Bobaflex has a style and sound all of there own, Hailing from the deep woods of West Virginia, home of the Mothman Prophecies. These guys have developed using there DIY attitude into a formable force in the new music scene. After being tempted by other companies they have singed to Eclipse records, the same label that thrust Mushroomhead into the national spotlight. They have just release the album “Primitive Epic” which is sure to be floating across the radio airways soon. In the mean time we caught up with George and talked about the band, some influences and music in general, take a look.

Dr.Espling - Bobaflex hails form West Virginia, but you have taken over Columbus as a second home. Marty – Yeah, we’re from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where the Moth Man Prophesies movie takes place. That’s our home town and yeah, one of our biggest markets is Columbus, Ohio. So we kinda call that our hometown.

Dr.Espling - What kind of scene has developed in those areas, are there any bands coming out of there that are notable?
Marty - In West Virginia there’s really nothing coming out of here, a few country artists. There’s really not a whole hell of a lot going on here. We have a river and a couple stop lights and a Walmart. But Columbus has one of the longest running rock clubs in the United States. There is a really cool music scene there, it’s really cool to be a part of.

Dr.Espling – Bobaflex has been involved in some very notable shows, such as X-fest, Woodshock and the World Series Of Metal.
Marty – Those shows were great, It’s always fun when somebody else brings a crowd. We get to go in there and knock ‘em down. The World Series of Metal was a great show with some great bands. There was Dog Fashion Disco, Zug Izland, Spineshank, Powerman 5000 and Adema so it was a pretty big show.
Dr.Espling – Aww, I wish I would been there, especially with Zug. Those guys are great

Marty – Oh yeah, They are on Psychopathic Records, Dr.Espling – Violent J did the majority of the song writing on their disc, too. Marty - And their guitar player (Mike P.) does a lot for ICP as far as production. They

were real good. I had just heard about them a few days before and when they showed up at the show it was pretty neat. Small world.

Dr.Espling – Speaking of production, I’ve been listening to your soon-to-be-re-released album, Primitive Epic. That disc’s production is great, it’s tight and clean and crisp. Who did all your production work?
Marty – It’s self produced. We learned a lot from the bigger bands we’ve played with. We like to listen in on people who are willing to give us tips. Being from West Virginia there’s not a lot of producers hanging around, so we gotta do it on our own.
Dr.Espling – My complements to you guys, you did a wonderful job.
Marty – Thank you so much. We did it in a studio in Columbus. John Swab Studio, with John Swab of McGuffey Lane, if anybody is familiar with those guys. They use to be a big neo- seventies band.

Dr.Espling - You are now signed up with Eclipse Record. How did that all transpire?
Marty - We’ve been a band five years, we had two lead rappers. At that time we were more of a hip-hop style band. Not so much the rap-rock, but more urban hip-hop and it wasn’t working. We got rid of the two rappers, cause we just weren’t liking it. Plus there were the guys in the band who could sing that were not getting to sing much. About a year ago we picked up our bass player, Jerod Mankin and he’s a fabulous singer. He does all the high pitch stuff. Then we picked up a new drummer and everybody quit their jobs. Then we hit it hard for about a year, touring on our independent album, all on our own. We started getting some bites from labels. Along came Chris and Eclipse and them being recognized as a mini-major in the industry really liked us. They came in and didn’t want to tell us how to cut our hair or tell us how to record our record or anything like that. They said, “let’s put this record out” and we will give you the support you need from a major label and you get to keep the control. And it was just perfect for us.

Dr.Espling – Ok, here is the generic question of the night. How would you describe you sound? Marty – We try to make it a melting pot of things. We keep away from jumping on a bandwagon of any type. We try to make a big scary Broadway show, with the vocals

bouncing around and different singers switching instruments. Me and my brother switch back and forth. He’ll go out and sing lead while I play guitar, then he’ll come back and play while I sing. Trying to keep it from being boring and it from being us with our hair died black and fingernail polish crying about a girl. Girls have never hurt us and our parents have never beat us up. So we’ve got other things to think about.

Dr.Espling – What can we expect at a live Bobaflex show?
Marty – The live show is outrageous man! We don’t drink anything or smoke anything… till after the show. Our energy is completely focused on our set. We’ll bring fans up on stage. We’ll bring all the girls in the crowd up on stage to dance. We’re down in the crowd, just having a good time. Our live show is more like a Broadway play than a guy with his head down in a rock band. We are more of entertainers than pissed of teenagers.

Dr. Espling - Primitive Epic is actually a re-release of your previous EP. What brought about the decision to do that rather than come with a whole new set of material?
Marty – We felt really, really strong about the album, even though it was written spontaneous and fast. We had gotten such a good response from it, we actually sold nearly 6,000 of them with out a record label in less than six months. We thought , hell the nation is really big and we should tour with this album until there is a demand for the next one

Dr.Espling – The artwork on the CD is pretty amazing, too. Who is the mastermind behind that? Marty – Oh yeah, His name is Mick Usher. He’s from London, England and he did a great job on the cover. Give him some props.

Dr.Espling – I’m all out of questions, so do you have anything you wanna add?
Marty – Come out and see Bobaflex, it’s definitely different. If you’re tired of people running around crying about their girlfriends and bending down when they play their guitar and bouncing up and down in unison come on out.

Dr.Espling – www.bobaflexwarriors.com
Marty – Yeah, check out the website and we have something like 8,900 downloads on Mp3.com. We are like number 8 on their charts. The main thing is, we want to go out and build a strong following. Keep pumpin’ the shows and entertaining the people. And I want to thank you so much for the opportunity to be in your magazine. Thanks.