Otis biography

"Here's to the unpaved open road instead of the asphalt parking lot".

Otis consists of 5 dudes who have been in bands like Stockholm Syndrome and Against Time together for years.

The band was founded at the end of 2005. Otis played its first show in 2006 and reached the 100+ mark in summer 2010. So far they did shows all over Europe together with bands such as Coalesce, Nomeansno, Torche, NRA, Rise And Fall, Electric Eel Shock, Jello Biafra, Coliseum, Born From Pain, Monotonix and Baroness.

In 2006 they released a split 10" with Daily Fire and in 2007 their debut album Good Cop Bad Mood. This record was well received by the press, comparing Otis to Helmet, Snapcase, At The Drive-In, Refused, Fugazi, Hot Water Music, The Melvins and Black Flag.

In June 2009 a limited split tape with The Unborn was released, directly followed by their second album Storm Is Coming. Lyrically, the leitmotiv on this record is Arthur Rimbaud's poem Le Bateau Ivre from 1871. Musically the band took a big step forward: next to the comparisons drawn when Good Cop Bad Mood came out, this time the press also spoke of Unsane, Botch, Drive Like Jehu, Minutemen, Dag Nasty and Breach. The 11 minute closing piece reminisced of acts like Zu, The Ex, John Zorn and Sonic Youth.

Storm Is Coming was released during a 4 show weekender supporting the legendary Nomeansno. A month later Otis opened for Jello Biafra in a (nearly sold out) main hall of The Netherlands' #1 venue, the Amsterdam Paradiso.

At the end of 2009 they did a number of shows with 2 drummers, and are currently writing en demoing a whole bunch of new songs (and some covers). A selection of these recordings, as well as live material, will gradually be released via the band's website www.hail-otis.com as free downloads.

Otis can be seen live all over the place on a constant basis. Please contact them for bookings. Thanks.

"Otis plays like their music sounds, really loud, convincing, and just plain good. The crowd goed wild, and a few fans sing along to every song. I wouldn't be surprised if next time the entire audience would sing along." - VPRO 3voor12

"If the once so influencial indie-hardcorelabel SST hadn't been reduced to an unimportant jazz- and reissue liabel, they would have forced this band to sign and hyped them as the new Black Flag with the new Jello Biafra on vocals." - Lords Of Metal

"I can’t believe this album hasn’t been picked up by a label, on the other hand maybe Otis also don’t need it according to the bills they were on and are going to play on." - AsIce

"Talented band. Right angle. Cool name." - OOR