Sees the day: Thee Oh Sees return to Oklahoma

John Dwyer needs to make music, otherwise you'd hate him.

"I would be an awful goblin of a man without art," he told The Oklahoman.

Dwyer, who fronts Thee Oh Sees, makes music that feels at times like raw outbursts of fuzzy psychedelic aggression and at other times like the sleepy ballads of a swamp hermit.

Throughout the band's dozen or so albums, Dwyer manages to refine that aggression in a way that makes the chaos seem spontaneous, perhaps even unhinged. A fire bursting and spreading as it pleases. But once you reach the end of any given album and you look back at its whole, the methodical elements begin to rise from the ash.

Dwyer's brand of psych-pop translates well into visceral, sweaty live shows that crackle with energy, something that fans will have a chance to witness as Thee Oh Sees headline this year's 10th rendition of the Norman Music Festival.

"Aggressive is good," Dwyer shared in an email interview. "Forward is good. I think if you aren't exhausted after a set, regardless of your output or genre, then you haven't worked enough."

Dwyer and company are known for their kinetic performances, and even he is hard-pressed to narrow down the experiences when asked if any particular wild show stands out in memory.

He said the list of concert antics is too long to dig into for an interview.

There is an odd consistency to Thee Oh Sees body of work. While the general basis feels like it comes from a familiar place with every new album, the music reaches its tentacles into new areas of the soundscape. Each release sounds different, but it doesn't, an amalgam of the comfortable and the boldly new, like a splash of liquor in your morning coffee.

In interviews, Dwyer has a way of speaking that almost seems like he's the only one aware of some inside joke. A voracious reader, he appreciates subversive authors and artists, a fact that is likely unsurprising to those familiar with his work.

Dwyer said as an artist he is shaped largely by his experiences in random clubs and venues in Rhode Island and the freedom he found as a newly transplanted 23-year-old in San Francisco.

"San Francisco was huge to me as a kid, and I loved being lost and lonely the first year," he said. "I played more guitar than ever. There were a lot of opportunities for music to happen there. It was still relatively cheap, in the grand scheme of city prices, and people were pretty freaky."

He said his songwriting style has come full circle in the nearly two decades since his cross-country move.

"Lately I've been pulling us back to my roots, which were to improvise until you find a path then explore that, then put pen to paper," Dwyer said. "I used to bring mostly formed songs to the group more often, but I find this method much more satisfying as it sort of opens up the doors a little more into new territory."