#13 – Captive Eyes – RichardThinks Band Of The Week

This week’s edition of RTBOTW brings Captive Eyes from Richmond, VA! We managed to catch them opening for Sworn In and Like Moths To Flames late last year and were impressed with their performance. We sat down with bassist, Omari Dickens, to discuss the beginning of Captive Eyes, current plans and more. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday for a new RichardThinks Band Of The Week!

First, can you please introduce yourself & tell us your role in the band.

My name is Omari Dickens I am the bassist of Captive Eyes

With so many bands emerging in today’s scene, how do you believe Captive Eyes stands out?

I believe Captive Eyes stands out on today’s scene because for one all of our members have different influences like my obsession with groove metal bands like Pantera and Richmond Hardcore acts like Down to Nothing or Tough Luck, our rhythm guitarist’s thing for bands like Northlane, our lead guitarist affliction for bands like Suicide Silence and Emmure, our drummers love of bands like Fit for a King, and lastly our vocalist everlasting love of Trustkill records bands. And we stand out to me because we are seriously trying to do something new and move music forward.

Can you give us a brief history on Captive Eyes?

The band formed in the summer of 2013 in Richmond, Va. The band was formed by our guitarist Chris and drummer Brandon after their old band split. First, they recruited a second guitarist. Then, asked me to join and play bass at a local show. After that our vocalist Joseph joined. Then before the band went into the studio to record our single we had a line-up change where Freddi Brea became our new guitarist.

How did you pick the name for the band?

When we started we had a shitty name like most bands that Chris and Brandon came up with then, when Joseph joined he altered the name that they had into what we have today Captive Eyes.

If you could pick three words to describe your band, what words would you pick?

Heavy, Real, and Angry. I picked heavy because at the end of the day we’re a heavy metal band. We don’t want to fit into to any subgenres or stuff like that we just want to write great heavy metal songs and move the whole genre forward and stay heavy. I picked real because what we’re going is authentic there’s no frills, no backtracking tracks, no samples, no bullshit; just five guys with instruments making music. I picked angry because even though it has become a cliché on the metal scene for a band to say they’re angry, but we are and anger is the perfect emotion to have propelling heavy music

What has been the biggest accomplishment for the band to date?

The biggest accomplishment for the band so far has probably been being featured in issue 308 of Alternative Press in the unsigned artist section.

If you could put together a bill of three other locals, what would your bill look like?

The funny thing is we’re actually looking into doing this for our EP release around April. So, the bands from our local scene, Richmond I’m looking into having on the bill alongside us would probably be Immoralist because they are great and probably the kings of the scene in Richmond, Boris Wheatley (they’re an older band that most kids on the Richmond scene today probably don’t know and they technically aren’t together but Im good friends with them so I think I could convince them to do a reunion show), and the last band would probably be Broadside even though more of a pop punk band they’re killing it in Richmond and I love them.