San Diego
Demetrisa Anderson: After we left the house we’d stayed at in San Diego for a couple weeks, we decided to start filming what was going on in San Diego. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the area, but they had a real big problem with drugs and schizophrenic people at the time. A lot of homelessness.
I figured, let’s just try and help, see if we can be an advocate to these people, see what the real problem is, why they’re on the streets and what their story is. We did interviews and filmed as much as we could, and we did our own little skits and stuff in between it. Sometimes we’d work, and we’d get on a trolley to Mexico and get a hotel in Tijuana that day. You could get beers and cheap tacos and stay in a room for five or ten dollars a night. And at the time you didn’t need much to cross over to Mexico.
In SD we stayed in St Vincent De Paul, a homeless shelter. We had two different living quarters there – it was separated by men and women. Before we got there we were staying on the street, sleeping in the parking structures at Peco Park, right across from the baseball field. We didn’t stay on Skid Row, because it was too bad at that time. The people there knew we were young, that our shoes looked new. They were like, we don’t want you here, you don’t belong here. You're part of the government. They thought we were spying on them. But we developed friends that protected us and told people to leave us alone. They said, they’re out here, too. They’re like us, they’re not against us. They’re a band – they’ve got a real thing going on.
I started to understand why we have a problem with homeless people. Some of them had been so traumatized that their minds needed to be reconstructed to know how to live again. Some of them didn’t want to, or couldn’t do it anymore. They’d been beaten and hurt in ways that a human being probably won’t come back from if they’re not mentally and physically strong. And if you’re doing drugs and drinking and having sex, doing all these things to destroy your body, you're going to find yourself lost in new worlds you open up, and you’re not gonna be able to climb up out of that situation and do better. And plus, a lot of these people had family issues. I talked to a lot of women, a lot of young girls raped by their fathers, raped by their uncles, stuck on drugs.
Eventually it was like, if you’re feeling down, go talk to this girl Demeat, from Occasional Detroit. Go talk to her, she’ll help you. I’d find myself with a whole bunch of women sitting around listening to me! I’m like, who the hell do I go talk to now?! So I had to rewire myself, to get away from that lifestyle and make sure I was alright. California was a big experience, a big part of my growth.
Demons
Jason Willett: Towondo was very kind and polite and open-minded. There was something very peaceful in my communications with him. Although sometimes, musically... at the True Vine show specifically, I saw some disturbed angst coming out. But during my communications with him after the gig he was very sweet again. Maybe through OD he has the ability to release something, some kind of quote-unquote demon, that I've never known him to release socially towards other people.
Tyler Harwood: Towondo and Demetrisa were pretty quiet generally, and really sweet. But they did fight a fair bit. The music has kind of a manic vibe to it. It’ll be kind of funky and almost normal, and it’ll turn into absolute cacophony in a split second. That’s kind of how they were as people, too. All of the sudden you think they’re gonna kill each other. 15, 20 minutes later, everything’s fine, and they’re having the most fun you’ve ever seen on stage.
Raven Chacon: It was a very tumultuous relationship it seemed like they had, and sometimes you couldn’t tell if it was an act or what. I don’t know how much I wanna say about that – it seems somewhat personal and none of my business. But I remember on that tour Demeat and Towondo getting in a fight. Everyone was hyping up OD, like “You gotta see this band.” And she didn’t play the show, she left. The whole set was just Towondo kinda resting his head on the keyboard saying, “Why did he have to go? Why did she have to go?” And his head was just holding down a drone of keys. He got booed off stage, man! [Laughs] I’d been telling everybody in Portland hey, you gotta see this band, and yeah, it was the worst show they had. And then they played two nights later and it was kickass. Crazy.