The Oxford Coma is a self proclaimed “Progressive Psychedelic Grunge Rock” band, based in Phoenix, AZ.  The genre sounds like a mouthful (perhaps in the spirit of the institution of European higher learning that the band’s name evokes), but it’s about the shortest, most to-the-point way of describing their sound that doesn’t leave anything out.  The songs on their recent mini-release (being billed as a preview of their debut album) sound like a jumble of A Perfect Circle, The Mars Volta, System of a Down, old Incubus, Muse, Nirvana, and maybe even a hint of Chili Peppers.  Strange mash-up; but perhaps it’s to be expected from these guys.

    The band is a three piece, with guitarist Billy Tegethoff taking lead vocals.  He’s an engineering student at ASU, with the weird dichotomy of left-brain education and exceedingly right-brain musical work making him a sort of wild card when it comes to daily behavior.  “Sometimes I hate the inconsistency of the two most time consuming areas of my life,” says Billy, “but in spite of the fact that I will never love anything as much as music, I still haven’t been able to talk myself into taking the plunge into flat broke artist-hood…  Which is fantastic except for the fact that I have no “spare” time anymore!  Everything is about the band.  I’m only going to school so I can maintain creative and financial control of my portion of our music.”  Billy’s sort of gloomy character at times, with speech marked by cynicism and sarcasm, and a starkly sober view of the world, literally.  He’s all of twenty-five now, but has spent four years of his life strung out on heroin, and more recently, close to four years stone sober.  “Let me just state up front that I largely hate ‘recovery bands,’” he says, “just because I quit doing drugs doesn’t mean that I don’t still dig trippy, saturated, grimy music.”  It shows.  The Oxford Coma does not sound like a band that wants to talk about redemption or spiritual liberation.  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m into that stuff,” says Billy, “It would just be dishonest of me to say that’s where I’m at right now.”

    The foundation for this band was laid a long time ago, in a city not so far away.  The Coma’s drummer, Casey Dillon, was all of 18 when he and Billy first joined forces.  “About five years ago Billy and I started playing together in a three piece band based on Tucson (Mud Puppy).  We had a bit of a falling out after a year, but we rejoined in Tempe and started playing again,” Casey says, kindly omitting that the falling out was because Billy missed a show because he went into detox and forgot about it, and that reuniting only happened after a gap of about a year and a half where they didn’t speak.  Mud Puppy met its ultimate demise when Billy moved to Phoenix in 2008 trying to sober up again.  It worked, surprisingly enough, and about a year later, Casey moved up to Phoenix to join some of his friends who were attending the university.  After a while, he and Billy linked back up in a short-lived project called Wasadaga, which gave way to a slightly less short-lived project called Verico.  Verico more or less solidified their partnership as guitarist and drummer, but tension between the rest of the band led to its disintegration in late 2010.  Frustrated and unsure how to proceed, Billy and Casey tried different avenues of continuing on, from putting Casey on bass and auditioning drummers to just playing as a duo and incorporating electronic music into the mix.  The answer came in the form of a new bassist.  “It took two years, and the breakup of two projects, but we finally found James,” as Casey puts it.

    James Williams, a towering thin guy of twenty or thirty something who, at the time, had waist length blonde dreads, gauged ears, and thick rimmed glasses, appeared unexpectedly in their lives in the midst of this musical brainstorm.  He had seen some of Verico’s live performances, and quickly approached its two remaining members when he heard that there was an opening on bass.  James was the former guitarist and bassist for a few different Phoenix-based bands, most notably Hellas Mounds.  “His playing style blows me away,” says Billy, “He somehow reconciles bass and guitar into one instrument.  It’s how we’ve gotten away with remaining a 3-piece.  He knows haw to write a part that is just busy enough to take up the space a second guitar usually fills, but sparse and rhythmic and percussive enough to sound like a a bit of bass and a bit of drums.  He and Casey come up with some of the coolest grooves I’ve ever heard.”  In addition to being The Oxford Coma’s bassist, he’s currently the cook at a local bar, has a three-legged cat named Adolf, and much to the chagrin of the music community, has cut off the dreads.  

    Since James’s first jam with Billy and Casey, they have spent countless hours concocting their brand of energetic weirdness.  At first they considered bringing in a singer, but at James’s urging they decided to keep it a trio.  “I’ve never had much confidence in my singing voice,” says Billy, “but I love doing it.  I grabbed up a great voice instructor, and decided to give it a real go.”  The band has been around for about nine months, and they’re still very hush hush about when we can expect to see a tour.  “We learned some valuable lessons with Verico, one of which was what happens when you rush into playing live.  We lost all time to write, trying to keep the set performable!  So, we’re going to finish our first album and record it before hitting the road.”  This isn’t entirely true.   The Oxford Coma has been know to make appearances without notice, and completely improvise their set for whatever the allotted playing time is.

    They have said that their debut album is coming out in early 2012, but they have yet to set a release date.