The O’My’s spread the love by ‘Keeping the Faith’

BY MOIRA MCCORMICK | FOR THE SUN-TIMES

“There’s blood in L.A., there’s blood in Chicago,” singer-guitarist Maceo Haymes keened pensively, while the horns and rhythm section of the O’My’s threw down urgent, staccato lines. “There’s blood in D.C., there’s blood in Ohio/There’s blood in Ferguson, there’s blood in all our sons …”

As the surging young Chicago-based soul/funk combo continued rehearsing “It’s Blood,” a poignant new composition about police violence in America, its guest co-writer – noted local poet and activist Malcolm London, 21 – tapped laptop keys in the dining-room-cum-practice-space’s entryway, adding finishing touches to a fervent rap he planned to stir into the song. The O’My’s premiere “It’s Blood” live when the multi-instrumental, multiethnic group makes its latest headlining appearance at Metro on Feb. 13.

Here in the snug yellow Wicker Park house shared by longtime pals, group co-founders and roomies Haymes and keyboardist Nick Hennessey (the latter of whom grew up literally next door), is a repurposed bedroom dubbed PDub Studio – where the O’My’s recorded much of their 2013 indie album, “A Humble Masterpiece,” plus early demos for brand-new release “Keeping the Faith.”

Entertainment Weekly previewed “Faith”’s leadoff single, “Rise Up Singing (A Beautiful Thing),” in December, applauding “the hip-hop-loving” band and its “irrepressibly optimistic philosophy,” expressed “in a funky psychedelic groove reminiscent of Sly’s ‘There’s a Riot Goin’ On.’”

Indeed, Sly and the Family Stone were seminal influences for songwriters Hennessey, 25, and Haymes, 26, who met as high-schoolers – bonding not only over their mutual appreciation for rap’s Afrocentric, jazz-inflected Native Tongues collective, but also because of a shared “obsession” with Sly, rap progenitor Gil Scott-Heron, Chicago soul titan Curtis Mayfield, and especially maverick multi-hyphenate Cody ChesnuTT.

“He did his album ‘Headphone Masterpiece’ in his bedroom, with a four-track [recorder],” marveled Hennessey, whose Irish-American carpenter dad – a connoisseur of classic soul and funk who’d inculcated in Nick a taste for the same – had brought “Headphone Masterpiece” home. “It didn’t need a huge budget, real producer or engineer to sound amazing. Once I heard him, I decided I didn’t have to wait any longer to start creating … and I had no idea Maceo was growing up in Rogers Park listening to Cody ChesnuTT, too.”

The impressively pliant-voiced Haymes, whose ethnic heritage is “half Cuban and half black,” heard primarily as a kid “old-school Cuban music and old-school soul, funk and disco.” He remembered his college-professor father playing Parliament-Funkadelic while ferrying him and assorted neighbor kids to school – scandalizing some of the car’s tender-aged passengers, who mistook funkmeister George Clinton’s frequent deployment of his favorite signifier for the F-word.

When Maceo and Nick began writing songs together some years later, while attending different high schools (Francis Parker and Lincoln Park, respectively), Haymes recounted, “We knew we wanted a full band; Nick played in a lot of different jazz combos with a lot of different musicians.”

“I was never gonna be a jazz master, but I got what I needed from it,” acknowledged Hennessey, who recruited instrumentalists from after-school programs he’d attended, including Gallery 37. One of them, trumpeter William Miller, has performed on almost every O’My’s project since their earliest recording experiments.

“Some of those songs I wouldn’t want to play for people – lots of teenage feelings,” Haymes shuddered.”

“But very similar arrangements,” Hennessey pointed out. “Drum, bass, keyboards, guitar with vocals, three-piece horn section; it’s been that for seven years now.”

“I’m a huge fan of their music,” said Malcolm London, observing approvingly “how it has old-school funk [with] new-school feel.” He met Haymes through former Kids These Days trumpet player Nico Segal, now with high-profile Chicago MC Chance the Rapper’s band Social Experiment. The O’My’s collaborated with Chance and GLC, another player on the city’s homegrown hip-hop scene for their 2012 mixtape “Chicago Style,” helmed by prominent Chi-town production team Blended Babies.

“Love, community and family are constant themes throughout our music,” Haymes reflected. “‘Keeping the Faith’ is a reaffirmation of the only things keeping us alive.”

Moira McCormick is a local freelance writer.