OPM Singer Scouted Ozomatli For Island Records

09/15/2000 1:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(9/15/00, 1 p.m. ET) - OPM has a hit in "Heaven Is A Halfpipe" on Atlantic Records, but the band's John E. Necro cut his teeth working in the A&R department at Island Records, just before the Universal/PolyGram merger. He told LAUNCH he got there just as the label was starting to crumble, but that didn't stop him from scouting and trying to sign one of his favorite bands.

Necro explained, "They weren't into signing a lot of stuff at the time, but the band I really wanted to sign was Ozomatli, which was cool because that relationship helped later on. We got to work with those guys on our record. I was a huge fan of those guys. Mostly because in L.A. the whole club scene, people go to shows and it's like a casting call, basically. They don't dance or move or anything, and I would go see Ozomatli in the same clubs and they would have the place jumpin'."

Ozomatli's Asdrubal Sierra and Ulises Bella helped out with vocals on the song "Trutcha," which appears on OPM's Atlantic debut, Menace To Sobriety.

-- Darren Davis, New York

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