MUSIC FEATURE
GOING DEEPER Indie pop band Oceanic gets more introspective as they grow
BY PAT MORAN
There was no way Oceanic could put out an album and not be able to support it by playing shows, not when the band’s main source of income is generated through those shows. So they took some songs already recorded for the aborted album and combined them with new tunes to craft their six-song debut EP, also named Angel, which dropped in July 2021. “It was not super-planned,” Wyatt says. “It was more like us adapting.” The band still has upwards of 20 songs they haven’t released yet, a situation that will partly be rectified by plans to release what Johnson calls “a slew of singles” in 2022, building up to the release of Oceanic’s debut album. Kicking off that flood of new music will be the February release of Oceanic’s new single, the cantering yet yearning dance pop creation “Care More.” That will be followed by a string of subsequent singles, released every few months, Wyatt says. The band is also celebrating a new addition. In fall 2021, drummer Joseph Stevenson stepped in to fill a position that has recently been covered by a handful of guest percussionists. “Joseph is such a good fit,” Johnson says. “He contributes so much, not only to the music, but also personality-wise.” As a foursome, Oceanic rolls into the new year with a slate of shows in Charlotte and elsewhere. The itinerary includes a gig at Snug Harbor on Feb. 5 as well as a small East Coast tour with Orlandobased band Take Lead. It’s an impressive outreach for a self-styled introspective band that hopes to inspire listeners to look inward. “We all think that by giving an honest look at yourself and who you are inside — that’s the first step towards becoming the best version of yourself and finding fulfillment,” Goodwin says.
Rendezvous at Liberty
Music has been a part of Johnson’s, Goodwin’s and Wyatt’s lives for as long as they can remember. Growing up in the unincorporated community of
OCEANIC (FROM LEFT): JACOB JOHNSON, NATHAN WYATT AND SAM GOODWIN.
West End, a piedmont town about an hour west of Fayetteville, Johnson started playing piano at age 6. After six years of lessons, he took up the guitar. “I decided [guitar] was way more rock ‘n’ roll, so I passed on piano,” Johnson says. His high school years included a stint in the choir. “There were other options for me as far as a college degree but it became clear early on … that it was music or nothing,” he says. Wyatt moved around because his father was in the Air Force. After being born in Oklahoma, Wyatt lived in Germany for a while, then landed back in Oklahoma. He started piano lessons at age 5. While Wyatt enjoyed playing classical pieces, he decided on a musical vocation after he learned about improvisation from high school choir teacher named Mr. Piper at a homeschool co-op.
PHOTO BY DANIEL CARRAI
“He taught me … that you don’t have to play exactly what’s on that piece of paper,” Wyatt says. Wyatt began writing songs and dabbled in theatre. Denver, Colorado native Goodwin cannot remember a flip-of-the-switch moment when he realized music was his life’s path. His mother was a piano teacher so he started playing the instrument when he was 4, he picked up trumpet in middle school and guitar at age 12. During his senior year in high school, Goodwin started playing bass in the school’s jazz band. “Bass players are few and far between, so I was definitely a hot commodity pretty much everywhere,” he says. Goodwin, Johnson and Wyatt all went off to college at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, an institution that prompts conflicted emotions in all of them.
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In their ethereal video for “Angel,” Oceanic’s surging yet subtly icy ballad, the band plays in an empty hall on a raised stage, lit from below. As Jacob Johnson’s plaintive plucked guitar entwines with Sam Goodwin’s nearly subliminal pulsing bass, singer and chief lyricist Nathan Wyatt’s swooning, fine-grained croon warps around this conflicted couplet: “I can’t live between these simple lines / I can’t see past my own jealous eyes.” Imperceptibly at first, Wyatt rises, seeming to grow. Then, he takes off, floating above the small stage as he sings, “Is it a miracle, heavenly lie, that you want me by your side?” This minor miracle of stagecraft and song encapsulates the worldview of a band that combines the unflinching self-examination of emo with the swirling sophistication of multilayered pop. The everyday becomes magical as Wyatt’s private thoughts and obsessions mirror the listeners’ own preoccupations. In Oceanic’s embrace of communal emotions and values, the personal becomes universal. “We’re a band who tries to bring people together with music,” Wyatt says. Then he shares a story about the shoot for the “Angel” video that may be the perfect illustration that no matter how lofty the band’s goals are, they’re still three friends making music, and firmly grounded in reality. “The first time I was up in the harness for the flight thing, the wire snapped and I fell 6 feet down onto the stage,” Wyatt says. Goodwin remembers being off the set with Johnson as director Daniel Carrai hoisted Wyatt on the wire for a practice run. “We didn’t know what was happening, we heard a loud crash from the other room,” Goodwin says. “It was a perfect slapstick comedy moment,” Wyatt says. The band chalked up the tumble to just another setback to be navigated, like the full album they finally had ready for release after a year of crowd-sourced fundraising just as COVID swept through the world with the force of a tsunami.
