{"id":12800,"date":"2014-04-09T01:00:39","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T05:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=12800"},"modified":"2014-04-06T18:07:19","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T22:07:19","slug":"content-needed-blowin-wind-with-the-oath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=12800","title":{"rendered":"Blowin\u2019 Wind with The Oath\u2019s Johanna Sadonis: \u201cWe just want the main focus to be on us being musicians. We are not fucking porn stars. We\u2019re musicians.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1558505_416061058525876_1370229017_n\"<\/a>The Oath is another new band that grabbed my attention thanks to a good friend of mine sending me a message that read, \u201cCheck this band out. I know what you like and you\u2019ll love this band.\u201d I found myself listening to the band\u2019s \u201cNight Child\/Black Rainbow\u201d 7\u201d and right away they crawled their way into the top tier of my favorite bands. The somewhat dark, occult laden undertones of the songs intrigued me and the passionate vocals drew me in. I also found myself really loving the fine mix of punk and NWOBHM influences I the songs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the opportunity arose to speak with lead singer Johanna Sadonis I jumped at it. Johanna is a really sweet, soft spoken person but once we got to talking she really came out of her shell. We talked about the origins of The Oath, what it\u2019s like having the drummer for Angel Witch in her band, the bond between her and co-founder Linn\u00e9a Olsson and how she hates Revolver\u2019s \u201cHottest Chicks in Metal\u201d thing. Johanna was a great person to talk to and I\u2019m sure this is only the first of many that you will see from her. Enjoy getting to know Johanna Sadonis and The Oath.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Johanna, thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me today. How are you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s my pleasure, Don. I\u2019m doing pretty good. How are you?<\/p>\n

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Today has been a pretty busy press day for you right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, it is actually. You\u2019ve seen my schedule right [laughs].<\/p>\n

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I had never heard of The Oath until my buddy Jon told me, \u201cI know you\u2019ll love this band. You have to hear them.\u201d He was so right. What a great band and a great album.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you so much. That is so cool to hear.<\/p>\n

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Johanna, for those that never heard The Oath before, how would you describe your band to someone?\"12inch_gatefold_v92012.indd\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I would say we are a hard rock and heavy metal band influenced by very classic old school heavy metal, NWOBHM bands, and old hard rock from the 70\u2019s. Linn\u00e9a has some old punk rock influences and I grew up on the black metal and death metal scene in the 90\u2019s. Of course classic doom plays a big role in our sound as well.<\/p>\n

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In a time where most bands are based out of one particular geographic area, The Oath seems to be from everywhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Well, I mean, we have one Swede in the band Linn\u00e9a [laughs]. Our first drummer was from New York, our first bassist was from Paris, and I\u2019m German. The new rhythm section is from England. We have Andrew Prestidge, the drummer from Angel Witch now and we have the bassist from Cathedral so everybody comes from somewhere else.<\/p>\n

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You have the drummer from Angel Witch. That\u2019s pretty bad ass. How did that come to be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Our old drummer Vincent Wager left the band. I was looking for a new drummer Andrew and I have some mutual friends and he wrote to me on Facebook that he heard we were looking for a new drummer. He asked if we\u2019d have him and we said, \u201cYeah, come over [laughs]. He flew in for a bunch of rehearsals and then we went into the studio in Stockholm pretty soon after. We are big Angel Witch fans so it\u2019s really exciting.<\/p>\n

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Did he contribute to the writing at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The main songwriting core is Linn\u00e9a who writes the riffs and me who brings the vocal melodies and lyrics. We write the songs together even though we\u2019re just girls [laughs]. We had written everything beforehand but what made it all easy to have him was that the first time he came here we ran through all the songs we had written for the album. He learned them all in one rehearsal and he knew right away how to get the feeling of the songs. He understood right from the get go so it was really easy to be in the studio and to tour with him.<\/p>\n

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You said something earlier that I wanted to touch on a bit. You jokingly said, \u201cWe write the songs together even though we\u2019re just girls.\u201d I interviewed Mia from Crucified Barbara last year and she told me that one the things that frustrate her most is when people say, \u201cYou play great for a girl.\u201d What is your honest opinion on that kind of outlook from others.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, it can be pretty hard sometimes. I grew up being a girl in the metal scene so I know how tough it can be at times. I read a lot of reviews about our album these days and some people say, \u201cWhen I saw the album cover I thought it was just another chick band but when I listened to it, it was really heavy metal.\u201d It does kind of suck because of the whole sexism thing but then again I think because I\u2019m friends with a lot of really good musicians who have a lot of respect for me and they look beyond the fa\u00e7ade. Everyone else who is just ignorant and reduces somebody to just a shell I just don\u2019t give a fuck about them because I know the Linn\u00e9a and I are very passionate about this music and being musicians our whole lives. I think I am maybe more metal that most guys that I know so I don\u2019t give a shit [laughs]. People are so stupid and so limited in their mind capacity that they cannot imagine that somebody can walk around in leather suits and blonde hair but also be a talented musician. I feel sorry for them.<\/p>\n

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I was raised by my parents to know that a woman can do anything and everything a man can do equally if not better.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how it should be but some people just get brought up the way they get brought up and they don\u2019t know differently. It\u2019s really cool that you were brought up that way but unfortunately people still seem to live in the medieval times [laughs].<\/p>\n

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The Oath seems to be a band that literally came out of nowhere. When did The Oath form?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve played for the past 20 years in many different bands. I grew up playing in black metal and death metal bands in the 90\u2019s and then all kinds of different stuff throughout my life. Linn\u00e9a played in a Swedish band called Sonic Ritual with the guitarist from In Solitude. I was sitting in Germany with my best friend, our old drummer, and we were talking so much about metal and being complete nerds and we just said, \u201cFuck metal nowadays. We need to do something the way that we would do it. Let\u2019s form a band together.\u201d The next step was to find a guitarist. Out of the blue the guitarist from In Solitude wrote to me. I knew him because I\u2019m a local promoter and I put on heavy metal shows here in Berlin. He wrote to me and told me, \u201cHey, I have this really good friend named Linn\u00e9a and she plays in a band with me called Sonic Ritual. She just moved to Berlin and she\u2019s a guitar player looking to play.\u201d He didn\u2019t even know I was looking for a guitar player [laughs]. He gave me her email address and I wrote to her and we set up a meeting at a bar. I met her there with the drummer and it took us a half an hour of drinking and heavy shots and talking about music to realize that we had to play together. This was about a year and a half ago. We started jamming around and wrote our first two songs. We went into the studio and cut our first 7\u201d last winter.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a great story that I hear a lot from some bands. It\u2019s like you work many years playing in various bands and then finally you find the right people, the right sound, and the right songs and it just clicks with people. What was it about Linn\u00e9a that made you say, \u201cThis is who I need to be working with\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I guess it was that night that she met us in the bar. I mean, we looked almost exactly the same [laughs]. We had on jeans, the leather jackets, the long blonde hair, and old torn up metal shirts. She had on an Angel Witch shirt and I had an old Venom shirt on [laughs]. We just looked at each other like, \u201cWhat the fuck? Are we sisters?\u201d [laughs] It was like we have been living in parallel universes. We have so many mutual friends but we never had heard of each other before. It was really like very strange. We also had similar backgrounds with what we grew up listening to. It was like, \u201cWhere the fuck have you been all my life?\u201d [laughs] We have the same kind of understanding with music. She brings me riffs and we know always instantly if it\u2019s cool. I put my stuff on it and we arrange it around and we just click so well. It was actually effortless to write these songs together. It was really pretty fast. I don\u2019t know whatever magic it was but we just clicked so well like we were meant to play together.<\/p>\n

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Some of the songs on the album seem to have a bit of a punk\/metal feel to them similar to Motorhead. Is there some punk influence in there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, definitely. We are both really big Motorhead fans for sure. Linn\u00e9a has a little bit more of a punk influence than me and I think that\u2019s the charm of it. Her riffs are a bit more punky and rough and edgy while I bring in the more emotional kind of part of the band. I think it just all blends in together really well.<\/p>\n