Artist of the Week: Drop Those Panties, It's My Own I

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to [email protected].

We've been handed CDs by band members before. We've seen pop-locking at the club before. But we had never been handed a CD by a band member who was pop-locking it into our hands. Then we met alternative metallers My Own I.

Really, after the pop-locking CD distribution, the album could've been 14 tracks of birds squawking at each other and we would've inducted them into the Artist of the Week line-up. Lucky for us, the CD was four pounding tracks of unmistakable Get The Fuck Outta My Way.

We grabbed some time with the guys for an interview and had them talk about their new and improved panty-dropping sound, Adam Lambert and bands they're better than.

Rocks Off: Real quick, how long has My Own I been together? Seems like it's been a while.

My Own I: The band as a whole has been together since around 2003 or 2004, but the band as the current line-up has been around for about a month. And we think it's the best so far.

RO: Why's that?

MOI: Everybody has their own style. We all bringing all of our ideas together and fusing it into one style. We call it alternative metal and it's just, you know, something we don't think the people have heard before. It's pretty, and pretty brutal. It's hard and heavy when it needs to be but it can also drop your panties if necessary.

RO: So with the line-up, who's new?

MOI: I [J.R. Rosenstein] left for a while to go pursue school and stuff like that. The bass player, a guy named Cory, is new too. He's the youngest guy in the band. He's fun, exciting, has a Mohawk.

RO: [laughs] Do you guys ever give Blake any shit for looking like a fatter Adam Lambert from American Idol?

MOI: [laughs] No, because we haven't made that reference yet but now we will so thank you for that.

RO: No sweat. What's the word on new music? Got anything fresh?

MOI: We do. We have a new song called "Dead Lights," which is pretty much a whole new step. It's heavy, like I said, but pretty at the same time. We have another song that we're working on that hopefully will be done by our second gig at the Blue Door on September 11th. We're excited about that.

RO: With regards to the other metal bands around town, who are you guys jamming to? Who's good out there?

MOI: Let's see, who are our friends? We listen to Glass Intrepid. We're really good buddies with LSPS, Lonestar Pornstar. Melovine, we're rocking to them. There's a lot of good talent in Houston. Hopefully we can be considered one of the good talents in Houston eventually.

RO: So who sucks?

MOI: Who sucks? [laughs] Oh, man. Uh... Let me pick somebody out. You're gonna put this out there and we're gonna look like assholes.

RO: [laughs] Yep. Do all of you guys wear eye make up when you all perform?

MOI: We do. Some of us have more metal style and more hardcore style than the others. The drummer's really more laidback alternative. Me, Cory and Tab are pretty exaggerated looking - we've got all the piercings and tattoos and we're the ones that are really out there. Jeremy is more chill, more modest, but he's in the back so no one fucking notices him anyway. He plays the drums, so what does it matter anyway?

RO: Yeah, we thought it was funny that he's billed as playing the drums and fire.

MOI: [laughs] The fire. He's just a douche [laughs].

RO: Anything you want to make sure gets put out there?

MOI: Just that we're fucking coming. We're getting ready to join the ranks and we hope Houston's ready for it.

Check My Own I out online at www.myspace.com/myownihouston and see them live Friday at Blue Door (11124 Westheimer).