I Am Now Best Friends With Marc Roberge Of OAR
I fucking love OAR. They're one of my favorite bands of all time and if you asked me to name bands that were a constant throughout my life through middle school, high school, and my adult life, Sublime, DMB, Zeppelin and Of A Revolution would be those bands and that is it.
I was driving from Chicago to New Jersey back around 2003 with my dad to visit family. This is obviously when CDs were still a thing and as the oldest kid, I was always sitting shot gun and in charge of the music. I had a fat CD case with shit like New Found Glory, Blink 182 and yes, OAR, amongst others. I'd rifle through each album and my dad would say, "get this shit off, put The Oars back on" not realizing OAR is actually an acronym. Even he loved the band and he's an old asshole.
Fast forward a few years and I'm in college. My birthday is October 30th, the day before Halloween, so I would go visit HS friends that attended Wisconsin for their Halloween bash every year. If you haven't been to Madison for Halloween, it's a complete and total shit show. Add in that it was my birthday every year and you can only imagine how drunk I'd get. OAR was playing at freak fest one year and I came to out of a blackout around 130am front row of their concert with not a single one of my friends with me. It was the only time I've ever attended a concert myself and I loved every minute of it, even if I was so intoxicated I couldn't say my own name.
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Now it's 2021. I think, I lose track of the years these days. But OAR still blasts in my headphones all of the time and I still love them now as much as I did 15+ years ago. I saw them 3 years ago at Weishfest and cannot WAIT to see them again once they're touring again. But the difference now is it's all come full circle, and I had the chance to interview their lead singer Marc Roberge for an hour yesterday. I have interviewed a LOT of pretty big time athletes and celebs at this point, and I mean this when I say it - Marc is one of the most genuinely good dude's I've ever met; there's not a dickhead bone in that guy's body. I shot him a DM on IG asking him to come on our show and within 10 mins we had a date and time picked out. Easiest guest I've ever booked.
We talked OAR's come up working for $300 a night at random venues, when they knew they made it big, life of a band that can't tour because of a pandemic and how Marc is going to teach me how to play the guitar. His words, not mine. Just a good dude through and through and he's now my best friend on earth.
Check out the interview! You can find it on iTunes and Spotify