With a name lifted from a Mahatma Gandhi quote, Being As An Ocean came together in late 2010 with their first demos being posted to their Myspace page by early January of the following year. Initially, lead guitarist Tyler Ross was the sole creative force of the band, writing the entirety of their first record only a couple of months after the band was formed. The band spent the rest of 2011 performing anywhere that would have them and scored a record deal with InVogue records near the end of the year, with “Dear G-d” being released precisely 364 days after their first demos were put online, on the third of January 2012. The album received a huge amount of acclaim from both fans and critics, leading to their first world tour in the summer supporting a number of different hardcore bands.
Unfortunately, that touring schedule was too much for founding members Jacob Prest and Shad Hamawe, who left in 2013. But even by then this was a band with far too much momentum to be stopped that easily, and with two new members joining up the same year, the band are still going on to this day. With a second album released in the form of 2014’s “How We Both Wondrously Perish”, the band remain a tremendously exciting prospect both live and in the studio. For that, Being As An Ocean come highly recommended.
The reaction to relative newcomers of the circuit Being As An Ocean is absolutely mind blowing. The Californian outfit are close to clocking up 250 live shows so far and that is an impressive feat for a band who only began touring three years ago. The fans and the performers all invest in a collective idea that inside the venue they will collectively lose their fucking minds to the sounds of 'Mediocre Shakespeare' and 'Little Richie'.
They rely on nothing more than the towering walls of guitar riffs and the thumping and perforating drum beats to keep them jumping along in time with this rousing quintet. If you are able to hold an entire crowd at this point in your career then clearly you have done something right and it is this level of interaction that makes the future seem all the more exciting. By the finale of 'This Loneliness Won't Be the Death of Me' you would be forgiven in thinking this was a two decade old anthem with the force and intent the crowd sings back the chorus in time with lead singer Joel Quartuccio.