In this same issue one year ago, we introduced you to a brand new band on the Bend music scene — AM Clouds, that performed its first public live performance at Bend Roots Revival.
We're continuing this trend with this year's Local Music Issue, introducing you to yet another up-and-coming band in Bend.
Meet The Color Study, a passion project with Scott Oliphant at the reins. Oliphant has a wealth of experience playing in bands and working in recording studios.
Oliphant found his father's guitar in a closet at age 13 and started playing music. Before relocating to Bend five years ago, Oliphant played guitar and drums and worked in recording studios in Austin, Texas Now with two young boys, Oliphant sought a smaller city and slower pace of life.
"I've always played with other people and never had made my own stuff before, and that had always been a goal," Oliphant says over coffee outside at Spoken Moto. "Last fall, I found myself with a little more time than I used to have and I started to make some demos. It felt like it started to coalesce and I made myself finish. It was an interesting process, but a good process."
Oliphant wrote and recorded the self-titled album by himself at his studio, Parkway Sounds, but always saw the project as a band. He brought in Matt Jackson on bass and Andy Jacobs on drums to complete the band lineup, which debuts with Cosmonautical and Lassen at Spoken Moto Sept. 27.
"It's hard to record an album by yourself," Oliphant admits. "It's hard because you have to do it one piece at a time and do stuff and redo stuff and figure out the parts as you go."
While this may be Oliphant's first dip into the solo-work pool, he also works with other local bands at his studio, including recording the first Bony Chanterelle album at Parkway Sounds.
Oliphant hopes to play shows in Bend, as well as regionally, with the whole band. When he played in bands in Austin, he had the opportunity to play at SXSW, and says he'd love to be able to take The Color Study to play at the famed music festival.
"I'm excited about the whole thing because I think it's going to be a big sound and fun," Oliphant says of performing as The Color Study for the first time on Thursday. "It's one more step in making it into a real thing. I don't know how it'll go. It's going to be an eclectic bill, with Lassen and Cosmonautical and us. I want it to be a show, a show-show, not just us kind of standing around and doing a thing. We'll see how close we can get to that."
