Episode #2 – Justin Kier of OTEP
Our second episode of Reverberations with Ramar features Justin Kier, drummer for Otep. Antihero Magazine’s Greg Ramar had the opportunity to hang out with Justin when the band made a stop in the Bay area. Check it out!
“I was a fuck up. That’s who I was. I was just all over the place. Jumping all over the things. Getting expelled and suspended. Tapping on stuff. I was always beating on things, refrigerators, desks. Getting referrals and teacher letters home because I was beating on everything. I was a rambunctious asshole.”
“For me, what really made me want to be a drummer is when I went to my first metal show. I saw Pantera, Anthrax, and Coal Chamber at the events center in San Jose. When I saw that spark that, the feel of these guys on stage. It wasn’t even a certain one. It wasn’t Phil, it wasn’t Dimebag, it wasn’t Rex, it wasn’t Vinnie, it was all four of them. Just coming together as a whole unit. Feeling that these guys made. Just changed my life. I was like ‘what the fuck is going on here?’ I realized I got this drum kit at home, maybe I could start this process going. Find four people that I could get this feeling from that I got from that stage, and so I started hitting the kit hard.”
“…It’s my heart, my soul. I hear songs and it could make me happy, sad. I feel it. I feel everything that people say. I listen to the words. I’m dissecting things. I’m dissecting drummers. I’m dissecting guitars and the feeling of people. That’s really what gets me into music, it’s the feel. It’s the connection of all of the members onstage. Just creating the spark. My body absorbs that shit man. I’m like a sponge to it. My eulogy would be, without music I’m nothing. I’d be nothing.”
“I know there’s a couple of places every time we go that just fucking go insane. I’m really looking forward to opening up with some of these new faster songs and seeing what these kids do.”
“…The energy. The amount of work you have to do too. You got to put in some time to be able to play some of these licks and the dexterity. I don’t know, the endurance. Fuck man, double bass and at 220. Fucking, 180.”
“Any of these things that these guys do with metal, it takes a lot of talent, endurance. I like the sound and the bigness of it. How fierce it is. How overpowering. It could take you from one place or the next. I don’t know, metal just spoke to me.”
Photos by Greg Ramar
