Past, Present, Future: Oak is Keeping

Add Cream to Queens of the Stone Age, mix with a Spoon. That's the recipe for Oak is Keeping's brand of rock. While reading the interview below, check out their music here on TwoGroove. You'll be hooked.

Their CD Release Party will be on April 25th at the Red Eyed Fly in Austin, TX. See you there!

Members/Instruments:
Shay Isdale – Vocals / Guitar
Mastin Kirksey – Drums
Zac Bogart – Guitar / backing vocals
Adam Keeling – Bass Guitar / backing vocals

Year Formed:
The band formed in 2007 by Shay and Mastin, but recorded and played under the name Dead Leaves. We’ve had a few different line-ups, but midway through 2008 we were joined by Zac and Adam and have been getting better ever since.

1. Past: What is your musical background? What has led you to this point?
Each member of the band has their own, distinct musical background & influences, but we all have one major thing in common… the love of dark, heavy melodic music. Driven by fuzzy guitar riffs and powerful bass & drums. And the desire to create this type of face melting rock has brought us together.

Shay and Mastin we actually band mates in a San Marcos alternative band called Plinko, who opened for the Burden Brothers a couple times. Zac and Adam are actually from Seattle, though they didn’t know each other when they lived there.

Our influences can range from Queens of the Stone Age to Radiohead and Cream to Led Zeppelin (which we have covered a song from each of those artists).

2. Present: Where are you at now in your career? What are you currently working on?
Even though the band formed in 2007, we didn’t really start taking off until 08. So, we are still a pretty new band, but there is a lot of potential in this group. We’ve released two EPs, one in 2007 called Dead Leaves (we used our old name since most of the songs were written under that name) and one in late 2008 called MURDERdeathKILL. We are currently finishing up our first full length album with should be done in mid-March. We are going to have our CD release party in April, so look out for that!

3. Future: What’s coming up for you? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
As I said above, we are finishing our first full length album very soon. Once that bad boy is done, we will push it and play as many shows as we can to support it. We plan on shooting a music video in the very near future to support a couple of the songs from the album.

In 5 years… I don’t see any limit to this band or it’s potential. The song writing has only gotten better, live shows keep improving, more fans keep showing up and damn is it fun to be in a rock and roll band. I only see Oak is Keeping moving up the chain.

4. Where can people find more of your music?
We, of course, have a myspace page like everyone else. . But you can also just go to, www.oakiskeeping.com. The website actually just directs you to the myspace page, but soon enough, we’ll get the real page full of juicy info!

We also have sites on CDfuse.com, facebook, reverbnation, do512.com, www.sonicbids.com/oakiskeeping and a few other social sites.

5. Anything you’d like to plug?
We have a busy SXSW weekend in March, so keep an eye out for us. We’ll update our site with show info as soon as we get everything locked down. We are also going to have our CD release party in April for our first full length album. It's going to be April 25th at The Red Eyed Fly.