[It doesn’t matter what school you go to, what state it is in, how big it is, whether it is public or private, all girls or coed…there are experiences that all college students share.No matter how crazy you think your personal situation is, it is not just you. So, let’s bring it all out in the open. Right here. Because you are not alone - we’ve all been there before.]

It’s your roommate’s birthday. Or the end of a brutal exam week. Or maybe it’s just Thursday. Whatever the reason, you are in line at the neighborhood liquor store, 30 pack of some cheap beer in hand, ready to start the power hour.

While you pick up the goods, your friend is at home building the perfect Power Hour CD: 60 songs, each cut down to the best 60 seconds. It’s the raddest blend of top 40 hits, 80s classics, and your favorite songs (Bootylicious?) to sing along to.

When you get home, you find your Power Hour crew sitting on the couch and floor around the coffee table ready and waiting for you. Each has her own special shot glass in front of her. There is an open seat at the end of the table with a penis shot glass in front of it. Your favorite shot glass. That seat is for you.

You divvy up the beers – 5 to each girl – before you sit down, crack your first brew, and settle in for the hour of fun.

The first ten minutes of the power hour pass by like any other time. Sure, you fill your shot glass each time the song changes, but between shots of beer you catch up with your friends on their day, their drama and that bitch of an exam you all had in Econ.

After a few more minutes (and the move onto beer #2), you begin laughing a bit more and singing along with the music.  You reminisce about the time you hooked up to “The Gambler,” or that hilarious party when your stereo kept playing “4 Minutes” on repeat.

And then the 30 minute mark hits and it is as if someone turned up the drunk on the group.

Suddenly everyone is standing up, dancing, and screaming along to the music. Each new song brings a series of shouts from Power Hour-ers: “DRINK!!!” Then, “OMG I LOVE THIS SONGGGG!” And finally, “OMFG WHY DID THAT SONG END SO QUICKLY?! DRINKKKK.”

As the 45 minute mark comes and goes, girls are dancing on chairs, someone is wearing the cardboard beer case as a hat, and a few girls go missing.

“Where is Amy?!”

“She had to pee!”

“She’s gonna miss the next shot!”

“Don’t worry!” Amy calls from upstairs. “I brought my beer with me!”

When minute 55 rolls around, you notice girls rolling around. On the floor. Laughing. Holding their full and achy stomachs. Telling the other girls how much they love them and how they want to be BFF forever.

One girl is upstairs puking. “I’m not that drunk,” she says. “Too much liquid!”

Finally, once the floor is covered in empty cans and you can’t feel your tongue anymore, minute 59 rolls around. As always, your friend chooses a sappy friendship song (O.A.R. “I Feel Home,” or something like it) to end the party. Everyone grabs their shot glasses, puts their arms around one another and hugs it out for the final minute.

Then you all stumble out of the house in search of the next party/to go to the bar, leaving your mess (and the girl who is still upstairs puking) for later.

Ah. The Power Hour.

We’ve all been there.

[Photo courtesy of www.powerhourgame.com]

A growing sense of disdain for Dubya didn’t cut it. Being able to register at the DMV just didn’t do the trick either. P. Diddy couldn’t get us to do it, for Christ’s sake. So just what will it take to seriously win the youth vote? We are, after all, 20 million strong and dammit we deserve to be wooed!

I, for one, would like to see an increase in, shall we say, “game” from candidates both blue and red. McCain, obviously, has taken a step toward this lofty goal by recruiting the support of one of our high holy leaders. Sorry, Obama, that you have neglected to secure such a prestigious pledge of loyalty from the chosen generation (us, duh) but feel free to borrow any of these gems that I think would increase voter turnout for those of the youthful persuasion. You see gentlemen, the key to our hearts is to manipulate our basic dependence upon the following:

Natty Lite

Slap some platform positions on the back of those bad boys and cover up the saddening nutrition facts–we don’t need to see that anyways. I consider this a double-edged sword. Not only would the important issues be readily at hand (provided you go coozie-less), but additionally, voters can appreciate the conversational lubrication that is cheap beer. As inspiring as 4.2% alcohol can be to philosophical convos (if you drink, don’t EVEN pretend you’ve never been there post bar crawl!) that stuff takes a while to imbibe, making those discussions last just a wee bit longer. Now that a pseudo intellectual discush has gone down, both candidates have enjoyed spirited (literally) debate over their issues that should inspire sober consideration come November.

Facebook.

Okay so beyond groups, events, Flair, etc., Facebook remains a largely untapped renewable resource that neither of the candidates have considered drilling off the coast of. I, however, have pondered many a time just what my life would be like should bumper stickers ever be converted into useable currency. The first guy who figures out how to do this (come on Congress, I know you’ve thought about it too!) could easily channel the power of a demographic that has more disposable free time than disposable income. Split it down the middle of the “recently popular category”– McCain gets all proceeds from those vintagey pastel ones with witty quips and Obama nabs all those concerning Edward Cullen, whoever he is. Convert those bad boys to campaign donations and hot damn we might just end world hunger.

Pizza.

A dietary need for everyone from Rhodes Scholars to Stoners, and all of us in between. If only the powers that be had thought to harness this essence of cheesy, carby goodness. So it may seem a little unorthodox, but hey, this is def a ground breaking race. So to demonstrate just how far you would go to serve your people (sit down McCain) I’m almost positive that door to door delivery of pies is the way to go. It proves you’re omnipresent (watch out terror!), punctual (30 minutes or it’s free!) and dedicated to the needs of your public (fatty deliciousness.)

Thirsty Thursdays.

A hallowed staple of coeds across the nation, Thursday nights are a beacon of hope throughout a heavy week of exams, papers, and lectures that make it seem like Friday will never come. So we said f*ck it, started the weekend early and vowed to slog through hungover Friday classes. I think this kind of pluck and determination should be recognized by the men fighting for our loyalty. Personally, I feel that there’s a lot to be said for the ability of wasted people to recall song lyrics– attend any AYCD with a Dave Matthews Cover Band and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Boys, I’m thinking you should use the power of blind conformity to your advantage and have O.A.R. write your campaign songs from now on; let the sound of your manufactured ideals pour into your ears from the mouths of random drunks of our great country. Conversely, I am a staunch adversary of drinking and driving, and I’m sure you both are too. To reinforce your standpoint, I suggest you put your money where your billion dollar defense budget is: pay our cab fare for the ride home!

So there you have it: our necessities. And unless you can find a way to guarantee state sponsored booty calls (this would be a good time to consider Spitzer for a running mate) you just won’t get any closer to secure the “youth vote.” Of course I realize that these are highly generalized (some might even suggest degrading) paths to our vote, but so far the best anyone’s come up with is MTV cramming their airtime with veejays and celebrities urging us to “rock the vote.” So, ya know, until the grown ups figure out we’re capable of intelligent thought and all, any more brilliant ploys our future president can use to earn our vote?

Imagine my excitement, then, when I found out that their newest album, All Sides was coming out July 15th (tomorrow!), I was going to be able to listen to it before it was released, and I was going to be able to interview them! Life doesn’t get much better than this. Below is my dream realized – a jovial chat with Jerry DePizzo, the ridiculously talented man behind the sax for O.A.R.

CC: I have been listening to the new album-I think it’s fantastic. Why did you call it, All Sides?

O.A.R.: Well, we wanted to make it self-explanatory, we always kind of like to – not necessarily wear our emotions on our sleeves – but kind of let everything hang out. It just means you see all sides of the band, what we can do musically and stylistically and different subject matters of which we speak out. It’s an all-encompassing perspective of OAR.

CC: In your earlier albums, you took a lot of inspiration from college, and growing up–what was your inspiration for the songs on this album?

O.A.R: Well, it’s always life experiences. Mark always takes experiences either he’s gone through himself, or people close around him have experienced and puts them into words that people can really relate to and connect with.

CC: How have those life experiences changed since you guys recorded your last album?

O.A.R.: Nothing really has changed as far as this record, other than the fact that we’ve gotten a little older, hopefully a little wiser. The 1st couple records were of wonderment and soul-searching, wondering what’s out there.

CC: Putting together an album is obviously a lot of work; what is your process? How do you decide what you want on an album?

O.A.R.: We wrote a whole batch of songs. God knows how many; 25 or 30, and we narrowed it down to 15 or 16 that we were gonna record. We wanted each one to have really a specific purpose to it and show a specific side of who we are.

CC: What was the biggest challenge for you guys when you were working on the album?

O.A.R: You know, our core audience is like 16-22, that “just getting out high school, getting into college”-aged people–and it’s pretty easy to relate to someone like that when you’re that age. As you get older, you’re obviously gonna lose touch. So, the challenge on this record is to write music that really speaks to us, and tells really what we’re dealing with and going through, but also tells it in a way that our audience really connects with us.

CC: You guys have sold over a million records in your career – what’s your next big goal?

O.A.R.: Goals change as you kind of evolve and go through things. There’s a lot of different goals that I have: I’d love to sell a million of one specific record, and I’d love to sell out stadiums and arenas and tour all over the world. I’d love to get a Grammy–all kinds of different things like that–and be recognized by our peers, and get the cover of Rolling Stone. But really, what I’d honestly love to do more than anything is just keep doing this as long as I want to do it.

CC: Do you ever think to yourself that you never want to play “A Crazy Game of Poker” again?

O.A.R.: I never want to play it the same way. We play that song every night, and if we played it the same it would be boring and uninspired, and you guys probably wouldn’t like it too much either, because it would show.

CC: So, how do you keep from getting bored with it?

OAR: We try to do it differently every night, something new and fresh–it’s kind of self-serving, but it helps you guys as well, because if we come up with something new and fresh and exciting and that we’re inspired by, we’re gonna play it all the more inspired. It’s gonna translate more, and you’re gonna be like ‘Wow, that’s awesome,” and “that was worth the $30 to go see them play that one song.’

CC: I’ve seen a lot of shows in my time and I have always thought it was worth the money. You guys always look like you are having the best time. Do you have as much fun onstage as you seem to, or are you playing it up?

O.A.R.: Oh, I have a blast. It’s hard to tour; if it weren’t the most fun I could ever conceive of having, it wouldn’t be worth it, to be honest. It’s pretty taxing on the people around you – you see the wear and tear it takes on your family and relationships. After a while, you question yourself: is it worth it? Then you get out on that stage and go, “Yep, definitely worth it. 110%” We really do enjoy what we do, we love what we do and love playing for people. It’s a great experience.

CC: OSU is a huge football school; were you a big Buckeye fan?

O.A.R.: I was never a guy who tailgated and stuff–I waited tables in college, and if we weren’t out touring, game days were really a good day to work because you made a ton of money. I’d buy tickets and then hawk ‘em or whatever.

CC: You’ve never been to a game??

O.A.R.: I only went to one game, and I wasn’t even in college when I went. I went to Texas-OSU game at the Horse Shoe. It was great, it was an awesome experience–people are goings nuts, you can’t help yourself but take part in it and feel a part. And when they win, and you feel like you willed them to victory. And when they lose, they take a piece of you with them.

CC: So, you didn’t do football Saturdays; what was your college experience like!?

O.A.R.: Well, we had such a unique experience, almost like an athlete really, because we went to school–most of us at least went to class–Monday through Thursday or Friday, and then Friday nights we’d go out on tour, and we did that for like three years. It was a pretty unique college experience. It’s not your norm, I’ll say that.

CC: What did you learn at school that you think everyone should take to heart?

O.A.R.: I imagine at orientation, when everyone goes and you sit down, the Dean of Students or something, or president of university, will give you some sappy speech about bonds for life and meeting people, that the people you meet in college will be around and surround you for the rest of your life, and the ties that you have will be there forever. It’s sappy and completely cheesy, but it’s 110% true.

CC: I agree. Any other truths you learned in college?

O.A.R.: College is a time to really find out who you are as a person and who you want to be. It’s funny how you figure that out and move on from it, and it sticks with you.

CC: What are you guys most excited for right now?

O.A.R.: We have this new record coming out. We’re just immensely proud of it and we hope everyone enjoys it as much as we do. I hope we’re able to reach a broader audience and kind of show everybody everything we’re capable of and not just be pigeonholed as a band that people really like to drink beers to. I think there’s a lot more substance to this band and if you give it a listen, you’ll see that.

CC: I think anyone who picks up this album will fall in love. What do you think it is about the band that makes you so successful?

O.A.R.: I was trying to figure it out for years–what is it that set O.A.R. apart? What is it that we do that people really gravitate towards and connect to? And it took me forever, and I just figured it out a couple months ago–it’s not rocket science and it’s not some crazy formula: it’s just the fact that we make people feel good when we play music. We make people feel good, regardless of what we really talk about in the songs.

]Editor’s Note: All Sides is O.A.R.’s best album yet. This is a must-have. Go get it!]