Oblio Joes: Broken Down, Built Back Up
By Joe Nickell
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 It's been a tough couple of years for the Oblio Joes. In the 18 months since the local band released its last CD, "Swallow the Moon," three of the five members of the group have gone through painful divorces. In the tight-knit Missoula indie rock scene, the tribulations of the Obes have resulted in not a few conflicting loyalties, casting something of a shadow on the happy-go-lucky reputation of the band.
Those same personal trials have also led to a severely curtailed performance schedule for the 12-year-old band. More than once, rumors circulated locally that the band had even called it quits.
The rumors were false. But the pain - and the impact it had on the band - was very real.
"In the past two years, not one of us in the band didn't have a moment of despair," says John Brownell, the band's lead singer and songwriter. "There were several periods of two or three months where we'd have to stop working altogether because someone in the band was moving or going through a divorce. We had so many big things happening that forced stops for us."
Brownell himself went through a divorce - an experience he says led him down some of the darkest paths he had ever traveled.
"I went through a period of almost severe depression, the kind of stuff where I would just find myself unable to get up off the floor," recalls Brownell.
Throughout, the band kept coming back together, working slowly but steadily on a new album. That album, titled "Let's Decompose and Enjoy Assembling!," will finally be unleashed this Friday at a CD release party at the Old Post.
At first blush, the title of the record - depicted on the album cover as a message from a fortune cookie - might seem purposefully cryptic, especially since it doesn't recur in the lyrics or song titles on the record.
But according to Brownell, the title pretty well sums up the process the band has gone through during the recording of the album.
"I really think the theme of this album is about that whole process of tearing things apart and rebuilding," says Brownell. "It's about finding a sense of self in the mess, and trying to find a way to rebuild it in a positive way."
Any lingering vagueness in the title can be attributed to a bad translation.
"We were out on a little mini-tour, and I got this puzzle-ball out of a 25-cent gumball machine," explains Brownell. "It had these really poorly written instructions that looked like they'd been translated from Japanese by someone who didn't really speak English. You were supposed to smash the puzzle-ball and then put it back together again - that's what the instructions were trying to say. It was so hysterical and poignant, given what we were going through."
Indeed, pained estrangement, self-analysis and recovery are recurrent lyrical themes across the album's 14 songs. Sometimes, as in the song "Times That Are Not Now," those themes are addressed abstractly, from a distance:
"Sometimes I feel like a girl / Born into some world / Set upon by some idiot race / Of men with long faces / Men showing traces / Of some inevitable disgrace."
But Brownell is quick to point out that the new album also includes some of the most intensely personal lyrics he's ever written - a tangible product of the therapy he's gone through since his divorce.
"I used to write about myself in the third person, even though I wouldn't admit it was about me," says Brownell. "There are songs on (the new album) that are much more direct and personal. In the song, "Grey Skies," I refer to myself and the band by name. That's something I don't know I've ever really done before."
Despite the challenges the band has faced over the past couple of years, "Let's Decompose and Enjoy Assembling!" is an album drenched in hope - and crammed full of the sing-along melodies and quirky turns of phrase that long ago made the Oblio Joes one of Missoula's most beloved bands.
"Things are a lot better today than a couple years ago, I think for all of us," says Brownell. "If anything, the stuff that's happened has made us a much more tight-knit group of guys. And I think I can speak for us all when I say we're more excited about this album than anything we've ever been involved with." |
