The Opin Secret: Stay Elastic

Lots of bands like to think they defy categorization. For Richmond trio Opin, eluding definition just comes naturally. While starting out almost a decade ago as a traditional rock quartet, the band over time morphed into something more elusive. They say it happened after their drummer left the band, leaving them to rely on electronic rhythms going forward. The first fruits of that resulted in Opin’s experimental electronic Hospital Street recordings.

Since then, Opin has consisted of Landis Wine, Jon Hawkins, and Tori Hovater, all of whom played in other Richmond bands such as White Laces, Navi, and Magnus Lush before teaming up.

Johnathan and Robert of J&R’s Music World sat down with Landis and Tori to get the band’s back story and learn more about what makes the trio tick:

Tell us a little bit about the band’s history.

Landis: “We started about a decade ago in 2016. Our first record came out in 2017.”

Tori: “Jon got picked up during the recording of that.”

Landis: “I ran into him when we both went to see Silver Apples … and I said, ‘just trust me and come do this band thing, it won’t take long I swear to god,’ and that was in 2016. (It was a really good Silver Apples show, too, they were really bringing it!) After that, we started writing together a lot more and then it shifted bit by bit from there. So, by the time we were done with the last record (2020’s Media & Memory) … and moved into the space we’re in now … that [created] a split between what we were doing then and what we’re doing now.”

Tori: “Opin season two!”

Landis: “Yeah!”

Tori: “I think once the three of us just started playing together … the writing horizon just sort of opened up and things started happening very naturally. After that I don’t think it ever felt natural to bring a drummer back in.”

So, are you still a pop band?

Tori: “Sometimes!”

Landis: “If we feel like we’re down for that, and that’s our mood for the day, then totally!”

Tori: “We have songs on this record (Opin’s impending third album Embrace the Grift) that are still structured, chorused pop songs with catchy hooks. And beyond this record I do feel like we will probably continue to move a little but further away from that … but I think there’s always going to be something poppy or catchy that you can kind of chew on.”

Tell us about your new album. How long have you been working on it?

Tori: “A freakin’ long time. Since the last full-length came out.”

Landis: “Since COVID. It took a while to shape it. The bulk of it was done through 2020-2022, and then we started mixing in 2023 and refining stuff endlessly. We got to a point … where we had moved on from what we were playing a lot and the Hospital Street series was recorded at the same time. It’s kind of the pop record we thought we were going to write … but it’s [become] a hybrid of both things.”

Tori: “We had a strange journey through the mixing and production of this record.”

Landis: “The thing that we’re more comfortable doing is improvising than learning songs that we’ve already finished and playing them again. Once [the song] ‘Bodywork’ was wrapped, we could have gone back and tried to recreate it but a) it’s not going to be the same thing, and b) if we wanted it to be, we would have to have a stack of samples and try to work with it. We’d rather [fine-tune] what we have or see how elastic that stuff can get.”

What do you like most about Richmond’s music scene and what could be improved?

Tori: “I like that Richmond’s music scene encompasses so much. We’ve really got a lot of everything. One of the things I wish could be better is I wish there was more of an interconnectedness between things. Not only to have cross-exposure … but also to create a little bit more solidarity and community amongst people who are involved.”

Whose music are you listening to right now, and whom would you love to play with?

Tori: “I want to play a show with Belly of the Heart. It might be on the docket for the future.”

Landis: “I’d like to play with Keep.”

Tori: “For the last couple of years I’ve been heavily into modern Latin music. Chuwi from Puerto Rico is a go-to artist. They do some interesting genre-bending things … they do whatever they want.”

Landis: “I really like that new Barker record [2025’s Stochastic Drift].”

Follow Opin on Bandcamp.