The guys behind Oklahoma City post-hardcore outfit Our Sky Is Falling bring more to shows than instruments and amps.
They also bring Band-Aids.
“We are huge fans of visual bands who go onstage and destroy everything,” vocalist Matt Magill said. “We throw guitars, hang from the ceiling, run out into the crowd and just freak people out. Our motto is, if we're not bleeding by the end of the show, then you haven't really seen Our Sky Is Falling.”
The band formed in 2009 as a collaboration between guitarist Ashton Prescott and drummer Micah Patrick, with guitarist Andrew Janousek, bassist Will Parks, keyboardist Jordan Meers and Magill added subsequently. After recently gaining traction opening for hardcore favorites Senses Fail and Parkway Drive, the six-piece will put an exclamation point on an already stellar year on Saturday at The Conservatory, celebrating the release of Tales from Distant Shores.
“There will be musical chaos, trumpets, banjos and tons of guest musicians. We want it to be a mixture of fun and madness,” Magill said. “We're not trying to recreate the [hardcore] genre. We are just trying to write the music we've always wanted to hear. We hope our album will be an inspiration for musicians to break the mold and try something new and exciting.”
The disc is the direct result of modeling the band after not only hardcore influences, but also alternative acts like The Pixies and seemingly diametrically opposed musicians like Bon Iver.
“The more we've progressed, the more we have started pulling from different genres,” Magill said. “Our newer music is heavily influenced by indie music. We want to write metal music that has an indie feel.”
To do just that, Our Sky enlisted a roster of guest musicians to add string and horn flourishes to the metallic base.
“We were able to throw out crazy ideas for a song and then say, ‘What's holding us back from doing this? Let's do it.’” Magill said. “We had to think about different instruments and what we wanted to add to get our point across in songs.”
It’s a polarizing take on hardcore, but that lets Magill and company know they are doing something right.
“From what I gathered throughout the years, either people love us or hate us. There is no in-between,” he said. “We're all about acting crazy onstage because we think it is fun, and we love entertaining people, and that has made us memorable in good ways and in bad. Well, bad to some people.”
