, late to the party. And then some old music I should’ve known already. I got into Elliott Smith, and I love all his stuff.
GOODWIN: I’ll shout out one person I discovered toward the end of the year: Silvana Estrada. She is a Mexican artist. She sings in English and Spanish, and her voice is amazing. It’s really raw. It’s definitely different from what we make, but I always feel myself getting inspired by that raw, organic music. Hers is definitely that, and her voice carries it really well.
JOHNSON: I don’t really have an artist. I do like Jim E-Stack that Nate mentioned. He showed him to me, to be clear. I’ve been [listening to] radio waves on Spotify and just enjoying that. I’ve also been doing my high school rewind session and listening to some music from back in the day.
WYATT: I feel like there’s a ton of stuff that we’ve been talking about and that we’ve been listening to that makes me really excited to be making music. With an album that’s kind of three years old, it’s fun to think of the possibilities of what’s next and how we’re going to evolve. That’s really fun to think about.
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