Otep Shamaya is the lead singer and namesake behind the band Otep. But to call her a front woman is discrediting her other interests and works. She is an accomplished and published poet, an outspoken activist, and public speaker. She was listed on CNN's "People You Should Know" special feature. So naturally when we were given the opportunity to talk to Otep, we had to. What transcribed was the most intelligent and eloquent interview (not by me..I am a bumbling idiot). Audio below the text version of the interview.

BnR: A year after you found Otep you were noticed by Sharon Osbourne. How was that first meeting with a rock icon?

Otep: It was pretty crazy. We were probably only a band for about four or five months. I didn't even know she was there. When I was backstage, someone came in and said 'Hey Sharon is outside and she wants to meet you.' I said, 'What? Get out of here.' They said 'Sharon Osbourne is outside.' I came out and met her. I didn't know what to say. She said 'Otep, I love you guys. I love what you are doing. It would be an honor to have you guys on Ozzfest.' I said, 'We don't even have a record deal.' She said, 'I don't care. Make it happen. You are on the festival so however you can get on it, get on it.' Luckily, we had two showcases right after that. Again only doing four shows with the band and without a demo, we were signed to a major label deal.

BnR: Were you nervous speaking with her?

Otep: Yea sure. It was right after a show, so everything is really very surreal after a performance. When I walked out, I really didn't know what to say. Once I got back in the room, it kind of hit me. That was Sharon Osbourne and it was with Jack, her son. I have become very good friends with Jack and Kelly now. It was an amazing experience and one of the few times I had no words in my mouth.

BnR: Ozzfest is where we first learned about your band. The Ozzfest crowd is a tough one because if you don't immediately impress them they start throwing stuff and chanting Ozzy. What was it like touring on Ozzfest?

Otep: We never really had that experience. Initially, they didn't know who we were. As soon as we got out there and started doing what we were doing, we pretty much won everyone over. We were this band that no one knew about. We didn't have a record out. We were on Ozzfest playing in front of thousands of people. [We were] going from LA clubs playing to a hundred people to eight to ten thousand people. It was pretty heavy.

BnR: What was the biggest adjustment you had to make going from those smaller shows to the larger shows?

Otep: I suppose from a fundamental performance stand point, figuring out outdoors venues vs. indoors venues.

BnR: Because of Ozzfest, you have toured with legendary acts. Who has been your favorite to tour with so far?

Otep: We have toured with Down with Phil Anselmo. We have toured with Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Mudvayne, System of a Down, Ozzy, of course. I suppose one of the most memorable moments is having Judas Priest and Black Sabbath on the same tour. It was 2004, I believe. I remember watching that and figuring it was one of the most amazing experiences and what a once in a lifetime it probably was. One night, I guess Ozzy either had to fly back home because Sharon had gotten sick. She was going through chemo. Maybe he just got sick, but Rob Halford from Judas Priest actually sang in Black Sabbath.

BnR: I am glad you mentioned that because that actually happened here in Philadelphia. I got to witness that and it was one of the coolest rock moments of my life. [Note: Bob Wettner was also in attendance but left early to go to bed. Big mistake. Email him at bobwettner@blogsnroses.com to tell him what an idiot he is.]

Otep: Exactly. We were all on our buses in the second stage area and everyone started running toward us saying 'Halford's singing with Sabbath. Halford is singing with Sabbath.' Everyone jumped off their buses and ran over to see it. It was an absolute amazing experience.

BnR: I don't know if you are aware of this, but in America it is an election year. Your band was able to register 532 voters through MySpace and because of that you were given the opportunity to play the Democratic National Convention. How was that?

Otep: It was amazing. We were going to play, but after talking to Rock the Vote they thought it would be much more effective if I gave a speech. I did, in fact, give a speech and it was incredible. I spoke about voter registration, new voter registration because we registered over 500 people in 36 hours. They were very pleased with that. I gave a bipartisan speech because it was on behalf of Rock the Vote. It was about being informed and being involved and the necessity of paying attention and how it is no longer a thing we should be doing but an act of defiance. It was very well received. I had upper echelon DNC guys coming up to me and asking me if I was interested in doing more speaking engagements toward the election to try and inspire more people. I was blown away by it. I was just up there speaking my heart and this is how it came out. It was a very wonderful, wonderful experience.

BnR: Was that something you ever thought you would wind up doing?

Otep: Oh no way. I never thought I would do that. We saw the opportunity with Rock the Vote. I told them 'Listen we worked with you guys in the past. This election seems to be one of the most important elections in our lifetime and I would be really interested in helping out in any way I can to register as many voters as I can.' They said 'Oh by the way, we have this competition if you would like to do that.' I said sure why not. We had no idea we would actually win, we were just trying to register as many voters to get people inspired and getting them more involved. It was an amazing experience.

BnR: You are also an accomplished and published poet and activist. Let's talk about the poetry first. You have published Little Sins and have been featured on HBO's Def Poetry. Was poetry always something you were interested in? Something you always found easy to do?

Otep: Yea, I think so. I don't know if it is easy, but it came very natural to me. Especially when I started reading other poets. It made sense to me, it made sense in my head and the way that I think. The Def Poetry performance was again, another one of those really amazing moments in my life. I had never done anything like that before. In fact, the poets were a little rude to me and were very territorial I will say. In fact, they didn't know who I was. 'Who is this new girl coming along? She doesn't do the circuit with us.' I did that piece and they were all sort of applauding me and I thought that was very nice. Hopefully I broke through. Poetry is also a big part of our live performance. We include poetry before every song, in the individual landscape of important music. You know musical landscapes that the guys are developing to bring about this drama. It is very theatrical and very cinematic. I think it is a big part of what we do. Poetry is like baking. If I can equate it to something someone can understand, you could say writing songs is like cooking a full course meal while writing poetry is like being a pastry chef. You make some really beautiful, delightful little desserts that has a remarkable surprise taste that you never saw coming.

BnR: Have you been able to work some of your poetry into your lyrics?

Otep: Sure, a lot of songs are influenced. They start out that way and then once I can catch some melody and rhythm in it, then it expands to something else.

BnR: Do you find it easier to write poetry vs lyrics for songs or do you sit down and just write out naturally?

Otep: I guess it just depends. It is when you can catch that flow that you were just speaking about. When you find that moment of motivation and inspiration. Then you can just jump on that and ride that until it exhausts itself and dissipates back into the ether. You can probably relate to writing something you are not necessarily connected with but you still have to trudge through it. Whereas writing about something you are very passionate about, your fingers can't hit the keys fast enough. I think it is the same with me. If an idea starts to flourish and blossom up all around me...of course I am mixing metaphors like crazy here, but once it starts to flow I think it is very natural. Poetry comes much more natural to me than writing songs.

BnR: You wrote an opinion/editorial on the genocide in Darfur. Would you like to become more involved in raising the public's awareness to these tragedies and any other tragedies that may be close to your heart?

Otep: Indeed I would. I hope I continue to have the opportunity to do so. There is so much out there that we call "news" that is just really entertainment masturbation. It is just this glorified nothing. For instance, when Barack Obama was in Missouri he had a hundred thousand people show up. I am watching the news and there is barely a mention of it. They [the news] stay on some silly smear campaign going on from the McCain camp. Why is that important? They [news] talk more about the celebrity miasmas that are going on around the country. Who is getting in trouble, who is getting married, and who is pregnant and yet there is a million people who were slaughtered in Darfur. And hundreds of thousands of refugees starving to death and no one is talking about it. I know that is not fun to watch on TV, but there are ways of presenting it so that at least it is out there so we are not living isolated in this bubble of nonsense. Otherwise, we are going to see the IQ of this nation fall because we are obsessed over the wrong thing.

BnR: I do feel that the public would care if we were given this information about Darfur. If the public was given more opportunity to witness these tragedies, I think we would be more apt to act on them. But as you said, we are more worried about Britney Spears slamming into things and whatever else.

Otep: Absolutely right. It seems it is getting worse daily. Perhaps it is time for the people to start letting the news people know what we think. Back around the time when I started being very vocal in opposition to the Iraq war. I always support the troops. You gotta say that first. We 100% support the brave men and women in our United States armed forces. We send care packages to soliders in Iraq all the time In fact, I have a lot of family members who are ex-military. But I was always against the Iraq war. People were asking 'What can we do?' The newspapers say it is the right thing to do and they support Bush, but we don't believe it.' I said 'Then you write your newspapers because they are a corporation just like anything else. If they feel like they are going to lose readers or viewers, they are going to try and cater to that. I believe maybe that is what has changed a little bit.

BnR: What is on the horizon for Otep?

Otep: We leave tonight for the tour, that is a big deal for us. After that there are lots of things, it could be a European tour, it could be another headlining run stateside, or we could be going back in and writing on a new record. It is pretty exciting prospects for the future.

BnR: How are you able to scream and grunt like that? Where does that come from?

Otep: I am not really sure. I have just been always able to do certain vocalizations that different people can't do. I am not really sure.

BnR: How do you keep your voice in shape so that it doesn't go out on you during a tour?

Otep: That is a lot of preparation and a lot of warm ups and cool downs. A lot of silence. I try to drink only a little, no smoking of course. A lot of tea and warm water with lemon. That is one of the easiest remedies anyone can ever try. It sounds folksy, but it is the one thing I have noticed that keeps everything taken care of.

BnR: Do you consider yourself a trailblazer in your genre?

Otep: Without sounding self glorifying. I suppose I am very pleased to get messages from people who claim that they rediscovered their own artistic abilities after listening to our music.  They were inspired to get involved in politics for the first time. They are starting a band. They decided to stand up for themselves for the first time. I am very proud of the fact our music and our art and our messages have that kind of effect on people. That is the kind of art that I tend to like in other artists. I just hope that in my own art, I can repay that by doing the same thing to other people.

BnR: Are there any other female fronted bands that you are a fan of such as Lacuna Coil?

Otep: I have toured with Lacuna Coil. I know those guys. They are great musicians; great band. I grew up listening to Courtney Love. Her first record was amazing. They say it is because Kurt wrote it, but it is still amazing. Her, sort of, outlaw spirit was inspiring to me because that is how I saw the world. It is unfortunate that she is gone, but for people like me it creates a vacuum, of who is out there breaking the rules. Who is out there not adhering to the conformities of society and the barriers they put on women on what we are supposed to be able to do or say or stand for or what we are allowed to wear. I enjoy a lot of female fronted bands and I support them. I hope to see many more of them continue to follow their own dreams and not feel restricted by whatever puritanical miser is trying to sew together the wrong version of community.

BnR: What kind of music are you listening to right now?

Otep: I just rediscovered, I know that is weird to say, but I just rediscovered the Chili Peppers. I bought their greatest hits on iTunes and started going back through their catalog and thought 'What an amazing band this is.' Even just from a bass perspective, Flea is just ridiculous. I have been listening to a lot of classical music recently because I have been doing a lot of writing. It helps to have that on in the background.

BnR: Have you been visited by Jim Morrison's ghost recently?

Otep: Well that was at a club once. That is who they said it was. We were at the Viper Room here in Los Angeles. Johnny Deep used to be a co-owner. River Phoenix overdosed outside the club. It was a very hipster club at the time. It is on the site of a famous club the Doors played in. Suddenly, a light switched on stage and it was right in our eyes. We told the lighting guys to turn the light off for a second we are working. They said 'We didn't do it. It was the ghost.' We kind of laughed it off. Then we did a sound check and when we came off stage, the sound guy came over and said 'No I wasn't joking. There is a ghost in here.' Right at that moment, the sound guy is no where near the booth, Roadhouse Blues came on. It played one verse and then stopped. It started and stopped all on it's own. The sound guy goes 'Told ya.' I said that it was one of my favorite bands. The sound guy goes 'Oh then you know Jim Morrison. That's his ghost. He haunts us here.' I just got a little bit of a chill talking about it.

I am a student of the Doors and works of Jim Morrison, James Douglas Morrison. I hope that I am doing him justice in trying to show, the master and the apprentice as I like to think of it, in the works that I create. I believe they were on to something important, the Doors, before Jim's untimely death. In just the provocational style of theater they conjured in their live shows but also their fusion. I know a lot of people like to label us a metal band, but I tend not to. I tend to think of us as a rock fusion band because we have so many different types of styles within our music, including metal, rock grunge, poetry, hip hop, and spoken word.

Thank you Otep for taking the time to talk to us. We recommend you check out Otep live. They are currently touring with Ill Nino, Walls of Jericho, and Sister Sin as part of the Unite and Conquer. Tour dates can be found on Otep's MySpace site (http://www.myspace.com/Otep) or their official website (http://www.otep.com/).

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