Interview with OSCA: ‘It is a very indie disco kind of sound – poppy bass, tight beat and intense in the verses, moving away from our usual sound’

OSCA, a rock quartet from Wednesbury in the Black Country region of the West Midlands, is gearing up to release their next single ‘Cheap Suit’.

The band, which was founded three years ago, comprises Zak Tolley (vocals), Joe Dawes (bass) and Tom Harper (drums) and new addition to the band, Jesse Totty (guitar). ‘Me and Joe were at school together since we were three,’ Harper said. ‘I know Joe through his brother, we have a high volume of pubs per person here (laughs).’ Tolley met Dawes out on the town: ‘We were on his brother’s stag party, that’s where all the good ideas start! And Joe introduced me to Tom.’ Their name was inspired by one of Tom’s family’s dogs, called Oscar. ‘He’s a cocker spaniel, he likes his rock music,’ Harper joked.

‘Cheap Suit’ marks something of a musical departure for them: ‘It makes you want to rip out, on a scale of 1-10 disco, it’s an 8! It’s stuck in our head, it goes down well live,’ Dawes said. Tolley agrees: ‘It is a very indie disco kind of sound – poppy bass, tight beat and intense in the verses, moving away from our usual sound, but a more recognisable chord progression and rockier feel in the choruses. It’s akin to the likes of Foals but with inspiration from Wham and Duran Duran. We had Christmas drinks where are here now and recorded the keys, just as a joke, but then we started playing it live and really liked it.’

As the track goes: ‘So keep dancing to this new tune/ Hold me like a cheap suit baby/ Tell me what’s the hurry?/ You choke on me. I choke on you.’

Last month, they released their EP ‘How To Live A Lie When The Truth’s Been Told’, which consists of four tracks: ‘Smile’, ‘Lady Luck’, ‘Cathedral’ and ‘Times Divider’: ‘The title is a line from ‘Times Divider’, and the last unique lyric from the EP,’ said Tolley. ‘We just loved the lyric, so much so that we went with it. Our socials told a story through short videos during its release and the line adds to that story quite well, we feel.’

‘Smile’ is a natural opener, kicking off with a massive, fuzzy riff before Harper comes in on drums and Tolley’s vocals and the hooky melody reel you in: ‘It happened by chance, that riff,’ Dawes said. ‘We were at a normal practice and Jesse forgot his capo, so Zak offered to go and get one. When he was gone, Jesse started to do this riff on the guitar. When Zak came back, we already had a lot of the melody.’ Tolley nods: ‘I like to think about the lyrics, I think “Let’s just keep what we’ve got” and play around with them later but with this one, we did it in about five minutes.’

As the song opens: ‘Another time, another place, another grimace on your face/ What’s with you? Let us know you’re on that path/ Don’t wait on me to go and ask what’s with you?’

‘A lot of people describe our music as energetic’

The guitar lines have become an integral part of their sound: ‘A lot of people describe our music as energetic,’ Harper said. ”Smile’ is non-stop.’ Tolley agrees: ‘We bring a lot of energy to it.’ Dawes joins in: ‘You want to play it in front of people,’ he said. ‘We play it towards the end of a set, it’s one of our faves.’

Tolley’s own experiences feed heavily into his songwriting; ‘I’d been done for drink driving, so I was getting the train to work, it was two and a half hours there and back. That’s when I wrote ‘Lady Luck’, it’s honest and angry.’ Harper agrees: ‘It’s one of our older songs, we always wanted to record it,’ he said.

As the song kicks off: ‘Whilst I’m not blaming you, I could do with some luck, alright?/ I’ve been down on lately looking for a place to hide/ You all arrive on cue, to say you’ve tried/ I can’t be left alone where my thoughts collide.’

Other tracks have an equally unexpected provenance, such as ‘Cathedral’, which opens with a guitar pedal that, with production, has been used to create an organ-like synth sound. As such, it conjures up the image of being in a church or cathedral, even though the song title is something of a misnomer: ‘This was a collaborative one,’ said Harper. ‘I had the chorus but I needed a verse. Zak came in, he molded it. The chorus was in my catalogue for a few years but I didn’t have anything to go with it.’ It turns out that the ‘cathedral’ in question is not an actual cathedral but a reference to a guitar pedal of the same name: ‘It’s a reverb pedal, you can make a lot of nice sounds with it but it’s not actually used in the song,’ Harper grinned. ‘I wrote the song using a cathedral pedal and then when we came to record it, Zak said “Did you bring it?” and I said no!’

‘We’ve tried to be true to the spirit of The Beatles’

Dawes and Harper have also played in a Beatles tribute band, The Black Country Beatles, for the past six years. Dawes plays McCartney and Harper plays Starr. ‘There are sooooo many great songs to cover,’ Dawes said enthusiastically. ‘We also do a medley of ‘Golden Slumbers’, ‘Carry That Weight’ and ‘The End’, they’re the last three songs on Abbey Road. That’s been a highlight for me.’ Harper weighs in: ‘I like doing Ringo’s part in songs like ‘Please Please Me’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ and ‘While Your Guitar Gently Weeps’. We’ve tried to be true to the spirit of The Beatles, so we all sing in the band.’ Tolley, for his part, was formerly the frontman in Birmingham-based indie rock band Open To Fire for six years. ‘When you’re young and in a band, you think you’ll be a millionaire and tour the world,’ he quipped.

Their dream line-up would be brilliantly eclectic: ‘We’d obviously headline,’ Dawes joked. ‘I’ll say The Beatles.’ Harper looks deep in thought: ‘I’m going with Foo Fighters for value for money. I saw them in Milton Keynes a year after Dave broke his leg onstage (2019), they’d built him a throne (laughs), even then he had to sit there. Can I have Nirvana as well?’ Tolley has gone quiet: ‘I’d probably bring back dead people that I didn’t get to see, I’ll have George Michael and I’d probably pick Elvis as well, to see him at his best.’ Harper looks at him enthusiastically: ‘That’d be a good combo to have headlining, The Beatles AND Elvis,’ he said, looking delighted at the prospect.

They’d love to hear one of their tracks such as ‘Smile’ on TV but they all have very different ideas as to where: ‘I’d like to hear it on ‘James Martin’s Saturday Morning’ (a British cooking show) when he’s cooking away but I’d like to play it on Jools Holland, I’d do anything to be on that,’ Dawes said. Tolley is laughing: ‘Wouldn’t it go well on a murder mystery show?,’ he said mischievously. ‘You know, when he’s away with the fairies, maybe on something like ‘You’?’ (A Netflix show about a bookshop manager played by Penn Badgley, who is a narcissistic and sociopathic killer.) Harper has other ideas: ‘I think ‘Smile’ would be a great entrance song for a wrestler, a happy wrestler!’

Onstage moments are frequently hilarious: ‘We were doing a gig and we’d agreed that when we did a song with a long instrumental break, Zak would down a pint of Guinness,’ Dawes said. ‘Afterwards, his eyes were going different ways! He couldn’t feel anything after that!’ They all burst out laughing. ‘Yeah, Tolley said. ‘It was the hardest part of the show!’

(Top photo from left to right: Joe, Tom, Zak and Jesse.)