Q&A: Oddysseys Follow DIY-or-Die Spirit With New Record ‘However You Want It’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY MILA MATEJCEK ☆
CHICAGO-BASED BAND ODDYSSEYS ARE COMMITTED TO MARCHING TO THE BEAT OF THEIR OWN DRUM — Formed in 2016, the Boston-born group have spent nearly a decade building up their creative identity, which prove fruitful in their new 16-track album, However You Want It, released this August. The record is an energetic heartbeat that drives home stories of love, loss and leaving. It’s a welcome creation to any listeners looking for new, innovative post-punk.
According to Oddysseys, there is no such thing as taking it easy. The band discovered themselves by independently touring venues big and small, from festival stages in Los Angeles to underground spaces in Montréal. Here, they honed their love of creative control and building up a community that feels the same way. They stand firm that freedom is the most important piece in making their music, and the group revel in their ability to do things on their terms.
At the heart of the project is Christian Treon, the sole remaining member of Oddysseys’ original lineup. He wrote, performed and mixed However You Want It alone and in the small home studio of his Chicago apartment. It wasn’t easy — challenges like studio flooding and needing to fund everything independently were certainly roadblocks. Yet Oddysseys are nothing if not resilient, and the record stands as a true testament to this.
Read Luna’s exclusive interview with Oddysseys as Treon talks However You Want It, its inspirations and the journey it took to make the record.
LUNA: When you initially set out to write your new album, However You Want It, what sort of a story or bigger picture were you hoping to create?
ODDYSSEYS: As Odd, we put out our first ep back in 2016, thinking “maybe it’ll be something we do for a short while” — something fulfilling, acting as a diary of what I liked and what I was listening to. Since then, it has blossomed into albums, tours and people who would play a huge role in my life.
The name itself came from a desire for each song to sound like a strange and unique little journey. I didn’t know I was writing an album at first, this time around; it just felt like a daily ritual that became a deeper devotion. Each song drove me deeper and deeper into moods and sounds I hadn't heard before. I was reflecting on who I had become, and what this project meant to me over all these years, always driving home the same idea: to just keep going. It became catharsis incarnate.
LUNA: Your new album is the culmination of years of work. What were some of the challenges you faced while writing the record?
ODDYSSEYS: Moving places. Floods in the studio. Computers getting wiped. Losing band members and switching out people in my life. Trying to care enough to finish it. Working 50-hour weeks at your two jobs that sometimes you don’t leave till 4 or 5 in the morning… and then having to find the energy to record, to write or [to] want to do anything. It didn’t feel possible to keep up with what are essential band duties in 2026, with being perpetually online. It just made no sense.
I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I just recorded a little every day. Just [kept] pushing through some sleepless starry-eyed nights, thinking that if it didn’t ever come out, at least I did it for me.
LUNA: What does the phrase “however you want it” mean to you?
ODDYSSEYS: For some time, it felt like I wasn’t getting the sound or idea I wanted to achieve with Oddysseys. That I had to make concession after concession to please the circumstances and people around me. That I should devote more/less time to music. That all the songs that sounded the same could create a mood.
Those lyrics that felt similar actually drove the idea more home than acted like an echo of an unrealized idea. It became a joke of itself: that we would make music however everyone else wanted… that I would do that, rather than thinking about what I wanted to hear or what I wanted to say. It’s the first time I took on every aspect of an album — writing, performing, recordinging, mixing, mastering and making the art. It was surreal and beautiful, and reminded me of why I love making music in the first place. It was also the reason we signed with Shuga [Records] here in Chicago. An album that was never planned to be, that went from words to wax.
LUNA: Your album was not only completely self funded but also recorded entirely at home. What was this DIY process like?
ODDYSSEYS: We’ve always had a DIY-or-Die mentality, that we shouldn’t wait around for anything or anyone to catch up with what we want to create. There are sounds that seem almost unexplainable, that you can only seem to find when you’re at home making mistakes, playing imperfectly and being humbled by what you can create. It forces you to learn and try different processes of writing and recording, always coming out of a session knowing more than you did before. It allows me to be more honest than I can anywhere else in life.
LUNA: Your new album explores themes of identity, resilience and uncertainty. What were some specific experiences that inspired your writing?
ODDYSSEYS: Bands, life and work all falling apart. Starting and rebuilding again, moving city to city, in and out of new spots. Making new friends. Getting my heart broken. Being depressed. Allowing myself to be as happy as I am unhappy. Quitting my job. Getting on the right meds. Giving into nostalgia. Reading more. Falling back in love with poetry. Being the only member in a band. Turning 30. Caring too much, and not enough when I’m supposed to.
It feels like therapy. It forces me to work on myself and reconcile with the present, on how art can find a larger space in my life amidst the monotony and the trials of daily living.
LUNA: You’ve played in places like Boston, LA and Montréal. What is your favorite space you’ve played, and why?
ODDYSSEYS: We absolutely love touring, because it exposes us to so many scenes we’ve known nothing about. Whether it be a DIY spot, basement or “proper” venue, it’s always been awesome to experience firsthand these places that have been staples of local culture, places that make you always feel like you were meant to be there.
The last time we toured through Canada in Montréal, we played a show at a DIY venue called Traxide. It was located in the middle of an abandoned apartment complex, in a row of what seemed like utility sheds next to train tracks. We were lost, and honestly scared as hell, but it felt like we were being let in on one of the city’s best kept secret and sacred grounds. It was a venue that I thought I’d never experience because I was born too late. Something like the Rathskeller, or something your parents or neighbors talked about going to.
I worked the door that night, met every single person there. I couldn't speak much French, but I would not have chosen another way to do it. By the time we started our set, I had met everyone in the building. I wish more shows were like that.
LUNA: What is one thing you hope listeners walk away with after listening to the new record?
ODDYSSEYS: I can do this too. I can make whatever I want. And maybe I like this band and I want to keep listening to them.
