One Day As A Lion

[justinsayne]

One Day as a Lion is a duo consisting of vocalist/keyboardist Zack de la Rocha and drummer Jon Theodore.

History

Theodore was earlier a member of The Mars Volta, while de la Rocha is a member of Rage Against the Machine. One Day as a Lion is notable for sometimes featuring de la Rocha's melodic singing rather than the rapping style he uses with Rage Against the Machine. However, de la Rocha's lyrics continue to emphasize political and activist themes.

On July 16, 2008, the song "Wild International" was made available to stream on the band's MySpace page and was given its Australian radio premiere by Triple J and American radio premiere by KROQ. The band's eponymous debut EP was released on July 18th, 2008 in Australia and four days later in the US, and was also released on iTunes.

As of mid-2008, One Day as a Lion is expected to tour sometime soon, though de la Rocha is preoccupied with the Rage Against the Machine Reunion Tour for the immediate future. On August 11, de la Rocha spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the new project, his first interview in over eight years. He revealed that a full-length album is scheduled for an Autumn release, and stated that they "want to play shows and be a band and go out and start some noise". He also mentions adding members to the group, revealing "We’re still in the process of forming as a band - we need a keyboard player, I’m not good enough to do it all myself - so that will be rectified soon".

Band name

The band's name derives from an infamous black and white graffiti photograph taken by Chicano photographer George Rodriguez in 1970 with a caption reading "it's better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand years as a lamb."

Opening Week

One Day as a Lion's eponymous EP placed as the 28 album of the week, selling 17,000 copies in its first week. Reportedly, the album has sold extremely well for a five track EP.

I have been waiting to hear Zach's side project for fucking years now, and I gotta say I'm pleased with what I've heard on this little 5 song EP, all five songs are great, though they sound almost exactly like RATM, 'almost' being the keyword there, if you're a Rage fan than you should definitely check this out, as it looks to be the closest you'll get to a new Rage album, the band (RATM) is currently taking a break so that it's members can work on their solo/side projects (Tom Morello has a new ablum out too BTW, it's pretty good, waaaaay different than anything he has done with Rage or Audioslave though, you should check that out too)

but umm yeah, here are some ODAL tracks

One Day as a Lion - Wild International
[youtube]WpM-3ezUdfk[/youtube]

One Day As A Lion - Ocean View
[youtube]VFjkhDXTDeU[/youtube]

One Day As A Lion - If You Fear Dying
[youtube]b0M4_Ln6N3Y[/youtube]

One Day As A Lion - Last Letter
[youtube]v8FSVu0w8F8[/youtube]

One Day As A Lion - One Day As A Lion
[youtube]ntz12L0TMx0[/youtube]

 

[Tim]

These 5 songs are pretty good, I liked them all. My favourite would have to be Ocean View. But I just want to say that they do not sound like RATM. Tom Morello's unique style is missing and is what makes it sound different to RATM. If they had someone who played guitar like Tom Morello, then it would be almost exactly the same as RATM. This is good, except RATM is way better, because this band is basically RATM without its unique guitar.

 

[justinsayne]

These 5 songs are pretty good, I liked them all. My favourite would have to be Ocean View. But I just want to say that they do not sound like RATM. Tom Morello's unique style is missing and is what makes it sound different to RATM. If they had someone who played guitar like Tom Morello, then it would be almost exactly the same as RATM. This is good, except RATM is way better, because this band is basically RATM without its unique guitar.

That's why I said they ALMOST sound just like RATM in my post, the fact that the band only consist of two people, and from what I understand no guitar whatsoever is pretty impressive, it's just Zach on Voacals and Keyboards, and the other dude (can't remember his name, and too lazy to be bothered to look it up) on Drums, as for finding someone who plays guitar like Morello, I don't know if that's even possible, you could easily say Tom Morello is easy one of the best guitarist of the past 20 years, so finding someone as good as him is going to be a tough task, and I don't think Morello is really interested in this project as he has his own side project/solo thing going one at the moment, and like I said before ODAL is just a side project, so I don't think Zach is necessarily looking to make it 'better' than RATM

But anyway, good post rep for you, for just posting in my thread (BTW did I just give you your first light green bar?)

 

[Tim]

You said they sound almost exactly the same, but to me they really don't sound anything like RATM apart from Zach's vocals. And Morello is a unique guitarist, the only way you're going to find someone like him is if that particular person basically studies and plays all his songs. And if you didn't know that this was just two people, you would definately think it was a three or four person band.

Also, I find it hard to believe me and Justin are the only people who like RATM and are interested in ODAL on this site. So guys, post your opinions.

 

[Paul Revere]

Yeah I just copped the One Day As A Lion EP a couple weeks ago. I enjoyed it for what it was. The name is great. I am not huge into the rock genre, but I think Rage Against The Machine are incredible; so I was eager to pick this one up. It was good, but I think it's mainly because I miss Zack de la Rocha's vocals. The little preview is nice, but I would have to hear a full album to give a true opinion on the group as a whole. I mean 5 songs isn't really much. I enjoyed the self-titled song the best, it has great instrumentals. The fact that no guitar is involved; that is pretty impressive. I'm not sure if there is a full-length album planned, but I think it has great potential and I would be very interested in picking that up.

All that being said, I would much prefer new material from Rage Against The Machine. Until then, One Day As A Lion will have to do.