Formed in the summer of 2004, Otenki was formed by Enoma Asowata, Fausto Padilla, German Hernandez and Josh Tenorio. From the very beginning Otenki was determined to stand out amongst their peers. After experiencing some line up changes keyboardist Colton Majors was added to the roster and Josh’s brother Hector returned to the band in 2009 and 2010 respectively. The band is currently preparing to release their new EP entitled Kinetic. James Paul Wisner (Paramore, There For Tomorrow) produced the five track venture.
For Fans Of: There For Tomorrow, Armor For Sleep
Responses From: Enoma Asowata

How did the band come together? How have you grown since you guys started?
The band came together when I (Enoma) moved to Houston a few years ago to go to school and I ended up meeting Fausto through some mutual friends. We started working on songs and tried to build a line up as we progressed. German is Fausto’s cousin so when we needed a vocalist he just started coming to writing sessions and lent us his talents. We came across Hector and Josh right before we left for our first trip out to California to record an EP. Colton is our newest member and has been with us since about the fall of 2009.
 
Well we’ve been a band for a number of years and have gone through a lot of transformations. I think we’ve finally found a sound and a look that incorporates everything we’ve been striving for since the very start. We’ve gone through a lot of growing pains to get to where we are now and there’s a level of self awareness and comfort that comes with it. We’re writing better songs, we understand our sound and what makes what we do distinctly “OTENKI”.
 
What do you have to offer that other bands don’t? What sets you apart from a lot of the other newer bands out there today?
OTENKI, I personally think we’re in a place where our sound has a little something for everyone. We’ve got pop songs, straight up rock songs, songs that have electronics and programming…we’ve been fortunate to cast a wide net musically speaking and I hope with our new EP we’ve written something people can really get into.
 
What separates us from newer bands we’ve tried our best to live for our fans. We do our best to make them really feel like family. There’s times when we’ve met people at our shows and we end up really connecting and becoming parts of their lives, so much to the point where we are invited and attend their family functions.  We do our best to minimize that barrier between us and the family of supporters. Without them we’re absolutely nothing.
 
How is the live show compared to the general sound of material that’s been released?
Our goal has always been to sound as close to the record as humanly possible. We want to recreate and intensify the passion and energy that our songs have live. As we’ve grown, the musicianship within the band has constantly improved and we started demanding more from ourselves so we can give our fans the show they deserve.
 
Right now I would say we’re closer to than ever to bridging the gap between studio sound and live sound.
 
More times than not, influences tend to bleed through. What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?
The great thing about Otenki is that we have so many members that we have a large pool of influence to draw from. With our upcoming EP I would say that Anberlin, Armor For Sleep, Breaking Benjamin (yes, we do love that band), Jimmy Eat World and Acceptance are bands we were influenced by. Each member of our band loves almost every record from them and it is this common ground that serves as the foundation to our current “sound”.
 
What would you say the band has already accomplished and what do you have your eyes set on next?
Personally I feel just being in a band that has been around this long is an accomplishment in and of itself. We’ve been really blessed to be featured in national publications like Alternative Press and Substream Music Press. We’ve been featured online in the UK, France and Spain, we’ve played on the Taste of Chaos and Warped Tour…we’ve met and befriended so many of our idols like Anberlin and Taking Back Sunday…we have been fortunate to write and record with James Paul Wisner who is responsible for producing records we loved growing up to create our new EP “KINETIC” and just recently we started charting on Billboard’s Uncharted Music Chart.  We’ve done quite a bit and we are proud of it.
 
Our goal now is to really do our very best to let everyone know who we are with this new EP. We would love to set ourselves up with a label that is as passionate about our music as we are. Outside of that we really just want to hit the road and spend our time gaining more fans, one city at a time.
 
Thus far, what’s a favorite memory or something quirky that’s taken place with the band (in-studio, onstage, or elsewhere)?
Probably my favorite experience was just listening to our new record in the studio with our producer James. Once we were all done with tracking the parts, he brought us into the control room and we played the songs. We couldn’t help but smile and it just hit me that we’ve spent time with a world class producer and we made something we knew our fans, family and friends would really respond to. It was an amazing experience.
 
As far as live I would definitely say the best experience we’ve ever had was the night we played our music video premiere party. It was milestone because it was the first show we did with Colton as a member of the band and everything just came together brilliantly. The show was intense, the crowd was insane, we had people dancing on top of the bars, people swinging from the ceiling of the room, people spitting fire, our singer catching a bottle that was lit and putting it out with his mouth and it all culminated with all our fans ending up on stage with us singing the words to our last song of the night and having a stage party. Best show ever.
 
Is there anything in particular that you’d like people to take away from listening to your music?
Music to me is incredibly subjective so I wouldn’t want to tell someone what to think/feel when they’re listening to it. However, I would like to have people really enjoy the songs for what they are and find a meaning in the lyrics that cater to their life and personal experience.
 
Because if they can do that then we’ve done our jobs as artists to create something that helps someone find a means to express themselves. 

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