Oh Jeremiah! is an ongoing story of the endeavors a
small-town singer/songwriter from Laurel, Ms endures while trying to make a
name for himself. Although originally meant to be a solo act, Oh Jeremiah!
became a duo, when Erin Raber joined Jeremiah Stricklin in Oh Jeremiah’s
journey. A journey, which consists of cross-country tours, convincing audience
members that music is better than beer they’re drinking, and living in a
culture where being musician is simply not considered a full-time job.
Stricklin says, “The most popular conversation I have with
strangers is, ‘So you do music full-time?’ and it’s always question where I can
hear their confusion with being a full-time musician,” Jeremiah Stricklin
performing at The Skylight Lounge.
Stricklin majored in music at the USM, until his last year,
when he switched to Entertainment Industry. Stricklin describes how music
stopped being what he wanted it to be, “I got cabin fever working day in and
day out in practice rooms, I wanted to switch and fall back in love with music.
I found that in EI.”
He started Oh Jeremiah! thinking it would be his solo dream
and then almost immediately, he found Oh Jeremiah’s missing piece, violinist
and singer, Erin Raber.
From Centerdale, Al, Raber, now a violin teacher, finally
joined Oh Jeremiah! in 2012, after Stricklin refused to take her previous and
several “no’s” to being the female violinist and singer in the band. Majoring
in violin performance and music education at USM proved to be a battle the whole
time she was in school. Raber describes
the struggles in getting her degree, “I didn’t think I could could get a performance degree, performing
was my biggest fear.”
Now Stricklin and Raber perform for hundreds and sometimes
even thousands on their tours. Last week they performed Stricklin’s original
song, Mississippi, I’m Yours,” at Best of the Pine Belt Awards, here in
Hattiesburg at the Seanger Theatre. In front of eleven hundred people the duo sang
the song “June and Jonny Cash style,” stading side by side with only a
microphone in front of them.
“We did that because every one was a big band and really
loud, we don’t think noise is nesecary, so we bring it down and when we have
that chance, that’s whenever we have really great successful shows.”
Recently, Oh Jeremiah became a family affair, after
Stricklin proposed to Raber. The engaged couple thanks Mississippi for all it
has given them. However, Oh Jeremiah’s ultimate dream is to tour with a full
band performing huge rock shows. Until then, the two will continue working on
their newest record, with hopes it will give them the financial stability to
tour with a full band.
“
Jeremiah was in several bands in high school and college,
the first band he was in was called “The Mountrushmores:”
“We broke up and I decided to go solo because I got tired of
waiting around for other people to have the same dream as me.”
We don’t have a culture that understands being a musicion
full-time
Hattiesburg needs a listening room, because its really hard
to convince someone that you're music is better than the beer they’re drinking.
Most of the time its just two of us,
Bands are loud, so they don’t have to argue with people
talking, Oh Jeremiah does the opposite, they see how low they get, how quiet
they can make it.
And when playing at a bar, you don’t stand a chance, so if
there were a listening room they would have a better time playing locally.”
Stricklin describes Oh Jeremiah’s ulitimate goal saying,
“Obviously The
ulitimate dream is to tour with a full-band and play huge rock shows.”
Hoping their new record will push them up finicailly and
allow them to travel on tour with a full-band, and it not be risky. So for now
we are doing the duo because its economical. We can do it full-time here. Our
biggest fear, with moving from Hattiesburg, is having to stop being musicians
and becoming star bucks workers. Here we get to do what we want to do. So were
trying to find a bigger town that can
let us do what were doing here.
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