Local rockers Media Orphan are creating a buzz.These boyz have their
act together, conduct themselves professionally, have musicianship and
talent and, most of all, a can-do attitude. I sat down with the power
pop quartet, vocalist/guitarist Richard Petteys, guitarist Eddie
Negrete, bassist Dave Johansen and drummer Paul Alamazan, to learn
more about them and their project.
Alamazan explained that Negrete was looking for a bass player and a
drummer to form a band and put an ad
out in several papers, as well as at Lake Avenue Church. A friend told
Alamazan about the ad.
"The influences were pretty interesting because the first thing I
noticed was Eddie put the Beatles and then Ozomotli, so right off the
bat I was, 'Oh my gosh, I love Ozomotli and I love the Beatles. I've
got to call this guy up'," Alamazan says.
They got together, just hanging out at first and then playing later.
For their second meeting, Alamazan brought a bass player with him (who
is no longer in the band). But Media Orphan has been together three
years, with the current lineup since August. Johansen had come in to
substitute on bass and ended up being recruited permanently.
Petteys shares his experience, "I was playing at a church and Eddie
came to visit. I had really, really long hair, so he thought I was a
girl. He said, 'You're a beautiful girl, you sing really well.' Nah,
he saw me playing in a band and asked me if I wanted to play in a
band... He heard me sing and he wanted me to play bass, which was
really weird because I've never been a bass player. I was playing bass
at church because people tend to do different things a church,"
Petteys laughs. "So I was supposed to be the bass player, but it never
happened. I never played once, they lost their singer. I went from
bass player to lead singer in the matter of a day."
So what's in the name I wonder about Media Orphan?
"Eddie was reading through an article and it talked about some band or
musician and it had the phrase 'radio orphan' because they were able
to keep things going even though they didn't have a lot of radio
play," Alamazan replies. "There are tons of bands out there like that,
Grateful Dead is the first one I think of, but he liked the phrase and
what it signified, but he didn't like the word radio. He thought what
else is radio, radio is a part of media and media is a broader word."
"It has a lot of different meanings behind it, like spiritual
meanings," Negrete adds. "Words always come out and you never really
know what it means until you think about it, like our songs and our
future CD coming up. You think, 'That's a good word, but what does it
really mean? I don't know. I'll dream about it and tell you tomorrow.'
So I thought about it and I thought, us being Christians in this world
we have what's called the Worldly Father who does whatever he wants
and we're not children of the same father so it's like we're orphans
of this world in that spiritual sense.
"I thought it out a very deep meaning behind it, but I didn't want to
tell everyone, hey, this is exactly what it meant, I wanted to make it
more ambiguous," Negrete goes on. "It also had more of a
radio-friendly meaning behind it and it had more of a spiritual
meaning behind it."
The members of Media Orphan are also Christian and point out that they
are Christians who have a band, but not a Christian band.
"I think for us it's not important that Christians clap for us,"
Alamazan says. "It's more important for other people to listen and
hopefully get to know us and in talking with us they realize that
there's something behind this."
Negrete adds, "It's about relationships- we became friends and then we
became a band. We'd like our fans to be friends and then fans."
"We notice that a lot of our fans say our music spoke directly to them
in situations," Johansen pipes up. "We would rather pick someone up
off the ground than pat someone on the back who's already standing up
on their own feet."
I decide to get to know each member a bit better.
Negrete grew up in Southgate, California.
"My family on both sides are musicians. They all play guitars, piano,
drums," he states. Negrete started on guitar at age 12, "That's my
main. I've tried everything else, but I wouldn't say I played it."
Negrete majored in art at at Biola University, Pacific Christian
College and Cal State Long Beach. He has a degree in art for drawing
and painting, but has not done graphics for band yet. By day, he is a
married social worker with a five year old son.
"I write, I'm a songwriter, a music writer, I read books," Negrete
says of his free time.
Bassist Johansen spent his childhood in Eagle Rock, California. He is
recently married.
"My first instrument was piano lessons for a year when I was in second
grade. I went from that to guitar, then guitar to banjo, back to
guitar, then eventually the bass. Oh, and ukulele. I have all those
instruments," Johansen says.
"Do you have a cat?" I ask, "Because some cats hate the banjo."
"I haven't actually played the banjo for the cat or my wife." Johansen
laughs. "But I will."
We return to why, when he plays so many instruments, he has settled on
bass.
"I got stuck playing bass. I was in my first band called the Secret
Agents, they were a little pop/punk band like Green Day, and there
were two guitarists and a drummer," Johansen shares. "Me and the other
guitarist, we fought, we got in a big argument, 'No you need to play
the bass, we need a bassist.' Finally I said screw it, I was going to
play bass.It actually turned out better because I have fat fingers and
with guitar I can't jam them together to make some of the chords--
they don't fit. The music styles I like are very bass-driven so I
picked up on it really fast."
Johansen is a house parents for Hillsides in Pasadena.
"I don't have kids, but I do have kids," he grins.
He enjoys spending time with his wife and "step-cat," as well as
fishing, darts, pool, skateboarding and bowling, "I would say Richard
has a better form than me, he has a stricter form so he's more
consistent. I joke around too much because I have fun. I throw the
ball between my legs, hook shot. I pretty much a renaissance guy, I
like anything."
Alamazan grew up in Echo Park and attended school in Eagle Rock
Johansen's mother was his first music teacher, so he knew Dave as a
child. Alamazan played piano for about nine years beginning around age
4.
"Banjo was the first instrument I ever got, but it was very
short-lived. It was funny because I got with this teacher who was a
metal guitarist and he'd be playing metal and say, 'Oh, one of my
banjo students is here' and he'd put down the guitar and pick up the
banjo. I was like, 'Why am I playing banjo?', " Alamazan laughs.
He got a drum set at 13 and a guitar at 14. I wonder if he played
drums in school band?
"No, my school had a terrible band. Not only do I not want to be a
band geek, but I don't want to be a band geek in a terrible band,"
states Alamazan. "I took lessons for a while, but most of my learning
was through headphones. Growing up I listened to a lot of '60s groups,
everything from Herman's Hermits to Beatles to Rolling Stones. I had
an old record player and I hooked my headphones up to it and I'd play
along. So my parents and neighbors hated it. I'd be in there for
hours."
He attended several colleges studying art, music and voice.
"I was an art major for my first couple of years, then I was playing
with a band and I wanted to know more about music, so I became a music
major and subsequently fell into singing at that time and I was a
vocal major. Then I went to Azusa Pacific and I was a business major
over there," says Alamazan.
He's single and works at Enterprise Rent-a-car, "I spend most of my
time away from the band swing dancing."
Petteys hails from El Monte and has sung and played guitar since he
was 13.
"I started singing as a kid because we'd always have family dinners
and my uncle loves to sing and he had a karaoke machine at his house.
Everyone sings no matter if you sing well or not," Petteys says,
admitting he wouldn't try karaoke until he was 13. "I said 'I've got
to do this' and I loved it and now I'm always like, 'Are we going to
turn on the machine?' They don't want to do it any more, but I do. I
love karaoke."
He studied vocal performance, music and business at Pasadena City
College and is currently a Zipfizz energy drinks promoter at Sam's
Club and Cosco.
"I love to bowl. I'm a big fan of fast food so I like trying different
types of fast food; I like going to fast food places that
I've never been to and I like going to some that I've been to too. I
just love fast food," Petteys shares, adding that his favorite place
is McDonalds for selection and price. His favorite food is large
fries. He likes In-n-Out, but "It gets expensive. When you're in a
band you need cheap."
Petteys is thin and doesn't work out. He says he has a high metabolism
and is trying to gain weight. He also likes going to theme parks,
especially Disneyland. His favorite ride used to be Space Mountain
until it was changed, now his favorite
is Haunted Mansion.
Negrete is Media Orphan's driving force when it comes to their
material.
"It starts in a dream," states Negrete. "A lot of my songs come from a
dream and I have a little tape player by my bed and I sing. I go in
the restroom where I'm really relaxed and I finish the song there."
He takes the tapes to Petteys and they sort them out and then bring
the songs they like best to the rest of the band for collaboration.
From there, everyone helps with the lyrics and the music.
"Sometimes it's hard to sing, definitely when you're singing something
you didn't put out," Petteys says.
Negrete explains, "There's a song, 'Hero,' that I personally went
through with my parents and Richard didn't have the same struggles I
had so when he's singing 'Hero'--"
Petteys interrupts, "The first line in the song is 'Daddy never
learned to say I love you,' I'm singing that all the time and I
dedicated it to my parents before too, but my dad always said he loved
me."
Petteys admits that it's a challenge to sing others' word, but "It's
sometimes cool to sing what others wrote."
Bravely, I ask the band for their input on the scene.
"Today's music scene is ready for a change," Alamazan states.
"It's done with emo and it's time for someone to start a new trend or
direction and we're hopefully the ones to do that," Negrete offers.
"It's polluted, in every genre there's pollution." Johansen responds,
"I think there's too much business involvement that changes the true
spirit of what the artists are trying to put out. It does boil down to
the dollars, but I think a lot of the artists sacrifice who they are
in order to get professional and you'll see band go through
transitions. I wouldn't say they sold out, but they made some changes
that weren't going along with the band's ideas from when they
started."
Johansen cites the Red Hot Chili Peppers as an example of a band
making transitions successfully because they have evolved as they have
matured in their lives, and they have improved, yet their music can
still be recognized as Chili Peppers.
"I look deeper into the spirit of what they're trying to get across,"
Johansen goes on. "What's the whole point of your band?Yeah, you can
play music, anyone can play music, but it has to be deeper than that--
what are you trying to tell people with your music? And nowadays
you're not saying anything."
Negrete picks up, "I think that the lyrics we always try to complete
or touch upon is encouraging. A lot of the music today, and many
bands, is dark and depression and anger and the negative part of life,
one thing Paul told me years ago is the reason he wanted to get into
music was because he wanted to party. His life was boring, he wanted
to party and be in a rock band. It's true your life sucks, but when
you hear a band it's OK. It's like being encouraging, giving hope,
faith and love and hopefully that kind of theme crosses into the
lyrics."
"What we do is kind of like melancholy happiness," Johansen adds.
"What I want to do with my bass lines and with our vocals is bring
tears of joy from the real situations in the lyrics. Yeah, it might be
dark, but there's light somewhere else."
Media Orphan will be going back in the studio in June to finish their
next effort, "The Day After Never," for which most of the material has
already been recorded. Their acoustic CD, "Media Orphan," is due out
this month and they are working on tour through Utah.
"For me it's important to make people think, to make people
reminisce," Alamazan says. "I'm a romantic person and I like conveying
that. And at the end of the song you feel hopeful."
Petteys contributes his thoughts, "We're very different and we know
what works in different aspects of music and that helps when we bring
it all together. It's cool that we have so many different likes and
still come together and write music together-- it's awesome."
"Every day I want to write that perfect song that will change the
world," Negrete smiles.
