O.A.R.: 'King' Creators Reveal Relationship Regrets, Darkest Days and Personal 'Revolutions' During In House Q&A

"This is like a therapy session! I feel much better," O.A.R.'s Benj Gershman confessed during our In House interview with the band. And he wasn't kidding! Things got pretty emotional when it came to unearthing the guys' biggest relationship regrets and getting down to the source of their uncharacteristically dark album, King.

Benj, Richard On, Chris Culos, Jerry DePizzo and lead singer Marc Roberge are more like family than just bandmates. After first coming together for an eighth grade talent show performance, the band went on to release their debut CD in 1997. Seven albums and almost 15 years later, O.A.R. is stronger than ever ... but only after overcoming real hardships, like breaking away from their label Atlantic Records, and coping with the cancer diagnosis of Marc's wife.

O.A.R. visited AOL Music's studios to discuss the making of the deeply personal 'King,' take a trip down memory lane and look ahead to the future. The evolution of the band and its members is nothing short "of a revolution."

Your latest single "Gotta Be Wrong Sometimes" is all about being OK with making mistakes, and letting go of regrets. What are your biggest relationship regrets?

Benj Gershman: I've got a ton of regrets to be honest! But to pick one, I think as I've gotten older I've become a better listener. So I try to listen more now ... this is like a therapy session. I feel much better!

Richard On: You can't always be right, everyone makes mistakes. I think in my previous relationships, one mistake I made was just not being around, because I was traveling so much ... I think I'm going to cry.

Chris Culos: I tend to sometimes be more quiet and my girl will be like, "I know you're thinking something, just say what you're thinking!" So just not holding it in so much and communication, I can work on that.

Jerry DePizzo: I always equated "Gotta Be Wrong Sometimes" with my own relationship to my wife. In a marriage, it's good to be wrong sometimes, to takes some blame off of the other person. In past relationships, I used to try to be someone that I wasn't and do things outside of my comfort zone, but not in a good way. There was a girl I dated in high school who I was crazy about and she smoked cigarettes. And she was cool, so I started smoking cigarettes and that started a 10-year habit -- that I just kicked, by the way.

Marc Roberge: I can't stand when people say, "I don't have any regrets." It's just not true. For me, I just wasn't around as often as I should have been and I wasn't able to balance correctly. But the song, for me, is more lighthearted than the rest of the heavy stuff on the album, and is about two people meeting and throwing caution to the wind like you see in the movies.



As you say, King is generally much darker than your previous material. What inspired that new vibe?

Marc: We started making the album two years ago. We started making songs about this character who had spent a lot of time out searching form something, seeking and asking and really just avoiding everything in front of him and looking beyond. And initially, what it was about was the character coming full circle. The world you want is right here, you can design it yourself and then everyone around you will live within your world, instead of you always going out and people pleasing. We did not know that the story would be so real to us. We had illness in our family. My wife got very sick.

The story that we set out to tell became about us and the real tough things in life. No matter who you are and what you do, health is really all you have. We learned a lot of lessons making this album. Really at the end of the day we only have each other. We're family, we're brothers. I'm thankful we went through all the things we went through. We left out label in the middle of it and had to find a new label, we fell into issues with our business. But we beat some of the most impossible things you can beat. And it all ended when the album came out, and the healing began. I imagine the next album will be the happiest thing ever.

Jerry: The thing with O.A.R.'s music is that it always has a silver lining. And with this record, it's that you're in control of your own destiny. If we could get through these past two years, we could probably do damn near anything.

You've been a band for 15 years now, since you were in college. What's the biggest difference between the band then and now?

Jerry: Probably the dedication we have to the crowd. At first there was a beautiful innocence to it. "We're going to write some tunes and we're going to go play it for people." After a while, you realize that's the genesis of it, but that's not all there is to it. You need to work hard to perfect your craft and for your audience. If the O.A.R. of 1998 had the work ethic of the 2012 O.A.R. ... It's something you learn as you go along in this business.

Your band name is an acronym for "Of a Revolution," which was a pretty lofty name for a band of kids just starting out. How has the meaning behind the name changed after all these years?

Jerry: Then it was about being a teenager and being inspired by people and how music can transcend. And how you think that you can change the world at age 15. It's a big name and we have to work every day to live up to it.

Marc: That is exactly how we intended it, but we only intended it in a room half the size of this, in the basement of our drummer's house with nobody listening to us. We had all these lofty goals, but lofty for us. We wanted to take on the world, but our world of music. And now, we really have to work hard to maintain a lofty name, but I just don't think we care what other people think about it. We just work hard for us.

Benj: I just read this cool book by the guy who founded CD Baby [Derek Sivers], and this is after he went from his garage to build that huge, successful company. It's really about just doing things differently. A revolution doesn't have to be bloody and fists in the air. He says love doesn't always have to be Romeo and Juliet, and if you think that way you'll miss out on just doing things your way. It's not so lofty, it's not so heavy.

Well, one thing that wasn't a factor when you first started out as a band was wives and kids. How do you balance family life with work now?

Jerry: Not well.

Marc: We try a lot harder. It's a work in progress.

Chris: If things aren't working well out on the road, we won't have the drive to continue doing what we do. If thing's aren't going well at home it's exactly the same, and one can't work without the other. Family is always priority, and it's never going to be perfect, but we try as best we can to get it there.

You've been in the game for so long now. What's one new band or artist you're really into that might surprise your fans?

Benj: I friggin' love Bruno Mars.

Richard: Cris Cab is a very talented up-and-coming artist. We had the pleasure to tour with him and I think he's great. I think he's going to go places.

Chris: I listen to a lot of country music now. That's something within the last couple years that my wife turned me on to. I have a huge appreciation for it. Even cheesy country ballads.

Jerry: Skrillex was the last person I heard that made me say, "What the hell is that?" It was the last thing I heard that I just couldn't figure out how it happened. That really impressed me.

Marc: Kimbra I started listening to after her song with Gotye ["Somebody That I Used to Know"] and she's just really cool. I really like her voice.