oWNERSHIP

oWNERSHIP was born in the mind of drummer, multi-instrumentalist, Cole Odin Berggren back in the early 2000s. As a drummer for many bands in the past, Cole felt the need to express his own ideas which weren't given serious time in his other projects. Before starting the project oWNERSHIP, Cole had contributed drum work (live or recorded), vocals, and production for various projects and musicians such as KENDALL JONES (FISHBONE), TIGERcat, BOBBIE MARIE (WHATEVER WE WANT RECORDS), ANTHONY MANSFIELD (with him, known as THUNDERTRUCK, on MOBBEATS RECORDS), RANDY CLARK of CROWSONGS, SAD SAD FUN, M3 (GREEN GORILLA RECORDS), HOLMAR FILIPSSON (THUGFUCKER), NICK CHACONA, INQ, RITHMA (OM RECORDS), FM BELFAST (WORLD CHAMPION RECORDS), UNEAQ (OM RECORDS), CREAMSICKLE, COMMANDER BASS, and others.

Cole's musical background came as a fan early on in his life, as he was raised throughout the years by musical and artistic influences of all styles. He tinkered with drumming in high school, but never took it up until tragedy struck while he was attending art college at San Jose State in the early 90's. His sister Meaghan, was killed in an auto accident, and the grief had him withdraw from life. After having an eye-opening discussion with his martial arts instructor of 9 years (who was like a father figure for him), he took the advice to get back into the world, as Meaghan wouldn't want him to stop living the life he loved, as he couldn't change the past. He joined a friend, and went to see a favorite band of his, fIREHOSE at The Cactus Club in San Jose.

At the show, as Cole stood in the back of the room, Mike Watt, the enigmatic co-frontman, brought a song to a screeching halt. In only a way Watt could do, he burst into a tirade about the music industry of the time. Shouting to the cheering crowd, he urged all those complaining about shitty music on the radio and in the press, that they should suck it up, grab an instrument, learn to play, and help them out. This call to arms was not lost on Cole, as 2 days later, he took "oWNERSHIP" of his musical future, and bought his first drum set from a garage sale down the street. The kick in the ass from Watt changed the young man's life, and is recognized and saluted with the capitalization of the name of the band he would form years later.

After a quick few months of relentless playing and self-taught experimentation, Cole decided that playing alone wasn't enough. He answered an add found in the hallways of the art department of SJSU. Apparently, "Creamsickle was looking for a drummer to pound out voodoo beats", and he felt that the influences on the page were different from everything else he'd seen (Bowie, Buttholes, Bauhaus, Spacemen 3, Residents). And so while he wasn't a fan of them all, he thought the output of these two guys must be pretty interesting. After lying about how long he'd been playing, the audition began, and soon he was brought into the band by Mike Wills, and Dave Pousho. Creamsickle eventually broke up, but Cole stuck with the guitarist, Dave, and formed INQ with longtime friend Kevin Cole on bass, and veteran local singer Christopher Landon. Through the 10+ years of playing in these 2 bands, and the fanatic collecting of music and live concert experiences since he was a boy, Cole learned a lot about song-writing, and started writing lyrics and constructing melodies. These were put into play when he bought a used Roland MC 505 Groovebox sequencer.

During the time he met Mike and Dave, Cole also met a local DJ and promoter Manny Alferez (also known as DJ M3). Manny and Cole had many mutual friends, and were both told that they needed to meet the other. A great friendship ensued, as was Cole's introduction to the world of the bay area's DJ, rave and electronic music culture. Coupled with the longtime leanings of live music, be it rock, jazz, funk, hip-hop, metal or folk, Cole now had another realm of musical influence to shape his output.

Upon leaving, and thus disbanding INQ in 2007, Cole began to put all the songs into a serious plan. To create a psychedelic, hard-driving rock band that embraced the track-based songs of the DJ culture, as well as the classic songs of rock's history. Not afraid of repetitive simplicity, he went out to build a sound that would build a bridge between the two worlds not yet seen before.

After painstakingly teaching himself the basics of Ableton Live, and general audio production, and with the help of a few talented friends, he was able to create a 3 song demo to use to gather up a band.

Neil Grey was the first, whom Cole met at an after a DJ gig he played at 222 Hyde. The after party was at Neil's house, which was filled with a PA, drum set, guitar amps, and a bass amp. After chatting about music for a bit, the rest of the party convinced the two to entertain them with a jam. It went so well, they pledged to do it again, as Cole had told Neil of his plans for oWNERSHIP. Jamaica Suk was a friend of Cole'