Osiris Rising
Hooligan's 2001 Battle of the Bands Winner
Mixing old-school classic rock rhythms, modern rock nuance and a thrash metal attitude, Osiris Rising presents a musical diversity culminating from unconventional influences.
In July 2001, Osiris Rising won the Hooligan's Battle of the Bands, and prizes including $1,500 cash and 30 hours of studio time. They are using that time to record a new full-length CD, which is tentatively scheduled for release in March. In early December, a Battle of the Bands live CD was released, featuring two songs from the band. One of these, "Sow", is available for download on the Osiris Rising web site (www.osirisrising.com). In the past year, they have also performed at other famous venues, including The Saint and The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, and CBGB's in Manhattan.
Apart from the average power-chord scream band, this band takes each member's influence and builds well-structured songs upon it.
"Everybody is welcome to introduce what they want," said lead singer Ben Pratt of their sometimes unconventional songwriting style. "A lot of songs come out of instantaneous jams. We're a drop-d jam band. There's no such thing, that's why we created it."
Each member developing their own individual style, and turning it into one sound, is what this band is about. "Because there's five of us, there's always a deciding vote," said Pratt. "We kind of have a collective ear as a band."
The band has several differences from other groups besides the full-step-dropped jams. It contains two sets of brothers; Pratt and his brother/lead guitarist Rob, and Dave and Jay Coben, on keyboards and percussion respectively. This helps keep the band together. "We're all brothers," said Ben Pratt. "You've got to see each other at Easter and Thanksgiving. We can have a knockdown, drag out fight and not break up because of it."
The band is able to keep their hooks from hiding underneath their well-textured instrumentation. A diverse range of guitarists can be heard in Rob Pratt's sound, from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Blink 182's Tom DeLonge. Bassist Mike Solwecki brings range to the rhythm section with his jazzy bass stylings and Dave Coben adds some eerie keyboard parts to the mix.
Osiris Rising has been together about a year and a half, adding Rob Pratt after their original guitarist didn't work out. "My little brother was in this band called Chicken Soup," said Ben Pratt. "When Pete (the original guitarist) left, we had an opening for a guitarist and we grabbed him." The Brick Town-based band has 17 originals and throws in some covers at times, from bands like Reel Big Fish, Phish, James Brown and Pink Floyd. "Not that I wanna go off and build a cover band, but I want to build up a cover repertoire," said Ben.
Only time will tell if 2002 will be as good a year for Osiris Rising as the past one was. Clearly the band has developed a lot of momentum over the preceding twelve months, and that can only lead to more good things to come in the months ahead.
Josh Davidson has written music feature articles for Jersey Style and served as the Jersey Shore rock columnist for Steppin' Out Magazine. Other music writing credits include Aquarian Weekly, Jersey Beat, Backstreets and njcoast.com. He has written free-lance for the Asbury Park Press' Community Sports section and has written featured articles for its news section, as well as covering campus news and sports weekly for the Signal, the College of New Jersey's (formerly Trenton State College) student newspaper. He has worked as a staff writer for The Independent, and his work for Greater Media Newspapers has also been published in the News Transcript. He is a former beat reporter for the Ocean County Observer who presently is a news writer for Symbolic Systems Inc. supporting the US Army's Knowledge Center. His music writing covers a vast range of topics, from the current cover band craze, highs and lows of the original scene, to the early days of the Jersey Shore rock scene in Asbury Park. He is also a musician, having written hundreds of songs as a singer/songwriter, and playing them out as a solo/acoustic artist. He has also played with cover bands, including It Doesn't Matter, and several original bands, including as the guitarist for the solo project of singer/songwriter Dave Eric. He continues to work on solo material and is presently the guitar player for Jersey Breeze.
