Part 12: OBM
Xander Cross is only 22 years old, but he is already pontificating about death and his legacy. Some might call that precocious or premature, perhaps even pretentious - but for the Company, Our Beautiful Misery’s passionate pantheon, it is precisely this profundity that propels their popularity. This fanatic following, largely young, overwhelmingly female, eschew the pop princesses and bubblegum boybands that typical teenagers tune into. They desire something darker, and Xander Cross’s destiny is to deliver.
Our Beautiful Misery released their debut disc, The Angelic and the Damned, in December and it darted directly to number one, displacing seasoned stalwarts Britttni and Jordan J. Clearly, this band is no flash in the pan; they are an integral part of the new dark wave that is sweeping across the sandy beaches of contemporary culture. Much maligned, but mainly misunderstood. I sat down with OBM’s black-eyeliner-clad frontman in his Brooklyn abode to discuss music, spirituality, and the meaning of life.
Why do you write so much about death and despair?
Well, death is a part of life. Kind of a big part of life. We all know that, deep down, but most of the time people try to hide from it. Like if you don’t think about it, then maybe it will go away. But I don’t believe that. I believe it’s part of our job as human beings to look death in the face. To challenge it. Maybe even to embrace it as an old friend. What were we before we were born, if not dead? From dust you have come and to dust you shall return.
Do I detect something Biblical ? Is Cross a Christian?
No, I don’t believe in any particular religion, but I am a spiritual person. I’ve read the Bible, I’ve read the Qu’ran, I’ve read the sacred texts of Buddhism and Hinduism, and I’ve learned something from all of them. But whether we say dust like in the Bible, or stardust like science tells us, or we say reincarnation or we say spiritual enlightenment, it’s all basically the same message, really. We’re all going to die someday. And all the things we do to try to hide from it - the money, the cars, the jobs, the - they’re not going to save you. In the end it’s just blackness and the light’s only a lie. People can call that dark if they want to, but I’m just telling the truth.
So what about love?
Love can’t save us from death, either, but it can make the idea of death bearable. When you get to the end of your life, when you heave your last, dying breath, at least you’ll be able to say I loved, and no one will ever be able to take that away from you. Some people believe in God as a higher power - well, love is my higher power.
Are you in a relationship right now?
I’d prefer not to answer that. My personal life is my personal life, and I’d rather just let the music speak for itself, you know? But when I talk about love, I’m not only talking about romantic love, I’m talking about all different kinds of love. Love for flowers, love for trees. I fucking love trees. The line “your beauty is unspoken, your beauty is unmatched” was written about this beautiful tree outside my house in upstate New York. Because a tree doesn’t know that it’s beautiful, it just is beautiful. So you love it. Love for the blood that courses through your veins. Love for pain and despair. Love for everything under the sun. Love even for death.
I’d like to talk about the penultimate track a bit.
Alright, sure. “PenUltimate.”
Why did you presume to call it “PenUltimate?”
“Penultimate” means second to last, of course, and it’s the second to last song on the record. But it’s also got a deeper meaning, like everything I write does. Think about the penultimate minute of your life. Everyone thinks about the last day of their lives, but what about the second to last day? Shouldn’t that one be just as special? It’s the last day before the last day, right? And then the day before that is also like the last day before the last day, and so in a sense, every day of our lives is the penultimate day. No matter where you are, death is always what’s coming next, so we shouldn’t pretend like we’ve got all this time in the world. Carpe diem, you know?
Is there perhaps a third layer of meaning as well?
As a matter of fact, yes. “Pen ultimate” - the pen is mightier than the sword. We can conquer our demons, in a sense, by writing about them.
What dastardly demons plague Xander Cross?
The disease of being human, I guess. You name it, I’ve got it: depression, anxiety, OCD. I hate when people romanticize or brag about those things. They aren’t some cool fun fad. There really are days when I don’t know if I can get out of bed and face the world. I can’t go to malls anymore because I get panic attacks. It’s a drag. But I know that lots of our fans are dealing with similar issues and that’s why this music resonates so much with them. In music, veritas.
Ah, Latin again. Will you elucidate us on your love of Latin?
Latin is the language of magic. It was the language of Caesar and Nero and the greatest empire the world has ever known. And a lot of people don’t know this, but the Bible used to be written in Latin, too, before they translated it into English. And I kind of wish they never did. There’s something special about Latin. When you say something in Latin, it makes it more real. Carpe diem is so much more powerful than “seize the day.” Carpe diem is something worth putting on your gravestone.
So what does the song title “Mobius ad Mortuarium” mean?
You know, I’d really rather not translate it because you always lose something in translation. You lose everything in translation. If the fans want to know what it means, they’ll have to learn Latin.
Speaking of your fans . . . I hear they’ve branded themselves “The Company?” From whence did that name spring?
[chuckles] Oh, it’s kind of a joke. Misery loves company, you know?
And that love is resoundingly reciprocal. Do you have any mass messages for your many militant minions?
Our fans are what keep us going, they really do. Every time I hear someone say our music saved their life, that reminds me why we do what we do. Why what we do is so much more important than working in an office - those soul-crushing mini-hells - or a factory or a coal mine. More important than feeding the hungry or giving medicine to the sick. Because those things only take care of the body, but making music takes care of the soul.
Some might call what you do heroic.
Listen, I’m not a hero. I’m just a guy who knows what it’s like to hurt and feel alone. And I want everyone else out there to know that they’re not alone. We will always be there for you. When you feel like you can’t go on, just turn on that record and know that I feel the same way that you do.
Our Beautiful Misery’s debut disc, The Angelic and the Damned, is available for purchase at your local record store, department store, coffee shop, or gothic clothing emporium.
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Our Beautiful Misery have had an incredible two years. Their first album, 2002’s The Angelic and the Damned, put the band at the forefront of what some (starting with this writer) have called the Dark Wave, or the Neo-Gothic Post-Hardcore Emo Revival (NGPHER.) Since then, the record has been certified platinum and the band has toured the US and Canada extensively, from sea to shining sea, playing to packed auditoria of angsty adolescents, clad in all black to symbolize the darkness of their tortured souls.
Now the group, led by brooding, enigmatic frontman Xander Cross, are set to release their sophomore record and major label debut, Hallowed Eve. This 13-song effort shows the band expand on the themes that resolutely resonate with today’s troubled teens: the inevitability of death, the transcendent power of love, and the mysteries of darkness and the occult. Afraid of the dark, these guys are not.
This writer was lucky enough to cross paths with Cross over croissants to cross-examine the star-crossed rock star. He only hopes he has crossed his T’s - fingers crossed - and humbly submits the following interview for your careful consideration:
Let’s get right down to it. Touring: is it torturous or tremendous?
It’s a little of both, to be honest with you. Like everything and everyone in this world, it’s a blend of light and dark, and you can’t have one without the other. There’s a great agony to touring all the time: the long drives on boring, soulless highways, the fluorescent lighting of hotels and dressing rooms, the lack of sleep. But we also get to meet so many of our amazing fans and hear their stories, and that’s what keeps us going through the pain. We have the greatest fans in the world. They are such beautiful souls, every single one of them, and it kills me that we can’t meet them all. But know that we see you and hear you. Every time you listen to our records, we are with you. Every time you feel pain, we are with you; every time you feel love, we are with you. We are all connected on a deep spiritual level that transcends the merely physical. Never forget that.
Have you any sort of pre-show rituals?
Of course. I can’t speak for any of the other guys, because my ritual must be conducted in solitude, and there are some of it that must remain private. It’s this really sacred, personal thing. But I can tell you I do always light some incense and meditate. I try to reach a state of enlightenment and spiritual perfection, because I think I owe it to
Is your life always such a heavy cross to bear? Or is there a lighter side to Xander as well?
Light and dark, black and white, yin and yang, order and chaos, good and evil. The duality of man, the duality of all things. The spiritual and the physical, you know? It’s not just me, it’s in everything. So yeah, I do have dark thoughts sometimes - and I think we all do, deep down, it’s just that some of us are honest about it - that’s only one part of who I am. Really, I’m just a regular guy. I watch cartoons, I eat Cheez-its, I play video games, I look at myself in the mirror too much.
Which cartoons do you choose to consume?
I like Spongebob Squarepants. I know it’s stupid - that’s what I like about it, how stupid it is. Sometimes you just want to shut your mind off completely and zone out. Maybe watching something totally mindless on TV is the closest us dumb Americans will let ourselves get to zen Buddhist meditation, where you just think about nothing.
So what makes Hallowed Eve different from TA&TD?
On this record, we were really able to have a lot of creative freedom that allowed us to push ourselves as musicians and lyricists. On “Murder in the First,” for example, we actually got someone to bring in a recorder - you know those horrible, screeching instruments we all played in elementary school - and had Bobby [note: Bobby Melrose, one of the album’s producers] just blow into it as loud as he could, and then we played that recording at full volume through a guitar amp with a microphone up to it, and the combination of the recorder and the feedback is what creates that chaotic screaming sound towards the end. If you listen really carefully, you might be able to hear it.
We also got to play around with some backwards recording technology. Another perk of working with a major label, they have all this tech in their studios that we used to dream about. So we were sort of inspired by what people thought bands were doing back in the eighties, putting subliminal Satanic messages into songs, we decided to actually do it. Not Satanic per se, but - well, I guess the fans will have to decode the messages themselves.
Are you merely being modest with all these “we’s?” Are you not the chief creative catalyst?
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No, no, no, it’s a team effort. We all contribute equally. If anything, I do the least. Sure, I write all of the lyrics and most of the music, but behind the scenes, the other guys do all sorts of work that no one sees. If I died tomorrow, they could keep on touring as OBM and no one would even notice the difference. They could just replace me with some other guy with black hair and loads of eyeliner. But if I lost any one of them - if god forbid, some tragedy occurred - I don’t think I could ever recover, as a person or a musician.
When you and I first met, two years ago, I have you on record as saying, and I quote, “I’m not a hero.” Unquote. And yet to many of your fans, you are a hero. Are you saying they shouldn’t worship you?
I’m saying they are the real heroes because without them, none of this would be possible. If they weren’t struggling with their own demons on a daily basis; if they weren’t coping with unbelievable levels of human pain and loneliness, and coming out stronger because of it - none of what I do or say would have any meaning at all. Life can seem like an endless sea of black, but death is blacker still, and so long as we are alive at least we have love. And if anything I do makes the world seem a little less black, even for just one moment, even just for one kid out there, then maybe this gift of life hasn’t been a total waste.
Hallowed Eve will be released October 28th, 2005, just in time for its namesake holiday. It can also be downloaded from the band’s website, ourbeautifulmisery.com, where one can also find a plethora of bonus content, including Xander Cross’s original notebooks and drawings, OBM tattoo designs, pins, t-shirts, hats, and even OBM candles and incense.