HEAD NED of OKILLY DOKILLY: When It Is Just Meant To Be.
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
Okilly Dokilly are a band from Phoenix, Arizona. They are also a band who have created a metal genre all of their own; the combination of metal music and the super power of Ned Flanders and his impressive moustache the foundations for none other than ‘Nedal’ music.
Any fan of the long-running TV show The Simpsons, would recognise the group’s look immediately; the perfectly pressed polo shirt, the green sweater, rounded spectacles and of course that distinctive moustache, all trademarks of Homer Simpsons neighborino and frenemy, Ned Flanders. And while Okilly Dokilly wouldn’t be the first rock or metal act to sport a thematic look (Kiss anyone?), they are not to be written off as some mere gimmick either, both their debut and sophomore albums garnering much praise and seeing the group not only take their act on the road but on tour overseas as well.
Known only by their pseudonyms, which are of course all based around their left-handed deity Ned (Shred Ned, Zed Ned, Bed Ned etc), Okilly Dokilly will soon be winging their way down to New Zealand for two shows in both Auckland and Wellington. As an added bonus they will be accompanied by none other than Australian band Dr. Colossus, ‘the world’s finest Simpsons themed doom band’.
I recently caught up with lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Head Ned to have a chitty-chat about not only the upcoming tour, but rubber nipples, Carly Rae Jepsen and of course all things Flanderish…
“Howdilly Doodilly!”
Hi! How are you?
“Good, how are you?”
I’m literally tickled pink by my Crayola’s to be talking to you right now!
[Laughs] “Excellent, we’re pretty excited to be heading to New Zealand to play some shows!”
I must say when creating this band four years ago did you ever think that you would end up playing live in a little country like New Zealand?
[Laughs] “No, we hardly pictured very far. We thought we would play one or two shows at a little bar in Phoenix where we’re from, to maybe six or seven confused people; and that was our grand master plan. And it’s gone, you know, about a thousand, billion percent more, than we ever, ever envisioned it. So, no, we never once thought that we would be playing in New Zealand. We’re just as surprised, but it will be fun!”
Well New Zealand is very, very excited to hear that you are coming. The concert announcement has basically been featured on every major news site we have!
“Awesome! That’s great. I heard that the promoter who booked the shows was a little nervous at first, he was like ‘Well you’ve never played over here and we’re not sure what kind of response we’ll have and what not’…
And then he came back, and he had a chat with us and he was like ‘No things are good, things are real good now’.”
[Laughs] We have a decent sized metal community out here and your brand of heavy metal – which you refer to as ‘Nedal’ – fits in just nicely.
“I’m glad there’s some buzz, I’m glad there’s some excitement!”
I once heard a critic refer to you guys as the Carly Rae Jepsen of the metal world; how as Head Ned do you take that?
[Laughs] “I take that as a compliment! The Carly Rae Jepsen of the metal world? Funnily enough, just yesterday we were listening to her Emotion album, we were like jamming that album in the van on our way to our shows. We were just playing that, and it was like ‘This is a good album, this is great!’ so yeah, I take that as a full-on compliment and I mean we’re happy to be the Carly Rae Jepsen of the metal community!”
A lot of people would – because you guys are a Ned Flanders band, and all dress like Ned Flanders – write Okilly Dokilly off as a gimmick. But I think one of the things that have made you so successful, is the tight playing. You are solid musicians through and through…
I know of the origins of Okilly Dokilly, but what is your personal story in regard to becoming a musician? Obviously, you have played in bands before?
“I did have bands before, none of them metal bands or anything. I always try and keep my real name secret, so I can’t name any of the bands; but I can tell you that I fronted and sang and played guitar in a band that everybody said sounded like Weezer…”
Nice! I love Weezer, I mean who doesn’t?
“Yeah, and I played mandolin in a friend’s band for a little while; I played in a folk band, I played drums a little bit in some bands. I kinda bounced around a lot of indie rock and a lot of alternative rock, but you know metal has been…
I’m just fascinated with music in general and like learning different instruments and things, and so metal was just another genre that I enjoyed and doing death metal screams was yet another instrument that I wanted to try and learn. And Okilly Dokilly was a chance to do that.
It almost seems like in metal there is this expectation that you have to dress in all black and have long hair, a crazy beard and a grizzled expression on your face all the time and I look noting like that! So, I just played into the opposite end of it and dressed like Ned Flanders, so when I go up there and scream it’s just indicating it’s like ‘Yes, this is metal’ but with a completely different – you know – something unexpected.”
Most definitely. As you said, you like to keep your real name secret, which is fair enough. But is it true that you used to be an accountant?
“Yes! Yeah that was the last job I had before I finally kinda quit and went on tour. I still do some like, digital, boring digital marketing work. I still work in spreadsheets part-time. But it is helpful! The modern musician, the next instrument that you tend to have to learn is the excel spreadsheet…”
[Laughs]
“Punching in cities and miles and gas receipts and all that stuff, it helps!”
I think that’s brilliant, as it just fits your character so very well…
[Laughs] “Yeah, I can go on and on about all of the boring tour spreadsheets that I’ve made for this band and had way too much fun. But that’s a wormhole I don’t wanna go down…”
Now one of the other things of course is your rather impressive moustache. Have you always had one, or was it carefully cultivated for the band?
“It kinda was created for the band; actually prior to the band I did have a beard and so basically I just narrowed the beard down to the moustache. And then when we’re not on tour I usually bring the beard back around it, just to kinda hide the moustache. But then it’s always at the ready, in case I need to do photos or a press shoot or need to be seen.
I have the moustache, it’s there on hand and I kinda just… like Clark Kent, jump into a phone booth, ditch the beard and then there’s the moustache!”
[Laughs] Love it!
Obviously, you are influenced by many different genres of music, but would you say that there is anyone in particular that you have based your vocal stylings on? Or did you just organically find your own as Okilly Dokilly was taking shape?
“Kind of a mixture. There is a band that I call a catalyst band that got me into death metal vocals and things, a band called Thrice. I started with their later records and then as I went earlier and earlier there is more and more screaming and that’s what got me into them.
So, I was listening to Thrice and then I started dipping into bands like August Burns Red and then just weird other obscure metal bands that did screams and that’s kind of where I based it off of.
But then a lot of it just became what my own voice does when I scream; the more and more I’ve done it, the more I’ve been able to push lows and reach highs and what not. It’s always a work in progress and it’s always fun to be able connect them with how you scream and go back and look at those influences like Thrice and August Burns Red and listen to them and then see what I can match and do with that.”
Your debut album was followed up last year by the brilliant ‘Howdilly Twodilly’, an album with much darker themes that can even be seen in the cover art. Has someone wronged the Neds?!
[Laughs] “I think it’s the more and more we play, just the more brutally aggressive we get with some of the stuff we’re doing on there. But yeah, the artwork came about – it’s actually an artist in Australia who had done his own version of Simpsons art that I really liked – I found him on Instagram, and I worked with him and he came up with the idea of a Ned punching the glass and in it is our reflection, so we built the idea from there.
A lot of the songs… during the second album I had a lot more concentrated idea of what I wanted to do with everything.”
I have to say I read about how the second album came about and you must now be very close to being the world expert on The Simpsons! I mean you own all of the seasons! That really is dedication!
“Yeah, yeah, I watched the first ten seasons all through the course of about a month, and yeah it was one of the first things that we bought as a band – once we actually had band funds coming in – was all of the existing DVD copies of the seasons. So, I have them on hand.
And yeah, there’s definitely a lot of Simpsons quotes that people will rattle out to me and I am – I don’t know – kind of surprised by the fact that I recognise them, ‘Oh yeah that episode where this happened and this and that!’”
[mutual laughter]
“So, it’s definitely fun. And every show we play is like a mini Simpsons convention; the fans dress up, they’re excited about it, they have favourite episodes, they talk about the episodes and other fun stuff that happens with them…”
And I understand that you are actually left handed as well?
“I am left-handed, yes.”
You are left handed. [laughs] Brilliant, it’s just too perfect!
“Yeah, I am actually left-handed, that was just one of those obscure things where I had that slight association with Ned. It’s like ‘Oh yeah I work a boring job, I’m left-handed, I can grow a moustache…’
It’s kind of one of the reasons we started the band. One of the main reasons was that there weren’t enough road blocks for us not to! There were too many similarities and things that have purely lined up, like the left-handed thing.
The other guys are all right-handed, but they are going through the conversion therapy, they will be lefties soon enough!”
[Laughs] Fantastic. I must admit, I would love to see you guys do a Halloween show, like Treehouse of Horror IV and you dress like Ned when he was the devil! I think that would be the pièce de résistance of Okilly Dokilly’s career!
“In all honesty I do have a little Amazon list of all the things it would take to build that outfit, but I haven’t quite pulled the trigger on that yet. It’s a little something that I have been plotting for a bit…”
You have been influenced by a few different shows; I know you are a big fan of Metalocalypse, Beavis and Butt-Head, Ren & Stimpy – I love you for that last one in particular and I sincerely hope you own a pair of rubber nipples…
[Laughs]
Because the original seasons of that show were always some of my favourites. I know you also get into Adventure Time – Pendleton Ward’s brain is like liquid acid – but have you ever heard of Regular Show?
“I have heard of Regular Show, I haven’t watched much of it but yeah, I do know of it.”
Yeah, I think J G Quintel created something quite special with that show. Just thinking about Adventure Time though – a Lemongrab band would be amazing as a support band for you guys…
[Laughs] “Yeah that would be great, a Lemongrab band would be awesome! I mean the band would just have to be called Unacceptable…”
[mutual laughter]
Exactly!
“And yeah old Ren & Stimpy, you mentioned that earlier; I grew up on that show a lot too.”
Ditto. I have the t-shirt from the original series and was even a member of the official fan club [laughs] I loved them. I thought they were just insane. An Archer band would be pretty cool too come to think of it…
You have heard of The Big Four Tour, with Anthrax and Slayer etc; if Okilly Dokilly did the same type of tour, who would be your dream team bands?
“It would be Metalocalypse, the band that we recently toured with – Mac Sabbath – and the last one I am really, really kinda blanking on like what would be up there, but I think it might be The Aquabats actually.”
Oh, nice choice!
“They’re kinda different, they’re kinda outside that big four, plus it was the first mosh pit I was ever in and they’re super fun, super goofy and they’re definitely the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to crazy fun bands.”
So, with the upcoming tour, can New Zealand fans expect the Maude cannon to be coming with you?
“We’re gonna try, we’re definitely gonna try. We played a UK show last year and we didn’t ship it out, but what I’m going to try and do is either commission somebody to build one in New Zealand, or we’re going to see if we can get it shipped.”
Finally, as the great and powerful Head Ned, before we go, any last message for your New Zealand fans?
“Get ready for some heavy Nedal, we’re excited to head to New Zealand and bring the most brutally Ned show that we can!”
Okilly Dokilly will be performing two fan-diddly-tastic shows in New Zealand (Monday 17th February, 2020 in Wellington and Tuesday 18th February, 2020 in Auckland). Tickets to both shows are still available from Under The Radar, but get in quick as they will sell out!
If you enjoyed this content, please consider donating towards the running of Ambient Light, covering expenses and allowing us to expand the coverage you love by visiting our PressPatron page.