At least I knew I had picked the right bus. This would mark the second time i've officially interviewed Otep, not that i was any less nervous about it. I was greeted at the foot of the bus steps. Otep had a short aluminum baseball bat in her left hand. Was she going to smack me around if I asked the wrong thing? As we both sat down, i wondered if she ever got nervous doing interviews. I also had an offering of my own. I had come across an autographed SLIPKNOT poster, their first offical poster. She was genuinely thankfull for it, and I thought it made a good belated-birthday gift.
"This is great, thank you so much. This is getting hung up in my apartment. So, how are you? How's life? Good?"
It's there.
"It's life. I hear you."
Doing as best as I can.
"That's all you can do, bro. Trust me."
Oh, I do. Out of everybody out there, you're the one persont hat I trust.
"Yeah."
Speaking of birthdays ....
"Yeah ...."
I now that you have an old soul. Have you thought about that?
"No, I really haven't. I know that ... I know that I'm attracted to very ancient things and certain events of interests sort of attract me to them and i spoke to someone who is a very well respected psychic and that's her thing ... is to say places in history you are most attracted to are probably areas where you might have been involved somehow with. so ... if that's the case then it's primordial. it's pretty primative. but i'm just doing the very best that i can to handle it now. to deal with what i can now because it's tough."
do you believe in past lives?
"sure. yeah, why not? I mean,. i think, you know, energy just transfers. you know? i don't base it on any sort of religious docturne because i don't think we've really discovered it yet. That exact thing. I think you have a choice if you want to come back. Sure. why not go through this again."
i know that you're a very strong person. i also know that being a musician, there are a lot of vices that people turn to.
"Yeah."
i know that you haven't. you don't smoke.
"Nope."
you don't drink?
"Socially."
don't do drugs.
"No."
Her eyes were wondering. You could tell she was deep in thought. carefully choosing the next word. where'd that strength come from?
"well, i think that part of it has to do with ..." She paused briefly, "i don't see the point to surrendering part of myself to something that is gonna destroy me when there are so many other things out there that i have to do battle with, without adding to it myself. i think watching a relative that ... my grandmother died on my birthday from alcoholism, so that's why i don't do birthday things. and just most of my heros, most of my people who i consider masters of art were all victims of vice and it was willing though. it's like, no one stuck a needle in thier arm or made them finish off two bottles of scotch a day or, you know, put that shit up their nose. No one told them to do that, but they did it and their art suffered for it. and you can see it. and it happens everytime. there's no ... when it becomes the external thing versus the internal hunger that you're trying to feed then the art suffers for it. and you can see it. and usually what happens it that they're trying to capture the magic that you get from creating but without having to suffer over it. it's easy to go out and feel good, you know, without having to work at it. it's easy just to go out and buy some shit and put it in yourself, put it in your veins, put it in your stomach, smoke it, drink it, whatever. sniff it and then you have those moments that make you feel like you do when you're creating and that's cheap. it's weak. and it does no good because then you're no longer the artist, you're sort of this celebrity thing now and you've just become this public image that's two dimensional and i don't see the point in it. so i just never really got into any of that stuff. you know? I just see it as weakness, i really do."
do you ever worry about becoming that two dimentional celebrity?
"no, i don't have any ... i mean, i don't see how i could. i don't have that high of an opinion of myself, number one, to think that i could be that important in the public view, so to speak. my hunger is to leave this life with something that's fullfilled. i wanna have a fullfilled life and drugs and drinking and all that shit ... i mean, listen, there's nothing wrong with, i think, having fun and having a social time, but when it becomes an addiction, becomes something that's gonna take over your life then it's become the opposite of what a musician is supposed to be. unless you just got into the game just so you could reach that sort of status and then you could become an addict and you could get the girls and the cars and the money and all that. i don't have any of that interest."
When Otep's music is silenced, how do you want to be remembered?
"As someone with good intentions, i think. someone who did their best everytime that they had the opportunity to do so. whether it's live performances, or writing or recording. just that we did our best. every show. every time."
there are people like me who know that you're doing your best. do you?
"Sure. Yeah. That's why I'm doing it. i wanna be better. i wanna be better at what i do. i want to evolve. i wanna grow and i wanna become stronger. more, more more. as a performer and as a writer, i want to know more things. i want ... i think ... if i ever thought that i plateaued, reached that certain level that i am now master of my domain, then i'd stop. i'd hang it up because then i'll become exactly that which i hate. you know, i haven't survived this long to do that. i wanna do it my way, with my own rules, without worrying about anything else."
did you grow up in L.A?
"I grew up in and around L.A. why does that matter?"
well ... i had a conversation with my mother ...
"Yes ..."
her and i are about at the same place now, but it took her a little longer to learn about "society" being from rural Iowa ...
"Oh, I see ..."
where as i left and went to the bigger cities and came back. do you think ...
"i grew up in a very isolated environment. it was because most of what i had learned was either from the violence of my neighborhood or from the books i read or just, some hidden instict that knew what was appropriate or what wasn't as far as behavior. as for everything else, i tried to look to people who had done it better then me. tried to follow in their footsteps without taking on any on any of their bad habbits."
did you like highschool?
"no, not really. who does? *laughs* i didn't like it at all. i did very, really poorly in school. i was just in a really bad place all through school. all through my young live. i did just well enough that i didn't have to be held back or anything. i thought it was boring and that it was pointless. i fought a lot. i was a pretty good athelete though ... strong ... you know ... that kind of thing. art was not really an important or respected element to have, gift to have ... unless you were a graffiti artist or something like that."
so, when did that talent emerge?
"what, drawing? when i was about two. two years old, i guess."
did anyone feed that talent?
"not really, no. and that was another source of frustration to me, i think, was that i didn't have ... why was i surrounded by people who were happy with being mundain and meaningless. i wanted to be ... why wasn't i in an art school? why wasn't i here ... where ever ... so i decided, fuck it. which i regret now. i mean i really regret that i did so badly. i wish i could have done better and learned more. especially now with like civics and all that. i wish i had learned more about the government and electoral colleges and everything because now it's very important to know ... you know, now that we have such a ridiculous tyrant in office. it's important to know how the government's run and how the government is structured and how to vote. the history of this nation ... it's really important to know those things. and i wish i had done ... had taken it a little more seriously. but when you're in that place, i mean, the world's gonna end everyday. it's armageddon every night and the next day is just a blinding source of pain. so, you know ... i'm glad i'm not there anymore. i'm glad. and the one thing that did save me was writing and drawing. writing and drawing. writing and drawing. writing and drawing. and the occasional fist fight. but, you know, and that's why ... when i was a kid there were no heros to save me from the monsters in the dark. so, now that's important for me to do that. cause i know that there's still people out there in that environment, maybe ... they nescesarily have to be youthfull either. people from all age groups, both sides of the tracks. from all different parts of the country but if i can be the voice for someone who hasn't found theirs, then that's definately something i hope i can offer."
as far as writing ... how do you think that has evolved for you from writing back then to writing now? is it different because you have that corporate backing behind it to get your voice out there more?
"well, when you say "corporate backing" it almost sounds like it's an insult, but ..."
which i didn't mean it to be.
"well, it's just that ... Capitol Records has been a fantastic, a really fantastic label for us. they believed in us since the beginning and never really looked for any real, like, commercial hit or anthing like that. what they wanted is that it always be authentic. be what ever the message of the band is. the core of the band. so, i'm real lucky to have that. the difference is that now i'm able to ... i have the opportunity, the opportunity to do nothing else but music. Be an artist. Write. Be creative. Now, that's a heavy responsability to all those people out there that wish they had that. so, that's up to me to ... you'll see other bands, my band members, some of them, after the shows are over they'll still be hanging out and doing their thing. where as i'm much more comfortable focused on being a creative person and staying writing because i believe it's a debt that i owe the muses and my ancestors, all the fans and supporters out there who are believing in us and me and the message and to stay creative and to never ... to prove to them that art saves. life is hard, you know and it never gets easier. it just doesn't. it's all our outlook that changes. life doesn't change. everything is still just the fucking same. that's the whole point. one of the definitions for me for House of Secrets was that no one is telling me to stay here, inside this room. it's me, i'm forced to stay here. so i either can continue to live in this abandoned house that i was born into or i can demolish the whole fucking thing. and that's what i wanted to do with the record. and prove that art saves. not just have it be a fancifull metephor."
so, did you take it all back down to the foundation and just start rebuilding from the ground?
"i think so, i mean, that's what i wanted to do. i mean, there was a lot of agendas coming into writing the second record from people who are no longer ascociated with the band. so, another group of players, administrators, everything. and i didn't want ... i wanted to pull it back to what it meant, you know. why i wanted to start a musical project in the first place. and so, without someone saying, 'oh, you need to get on KROQ. you need to get on radio, and commercial radio stations' and shit like this. If it ever comes to me writing obvious music just so that i can buy a new car or something, that's not why i wanted to do this. life is not guarenteed to anybody, so i'm gonna live it according to what drives me and what fires my soul and keeps it warm. so, i wanted to pull it back to the nucleous, back to the core where it was pure again. and it was all really about challenging your artistic instinct, challenging who we are as humans now. without having all that baggage. emotional baggage. physical baggage. Whatever was effecting our lives,right now. who am i, right now? what am i trying to change right now? what am i trying to attack? to discover? to summon?"

to be continued .........