INTERVIEW: Ocean Park Standoff on 'Good News' & Upcoming Tour Dates
By Nicole Mastrogiannis
March 27, 2017
There's nothing quite like some really "Good News," and that's what Ocean Park Standoff is giving us. The Los Angeles-based trio, comprised of musician/DJ Samantha Ronson (sister of Mark Ronson), singer/songwriter/vocalist and producer Ethan Thompson, and producer/drummer Pete Nappi, released their single "Good News" in October 2016, and on March 3rd, the band dropped their 5-song self-titled EP via Hollywood Records.
The Ocean Park Standoff EP is only the beginning of "Good News" for the band. The trio, who is iHeartRadio's latest On The Verge artist, is hitting the road this summer on tour with Third Eye Blind and Silver Sun Pickups.
We recently caught up with Samantha, Ethan, and Pete in Los Angeles, and during an exclusive interview, they opened up about what their single "Good News" means to them, about becoming a band, and their upcoming tour dates.
On the making & meaning behind their song "Good News"
Ethan tells us that the concept of "Good News" was brought about when the band was having a conversation about what was going on in their own lives. He says, "We were all a little bummed out and jaded. We loved hanging out, and so we got to sit there and talk through all of it, and I think it was [Samantha] who said the 'bad news' thing."
Samantha adds, "Yeah, then we were talking about the news, and he was like, 'It's not the news, it's the bad news.' And the world had just gone a little bit insane. Not as insane as it is now though, so at least now looking back, those were good times. At the end of the day, I think no matter how crazy things get, as long as there's hope, it gives you somewhere to go. And I think that ultimately the song is hopeful and hopefully it'll spread that, so more people will listen to it [and] will get the message that no matter how bad things get, there's hope."
What is the best news the band has received? Ethan tells us, "That we were officially a band."
On what it was like becoming a band
Becoming a band is an exciting piece of news, but the trio didn't think their music would go beyond recording their songs for fun and putting them out on the internet. So they call their experience of signing with a record label "surreal."
Ethan says, "It was totally surreal. Because initially we were just getting together and writing, and it was Samantha who suggested, 'Let's just write some songs for ourselves and not care where they're going.' So we were going to put them up on Soundcloud, just the three of us, just for fun. We had named it, but we didn't really think we were going to go beyond just posting it and being like, 'Great, we put out some songs. That was fun.' And then it really became a band when someone in Hollywood heard the music and they're like, 'You guys have to do this for real.' We really hadn't thought about doing it for real. And that was pretty much when we heard that news, so it was incredible."
On their upcoming tour dates with Third Eye Blind and Silver Sun Pickups
What's even more exciting than releasing a debut EP is going on tour with a band who is celebrating their 20th anniversary: Third Eye Blind. Ethan explains that he listened to the band growing up, so heading out on tour with them is not only "really awesome," but nostalgic as well. "I listened to those groups growing up a lot, so it's just really cool to be able to go out with someone whose songs you've been hearing your whole life. It's not something a lot of people get to do because I feel like bands fade away by the time you get to step into doing music, and we get to go out with them."
Samantha adds, "We get to play for all those people that, like for me as a DJ, I've been kind of [been] all over the country. But in only like Chicago, New York, Vegas, Miami, or whatever. There's so many other cities in between that I never got to go visit, and we actually get to go. We kind of get to see everything."