The Ocho: From Cover Band to Indie Rock Staple

INTERVIEW BY JENNA PHILLIPS

Hailing from Athens, Georgia, The Ocho is a five piece indie rock band who do an incredible job of blending smooth vocals with vibrant sounds. Since the release of their debut single “Izzy” in 2022 they have put out three EPs and continue to prove that they are here to make their place in the music industry known. As an avid fan of The Ocho, I was ecstatic to finally catch a live performance and was far from disappointed after hearing countless of their amazing songs, as well as some phenomenal covers including “Pool House” by The Backseat Lovers and “Sheep” by Mt. Joy. Pleaser met up with Ashwin Gidwani (drums), Garrett Seitz (vocals/keyboard), Jonah Bergman (guitar), Parker Foles (bass), and Patrick Dries (guitar) at their stop in Philadelphia during their headlining tour this February and chatted all about their journey as a band so far and what’s next for them.

PHOTOS BY LINDSEY DADOURIAN

PLEASER: So let’s start from the beginning, how did you get your start as a band?

JONAH BERGMAN: 
So we started in Athens, Georgia, where we went to school at the University of Georgia, which is where the band formed. We were kind of like a cover band doing it for, you know, events and beer money and that sort of thing. Summer of 2022 is when Patrick made the demo for our first single, Izzy, and we recorded the vocals a couple months later. 
That came out November 22nd of 2022, and from that point on we started taking it more seriously in terms of, you know, original songwriting and starting to look towards what we were going to release in the future. And now we're three and a quarter years out from that? 

PATRICK DRIES: 
Yeah, because I'd say when we put out that first EP, that was the first time we actually were, you know, making a lot of jams. Even when we put out that first single, it was just like, you know, throw it into the void, no advertising or anything like that. 
So when we did our first EP in June of 2023, that was our first time actually being like, you know, a legit band and trying to put out original music and do ticketed shows because we were just doing cover band stuff while we were in college up to that point.

JB:  Recording that first EP was the first time we were in an actual studio setting, and it was with a really cool producer named Patrick Doherty out of Athens. He had a studio built in his backyard. It was just a cool experience being in the studio and I think looking back, it's, you know, it's less produced, I guess, than what our current stuff is. So there's a lot of growth between that and now, which has been really fun. 


What's the history behind the band name, The Ocho? I always love to ask!

JB: We lived in a house. 
Parker and I, we were roommates in this room that was called the Ocho. And so we just started rehearsing in there, kind of stored a lot of our music equipment and beer in there. Yeah, it was kind of an easy pick. 

PARKER FOLES: I feel like we were planning on the first show and we were like, we don't have a name. We need to formalize in some way or another. And we tossed around the idea a while back, like, maybe we should’ve changed our name. 
We were never too serious. It was too late. 

GARRETT SEITZ: Before the first EP, when we only had two singles out, we were thinking we could change names. 


PF: We couldn't agree on it. They were all horrible.

Where feels like home to make music together for you?

JB: We live together now! Currently we're based out in Atlanta. 
Now we all live in a family home we're renting and we have a dedicated rehearsal space that's kind of our creative outlet. 

PF: Before then, me and Patrick lived in Smyrna, Georgia, and every week or so, we would drive to Shwin's parents' house in Duluth, and it was like an hour and a half drive during rush hour. We were like, ‘this is just not sustainable. We need to live together or at least have some sort of central location to meet’. Then we found a really great house on Zillow and we were going to a show in North Carolina, and we ended up signing the lease like three days after we toured it.

Where do you start when it comes to making new music? Is it usually the music or lyrics first?

JB: So Garrett writes all the lyrics and a lot of the music. 
We write a lot of guitar part stuff that we’ll flesh out out as a band, make that into something.

PF: When somebody plays a riff, if it feels right, we just build on it. 


PD: Yes, it goes kind of all over the place. The only consistent thing is Garrett writes the lyrics, but other than that, it's like, if anyone has a demo, like a lot of the times Garrett will have a thing on piano or on guitar or something like that, or we'll sit down and like a lot of the times they'll even be like, hey guys, I have this song idea.

PF: It's normally like if we are setting up for practice, the first person who sets up, they’ll start playing and we’re like, oh, that's sick.

GS: When I'm writing, I'll just be walking around and humming some random music and kind of build off of that. 

JB: And then like 100% of the time, if either of us come up with a demo, it's like, here's a really cool idea. Now fit words on it. He's like forced to fit something on top of it. 

PD: 
Yeah, we've had ones before, like, ‘Her Face Screams’ was an example where it was like, I made a demo of like some guitar stuff and then Garrett was like, wait, that actually works really well with this other song I was doing, We ended up just mashing ideas, grab this stuff from his song and put it on that. 

GS: I was writing ‘Her Face Screams’ with my own chords, and then Patrick a week later sent that demo and I called him and I said, I have a song there for your guitar part.

Where do you think your inspiration comes from, both lyrically and musically, as a band?

JB:  I think what's cool about us is, I mean, we grew up, some of us listening to similar things, but there's a lot of different influences. 
Like, I know Shwin likes a lot of punk rock.

ASHWIN GIDWANI: If it wasn't for these guys, I wouldn't know a lot of the music. In a good way, you know. They've opened me up to a lot more indie music and put me on, yeah. 
I grew up on, like, Green Day, Fallout Boy, 
But I like all the new indie bands.


What about living in Georgia that inspires you? What inspires you to keep playing music and being a band?

GS: 
I think we all enjoy the process of making music and we love playing live shows, especially the good ones. And so we all care pretty passionately about the art that we're making.

JB: Also when we were building an idea at home and it comes from scratch to a full, complete idea that we were like, all right, we could take this to the studio. And it's just so fun being in the studio every time, knowing it's going to turn out great. Like the other week when we were in there, we were a little stressed going in, because we had a couple songs that we knew exactly how we wanted to go and then a couple others that we weren't sure yet. 
But knowing in four days that it's going to be really great is just such an enjoyable process. It gives us a lot of relief and confidence, and we feel reinspired every time. 
It's a cool process to go through, it fuels us to keep it going and keep writing.

PF: We've also taken a couple of weekends just to go to the mountains and write. 
We've got a buddy and his parents have a mountain house and they're gracious enough to let us go up there for a discounted rate. We just hang out and get away from the city for a little bit and kind of lock in on the music. We just move all the furniture out of the room and put our full setup in there and play, and I think that's a great spot and some of our ideas have come from there.

PD: Yeah, because it's a beautiful setting and it's just like, not that we need to be forced to be productive, but it's like when we're up there, we're here for a purpose and it's a nice change of scenery and environment.

Do you have anyone you want to shout out from Georgia?

JB: 
I mean, we play a lot of shows with Harvey Street. Those guys are awesome. 
Another band from Athens that we like to collaborate with is hallpass. Gideon's other band, too. 
Hotel Fiction is so awesome. 

Did you guys play a lot of college shows? 

JB: 
UGA has a really big Greek life scene that we kind of broke into so we'd play a lot of private events, which was just an easy way to get in front of a lot of ears rapidly. And we got hired a lot for private events. 
We played a lot of bars around town. 

Any that stick out as your favorite?

ALL: Boars Head. 
Boar's Head is really cool.

JB: Athens' music scene is killer. It is just a very lucky place to start a band and kind of grow an immediate following. 

PF: Yeah. 
Great bands and infinite opportunities to play shows. Like philanthropies, campus organizations.

JB: It's also great, like, all the bar owners are super supportive of live music. A lot of them have stages or some sort of setup and they appreciate live bands and keeping the music scene live as opposed to- it’s so easy to just plug in aux nowadays and just play Spotify music and so that's great. There's no shortage of spots to play, pretty much. 

GS: 
Yeah. I think out of all the cities- I mean, I've never grown up playing music in any other cities, but Athens has got to be one of the lowest bars of being able to enter the music scene.

PD: Because it's not even just open mic nights. We played at Clark's. 
Clark's would just book you like that. There's just so many bars with live music that, if you're a beginner, you can just hit them up and be like, can we play for you and they’ll let you play. 


Is this tour that you’re doing now, is this your first, or is it your longest tour, I should say? 

PD: This is the furthest we're going. 
Yeah, the fall last year was maybe more shows, technically. I could be wrong about that, too, but yeah, this is definitely the farthest. We've never been in Virginia or higher, so we were always in the southeast.

What have you learned so far? What are you looking forward to learning? 


GS: Um, It's really cold. Yeah, that's all I have. Well, also, we met a lot of nice people like last night, and I'm sure we'll meet nice people tonight. All the venues have been super hospitable so far. Getting to meet people after the show, everyone's super kind and excited that they got to come see us and we're excited that they even came to the show,

JB: 
I mean, we kind of knew going in, like, you know, touring isn't super glamorous all the time. It's a lot of downtime in the van, which was to be expected, but we're productive in the van and we take advantage of that time. 

PF: We don't have to learn how to be together because we've already lived together for four years at this point. 

GS: Yeah. We just have to learn about being with each other a little closer. 
Yeah. small quarters. 

PF: Yeah. Like you should see the van packed with us, our buddy Lucas, our videographer, and all our luggage and gear.

GS: 
We got plenty to talk about, though. 
A lot of good jokes.

JB:  Shout out, Lucas Hozza. He's on tour with us doing videography. When he's not doing that, he's helping up with merch and helping us load the van. He works a lot with Harvey Street, who we shouted out earlier. He does great work. 

PF: Also, shout out Garrett Wilson, our agent at Atlas. 
Yeah, Atlas is awesome and has been treating us well. 

JB: We started working with them in March or so of last year. 
Yeah. So we're coming up on about a year with them and they are a fantastic agency. They rep Flipturn and used to do The Stews. Also Harvey Street, Penelope Road, Wim Tapley and the Cannons, Hotel Fiction, Happy Landing. 
They're building a phenomenal roster.. Yeah, so they've been really fantastic. 

Who would you guys like to work with, speaking of bands like that? If you could pick anyone to play a show with, who would it be?

GS: Mine would be Mt. Joy.

JB: Flipturn would be really fun to do some shows with. 
Yeah. I think we'd like mesh really well with them.

PD: Palace just because they never come here so I never get to see them.

You mentioned you started as a cover band, what's everyone's go to? 

JB: UGA being a Southern school and doing a lot of the private events,, a lot of people wanted to hear, you know, Southern rock, classic rock, country. 
We do some more like modern indie rock stuff too. We initially learned a lot of cover band basics. From there, it's just, you know, any cool cover songs that we thought we could do a really cool version of this live. Or thinking if it kind of fits our sound or fits the set well sonically. So we’ve done Mt. Joy, The Backseat Lovers, Flipturn. 

PD: Tyler Childers, we did a lot in college. ‘Doses and Mimosas’ one time too.

PF: 
We were in Tuscaloosa a couple months ago, and Cherub was playing next door to us. Our party got shut down like 15 minutes in because there were people jumping the fence. 
So we just ended up loading out and listening too. 

GS: Speaking of covers, we played in Oxford one time and a guy came up to us, 
he was like, ‘I can't believe you guys covered ‘Wasted in Athens’.’ I love that song. And we were like, yeah. 
So do we. That's our song. Do you think we covered all The Ocho’s music? 

JB: Well, it was funny because he came up to us at the merch table. So there's like all our merch out that says The Ocho, says Athens, Georgia.

PF: The drumhead says The Ocho. 
No, we're just a really dedicated cover band of the Ocho. 

That’s so funny! Where do you see yourself in the future?Are you working on anything right now?

JB: Yeah, we're working on our first album. That will hopefully be out later this year. We're still finalizing some things. And so I'm sure by fall, we'll be touring, doing that album and moving in it. 
 Yeah, it's going to be a really cool project. We're really proud of it. 
I think it's sonically, we're finding our sound more. This is just a growth and extension of that. I think it's our best work to date and I think everyone's going to love it. Yeah, so stay posted!