O’Death’s David Rogers-Berry talks about the old-time religion of Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin

By Katy Henriksen
Published: October 24th, 2008 | 10:05am

David Rogers-Berry, founding member and drummer for NYC-based O’Death — a group structured around vocals, guitar, banjo, bass, drums, and fiddle — started performing music just like you’d imagine. “I came to music through singing in church back home in South Carolina,” he said via phone from New York City. And while O’Death’s third album, Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin (Kemado), may at moments still carry the lyrical, slow refrains of the original gothic-gospel, country-folk sound Rogers-Berry had in mind when he formed the band in 2003; he explained that it’s now less tangible. “You can’t hear the gospel and country as much directly in our music,” he said. Structurally, O’Death is now more rhythmically complex, sped up, and noisier, and leaning more towards punk than country, he explained, but added, “There’s still a connection that has to do with similar themes.”

One connection is that Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin is 14 lean tracks charged with a raw immediacy that are played by incredibly skillful musicians (vocalist-guitarist Greg Jamie, multi-instrumentalists Gabe Darling, Dan Sager, and Bob Pycior, and bassist Othar) also have a keen intellectual sense of the vast musical forms they draw from. Another connection is with the band’s name. “O’Death” is an old-time American-traditional song long beloved by Rogers-Barry. The harrowing and stark tune has been played by countless musicians, including living bluegrass legends Ralph Stanley and Dock Boggs. And like many American-traditional songs its lyrics detail life’s hardships and struggles. In “O’Death,” the singer intimately pleads with death, “Won’t you tide me over for another year?”

Boggs is an important influence for Rogers-Berry, who sees the old-time vocalist, banjo player, and moonshiner as a forbearer of a different kind of genre than the one that he’s associated with. “Dock Boggs, in a way, is very much punk rock,” Rogers-Berry explained. “His sound is so raw and stripped down.” It turns out that these are two song qualities that Rogers-Berry shares with Boggs, particularly when it comes to producing raw, intemperate, organic sounds. Rogers-Berry always had a punk, destructive nature, he explained. At a young age he picked up instruments, but was always breaking them until his parents bought him a drum set when he was 12. Playing an instrument that was meant for slamming and smashing around was a perfect fit and eventually led to Rogers-Berry’s involvement with several noise-rock bands.

Yet even in those earlier noise-rock ventures, Rogers-Berry kept going back to country, gospel, and bluegrass, listening to the field recordings of musicologists like Alan Lomax, Harry Smith, and John Fahey, and eventually finding what was recorded in the early part of the 20th Century more riveting than what he saw going on in the indie music scene. “I get bored with prog rock, math rock, and those genres that are supposed to be exciting,” he said. “They all start sounding the same.”
He is aware that this type of criticism works both ways, particularly when it comes to O’Death’s sound and how it’s perceived by a largely indie rock–saturated New York scene. Critics have taken issue with an NYC-based band that takes elements from music associated with a rural landscape. “Greenwich Village was a hotbed for folk music back in the 1960s,” Rogers-Berry argued. “Blondie and the Talking Heads may have taken over as the New York sound, but at one point folk music was the scene.”

In any case, Rogers-Berry is not interested in being the next hip thing, yet he’s not satisfied with a cult audience either. “I don’t want to be just a fringe band,” he says. “I’d love to have a larger audience.” Although he’s skeptical that that will ever happen, he says that some bands he admires, like Outkast, have managed to keep artistic integrity while achieving a mass following.

With Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin, O'Death deserves the larger audience Rogers-Berry craves. Rather than attempt to be the next big thing, the band continues to build and expand on their already alchemic juxtapositions of sounds. As intelligent as it is emotionally charged, Skin has something to offer a broader audience.

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O’Death MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/odeath