by Chas Berg
Omniscience was started in early 1998. It all started in June of 1997 when Andrew Martin, then the vocalist and guitarist for a punk band named Quixilver, and Lucas Ryan, then the bassist for Quixilver, were attending a talent show in Plymouth, Wisconsin. One of the people playing in the show was Abe Higgins. Andrew and Lucas were both impressed by Abe's drumming and wanted to get him to play drums for Quixilver, but didn't really know him. Later that month, Lucas happened to be in a summer class that Abe was in. They talked about it, and Abe was then the official drummer for Quixilver. In September (still 1997), the three discovered guitarist Chris Wilson, when he asked Abe if he wanted to jam sometime. The next week, Chris came to a rehersal and instantly became a meamber of Quixilver. The band began writing tunes and playing covers. However, Quixilver was about to end. Chris moved down south in November, and Lucas left the band in December. Abe and Andrew didn't know what to do. In January, 1998, Andrew started playing around with music software and Abe had gotten into MODs. Soon they made a decision to begin doing electronic music. "I had a love for industrial music before that, but I hadn't realized that I could create it without having a bunch of costly equipment," says Martin. Andrew played Abe a bunch of his industrial CDs and asked Abe if he wanted to join an industrial music project. Abe said that sounded cool so they decided to start making some tracks. Still without much directon, they began creating music. Andrew's tastes added the heavy edge and driving synths. Abe was the mind behind the killer beats and kept the music dancable. In March, they decided on the name Omniscience. Still using almost all computer software controlled by Andrew's MIDI controller, they have created industrial tracks ever since.
