The fact that Oh Hush! Won’t divulge their names may be rather strange in this publicity driven business but the talent and amount of fun they have recording and playing live can’t. The assorted members of this band are high spirited with a lot of talent. They write some of their own music as well as covering 80’s classics like “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins. With the 80’s coming back in vogue it is no wonder that this modern band has put an 80’s spin to their music. With millions of friends and song hits on MySpace this is a band just waiting to be picked up by a major label and it may happen sooner rather than later. You can follow them on Twitter at twitter.com/ohhushmusic or go to their MySpace page at www.myspace.com/ohhushmusic.
AAM (Christi Broekemeier): I noticed there were no band member names on your MySpace page. What’s up with that?
Oh Hush!: (Ted?): Seriously; what IS up with that?! When we started this project we didn't have much of a plan other than to make it about two things: 1) the MUSIC and 2) the FANS!! That's all that was really important to us. We wanted people to give the music a shot without any kind of expectations or pre-conceived notions about the band. We didn't want people's opinions of the music to be swayed at all by who was or was not in the band, what we looked like, or anything else. Love us or hate us, but do it entirely based on the music!!
AAM: What are your names and how many people in the band?
Oh Hush!: All I can say is that Oh Hush! is made up of a random grouping of male and female superheroes! We all got together in a room one day... mixed our secret powers together... and after a "big bang", Oh, Hush was born! How many people in the band?? Well... we're still trying to figure that out for ourselves! And the term "in the band" hasn't yet been defined (I know I know... you're wondering why we have to be so complicated... these are supposed to be easy questions). But I think we've recently decided that are approximately 6 people "in the band"... though there is a 90% possible error rate on that answer. We're made up of singers, guitar players, bass players, drummers, keyboard players, xylophonists, trianglists, pianists, hand clappers, dog barkers, cow bellers, yodelers, screamers, and auto-tuners.
AAM: I can’t believe there is no way you will tell me your names. So I will make some up.
Oh Hush!: Make sure you have at least one girl's name in there!! :-)
AAM: Ok, There is a Ted, Tony, Trent, Trevor and for girls Tiffany, Tina and Trixe, all T names! Really; when will we be able to know your names?
Oh Hush!: Well you may already know our names... you just haven't put it together that the person you know is in Oh, Hush! For all of the e-mails we get from people asking us to reveal ourselves, we literally receive 100s and 100s of e-mails from people telling us to NEVER reveal ourselves; Which is actually kinda interesting I think! That said: I know at some point we’ll let everyone know who we are. We don't really plan things out too far in advance so I don't know exactly when that will happen. I know that we're not quite ready to reveal the band yet. But I'm confident that when the time is right, we'll know, we'll reveal it, and it will ideally be worth every bit the anticipation!! But for right now, we’re still holding out to reveal on the VMAs next year!!
AAM: Is there anything you can tell the readers of AAM about?
Oh Hush!: We can tell you virtually anything you want to know!! My favorite color... favorite star wars character... favorite TV show... favorite home-cooked meal... favorite Beatles album. In all reality, despite our secrecy about our identities, we're probably one of the most open and transparent bands in the world. We talk to our fans about just about everything!! We'll answer virtually any question. We help our fans with their homework, relationship problems! We even have a monthly column called "Ask Oh, Hush!" where we take a question from a fan and publicly post the answer for all to read! We try to select something that really appeals to everyone and everyone will find interesting and informative!! This month's Ask Oh, Hush! is answering the question "what is that crusty stuff in your eyes when you wake up and where does it come from." A great question! And one of our most popular questions turned into a Top 10 reasons NOT to date a musician!!
AAM: Who would you all consider the bands largest fan base?
Oh Hush!: In my heart of hearts, I'd like to think that Oh, Hush really truly does appeal to everyone!! Certainly, publicly it looks like the Oh, Hush! Fan-base is comprised primarily of 15-25 year olds which is great. That's our demographic and it's the type of people we probably relate to best. But we recently had a "Whose Mom is the biggest Oh, Hush! fan" contest and we had many entries from moms all over the world proclaiming that they were the biggest Oh, Hush! Fan!! I really feel like Oh, Hush!, while primarily kids like the music, is really a band that everyone can get into.
AAM: What is the “personality of the band”?
Oh Hush!: The "personality" of the band is actually one of the most important aspects of what we're all about! Since you can't see our pictures or know our names, you can only get to know us through our personality. This is communicated through our myspace/facebook/twitter pages in bulletins, bios, blogs, comments, messages, etc. I'd like to think we're the most personable band on MySpace!! We answer literally every single comment and message that comes in! I would say the "personality" of the band is what most people really are connecting with beyond the music! And I don't really know how to describe our "personality" - we're just who we are. And it's even easier to be who we are when we don't have to worry about people judging us... because they don't know who we are anyway!!? We just like to have fun. Keep things light. Keep things entertaining! I like to tell stories about MamaHush (aka, my mom) all the time. Those are usually fairly entertaining.
AAM: All of you seem to be very creative, especially when it comes to marketing. Since no one knows your names or where you’re from. What do you do to market yourselves?
Oh Hush!: We're definitely at a huge disadvantage from every other band out there. They can go on tour, play shows, and do the things that every other band does. They just kinda follow the path that all bands take. We've kind of created something that no one has really tried before (or not quite in the same way we're going about things) so we're in uncharted waters a bit. We realize that because we haven't toured and people don't know who's in the band, that we have to provide entertainment to people in other ways. We always have lots of contests on our page! I think my favorite thing we did was to distribute puzzle pieces to a few hundred people who bought one of our merchandise items - everyone got a single puzzle piece in the mail with their package. The kids then had to come together online... take pictures of their puzzle pieces... and people began to photo-shop the puzzle together. They solved the puzzle which gave them a riddle and led them to a free download!! It was really a wonderful experience seeing how SMART all of our fans are and then the relationships and coming together of our fans was really cool as well!!
AAM: Tell us about some of the contests you’ve had and what is the madness you use in deciding what to do?
Oh Hush!: I already mentioned the "Whose Mom is the biggest Oh, Hush! fan contest. One of my favorite contests was the "Design Oh, Hush!'s Album Cover" contest. It was our debut album and far be it from us to think we could design an album cover that people would like. So we put it in the hands of our extremely capable and talented friends and fans to design our album cover. We literally got 100s of entries! I remember taking hours upon hours going through all of the entries trying to narrow it down. The winner was designed by a girl named Casey from New York. Her artwork was a sure thing and as soon as I saw it I knew it was the winner. So we just picked her as the winner. Sometimes, if it's a really tough decision, we'll narrow it down to a handful of finalists and have our fans vote on the winner. Just kinda depends.
AAM: You’re doing a High School newspaper tour: that sounds interesting. What is that about?
Oh Hush!: We were having a meeting one day talking about doing some press and one of us had the idea that instead of trying to go through all of the major press outlets, that we'd bring our music and our message directly to our friends and fans! We'd let our fans who were writers for their high school newspapers interview us directly! Those interviews went great... we still do high school newspaper interviews in fact! No one can get at the heart of what the kids want to know better than the kids. And I was super impressed by how good of journalists many of our fans are!!
AAM: The sound of the band is not the norm for music that is coming out right now. If you had to describe the music to someone who hasn’t heard you, how would you describe it?
Oh Hush!: I can never come up with a good description... but some of our fans have said that the music instantly like-able and dance-able. Or that our music is easy on the ears but also hard on the rock! We're a rock band, a pop band and a disco-dance band all at the same time! If Lady Gaga, Butch Walker and Jet all had a baby, Oh, Hush! is what it might sound like. I'm making things up now....don't take my word for it... check out some of the songs on our MySpace page and tell us what we sound like.
AAM: What caught my eye was “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins from Top Gun. Why did you decide to do that song? It’s not exactly known for its edge.
Oh Hush!: That song has always wanted to rock harder than it did on the original! I'm a huge fan of those 80s movies and we decided we were going to do an EP of covers - all of the cover songs have a 80s theme to them. "Danger Zone" was a no-brainer. The guitar riff on the original is there... I just don't think 1985 was ready for a heavy guitar. So we approached the song and made it sounds how we'd want it to sound in 2009: a little heavier and a little more danceable!! So we cranked up the geetars and threw on some disco beats and you've got yourself the Oh, Hush! version of the song!! My personal fave part of our version on the song is the robot voice!! Which is actually kind of a 80s move in and of itself!! Kenny Loggins missed that one the first time around!
AAM: How often do you put out Cd’s? Also, I understand you have a Christmas Cd. Is that true?
Oh Hush!: I think I (falsely) promised our fans last September that we were gonna release 4 albums within the next 6 months. Unfortunately our plans changed a little and we didn't do 4 albums, but we did release 3!! We put our debut record "The Yellow Album" last September. In conjunction with that we released our "Don't Judge a Record by Its Covers" EP which has 4 cover songs ("Danger Zone" is on there... along with "Sunglasses At Night", "How Will I Know" by Whitney and "Maniac" by... no idea... but it's an awesome song!). For Christmas 2008 we also released our "Hush! The Herald Angels Sing" Christmas EP! We took 5 Holiday faves and did them up Oh, Hush! Style. We're actually already starting work on the 2009 Christmas EP right now... I think this time around we're gonna write a bunch of original Christmas songs. This may or may not go very well. We'll find out! :-)
AAM: Where can people find you off the internet? (This is the opening for Sirius Radio)
Oh Hush!: Well certainly the internet is the best place to find us. Myspace.com/ohhushmusic and twitter.com/ohhushmusic is where we spend most of our time!! But you can also hear Sirius Radio Hits 1 playing our song "Going Down in Style" periodically on their programming!
AAM: I understand that you put a Cd out every year. When will the new Cd be out?
Oh Hush!: Well since we've only been a band for a little more than a year, I can say we have historically put out a CD "every year"... but that's not enough history to really count on. BUT... all of that to say that we definitely DO plan to release another full length CD this year... as always, there will be many secrets tied to the release... lots of fun games... all sorts of excitement and contests and merch and new music! I will say that people need to pay close attention because we'll be doing lots of sneaky things in the coming months that will really pay off with the CD release!! We're gonna be changing gears a bit with the new music... it will still be 100% Oh, Hush! But also be something that's a little different than what you heard from us previously. The great thing about being an independent band is that we don't have record label breathing down our necks about what the music needs to sound like. We're free to experiment and move in new directions. I'm pretty sure everyone is gonna love where things are going though!! New Oh, Hush! CD in 2009 for sure!!
AAM: Tell us about some of your plans for 2009. Do you have any prospects at this time for getting signed or going on tour?
Oh Hush!: First things first, I plan to take a few vacations in 2009... Definitely hitting up Vegas for a few nights; maybe get out to Hawaii for a year. I plan to start doing more running and working out. I also have a fun new diet that I'm on (not by choice) and I plan to expand my culinary capabilities!! Oh wait did you mean MUSICAL plans for 2009?? OK... well I talked about a new record... new music... new merch as well as new games and contest. I actually have THE COOLEST CONTEST EVER planned for sometime this spring/summer. Seriously it's the greatest contest ever and I'm confident no one has ever done this before ever! And the only reason we can do it is because... well... you'll see!! So that's coming!! As for tours.... no official plans right now to tour as Oh, Hush! You might catch some of us on tour this summer with some of our other bands. But you never know. There have been some rumblings of putting together a tour or making some appearances. You just never know.
AAM: Getting signed?? Wow... this should be its own question. :-)
Oh Hush!: When we started this project, we never even gave any thought to a record deal and really just wanted to do this as a side project and have some fun and really just make it all about the music and all about the fans. Ironically, virtually every record label in the country approached us about this project and all of them wanted us to change how we were running the band. They all wanted to force us into their business models of being a “normal band” and doing what every other band does. And of course they’d want to run our MySpace page and all that. That didn’t interest us one bit. We’re trying to do something with Oh, Hush! that puts the MUSIC and the FANS FIRST!! Sure it’s a TON more work for us but it’s all totally worth it! The last thing we want is some dude in a suit running our MySpace page and talking to our fans on our behalf. Sure we could probably make a whole lot of money if we signed with one of these labels, but it’s not about the money. We’re not interested in selling out and being a “normal band” if that means we have to give up control over everything we’re doing. That said, if a record label came around that really understands and gets what this thing is all about and partnering up with them makes sense for both of us, then we'll consider it. If not, we'll just keep doing what we do on our own.
AAM: Anything you would like to add? (I may be able to turn it into a question). I think you should let your humor show as much as possible. That would be great!
Oh Hush!: I would like to add that it was really an amazing treat to be asked to star in the upcoming New Moon movie (sequel to the Twilight movie, for those of you non-Twihards out there). While I was completely honored to have been asked, I don't think I have enough time between Oh, Hush! and my other projects. However, we will hopefully be contributing a song to the soundtrack for the movie... or maybe our whole album will be the soundtrack. Ya never know...
