Orgy lead, Jay Gordon describes his band's breakthrough album, Candyass as "a bunch of lies and fairy tales," while their producer and sixth member, Josh Abraham describes the debut masterpiece as "five-in-the-morning, pissed-off, kill-each-other kinda stuff." But, however you describe it, history will label this album as the break of a lifetime for this death pop quintet. Their first single, "Blue Monday," has become an alternative radio and MTV staple and their album has found a welcome home in collections of weary rock fans nationwide.
Candyass rings in your system like a rainy Sunday morning when you don't exactly remember where you were the night before. It's a little gruff; but overall there's a certain mellow mentality which relaxes you; numbs you, but you don't mind. This emotional immediacy stems from the way the band was formed according to Gordon. "Ryan [Shuck, Orgy's guitarist] and I conceptualized Orgy only about six months before we were signed. We started writing songs together as soon as we hooked up. It started off in a garage with Josh, our co-producer. We just started throwing some rough shit together, and the next thing you know we're recording an album and making plans to tour with Korn!" This punctuated rout to success has allowed the band to feed off the initial energy and spark of their creation. They haven't had to mutate their sound to suit record label heads, or water down their appeal for a wider audience. However, many young bands feel the need to compromise their artistic instincts in turn for fiscal security on their first albums.
Orgy is comprised of five Southern Californian musicians who spent their time in various bands until they came together on a chance rocket ship to the top. Orgy was introduced to the public with one hell of a business card. The band toured with established superacts like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Ice Cube, Rammstein, and more on the "Family Values" tour last year. The tour, the record contract, the wild ride is all in part due to the band's close bond with Korn. Being the first band Korn signed on their new Elementree Records label wasn't just dumb luck for Orgy, but due to the fact that Jay Gordon had a working relationship with Korn frontman, Jon Davis, long before anybody heard ot the Bakersfield quintet (or even before they had a record contract of their own). The two shared the same management company and used to hang out and play in the same clubs. So, once Korn found their own label where they made all the decisions, naturally, Orgy was their first choice. The five guys from Orgy, Jay Gordon (vox), Amir Derakh (g-synth), Ryan Shuck (guitar), Paige Haley (bass), Bobby Hewitt (drums), certainly agree that it's a privilege to be signed with a label that is run by musicians and not by a bunch of bourgeois, money-seeking, record company suits.
"But you know the best thing, the very best thing about it all is that we have a great label, it's fantastic to be part of label that is run by real people, guys like us, and not some guys in suits." Whoever would think that these elecrto-glam-punks were always fascinated by the groove and possibilities of electronic sound is dead wrong. As Jay Gordon confesses, his first step into music was influenced by decidedly non-groovy and vehemently glamourless Heavy Metal. This was the case since it was the first concert he ever saw at the impressionable age of twelve.
"I was 12-years-old and saw Iron Maiden and the Scorpions in concert. Somebody must have given me some crazy drug and I loved it. I was so impressed, the show, the music, everything. I was completely into it!" Small wonder that the rebellious allure of music didn't do wonders for his achievements in school once Jay discovered this new passion. He completely lost interested in everything that concerned books, pencils, and school so to focus completely into his music.
"I was rather a good pupil until high school, but when I decided to concentrate on music, to play more music, the teachers started to bore me to death. Somehow I managed to finish high school, but I still don't know how I did that, don't ask me how. I realized that I'd need a job, so I [studied to become] a sound engineer and I guess that's the direction in which I want to go: production and movies. But not now, sometime later in my life, not straight away, for the moment, Orgy is pretty important."
Gordon, originally from San Francisco, no exactly a home town synonymous with Electronic Rock, confesses with a grin and explains that he used to meddle in quite a lot of different scenes.
"For a while I kind of flipped through different scenes, you know. For a while I was enthralled by trash bands like Exodus, Megadeth, Metallica, and Death Angel, but I was always open for almost every style there was. I went to glam shows and was inspired by Bowie, Slayer, everything. Music and science fiction always fascinated me. When I moved to LA, I started to play in hard-core bands and met people like Korn. You could say I assimilated a lot of different styles." "I saw only two possibilities for me, one was music and the other one was sports, and here I am now, a singer in a crazy band!" He laughs.
Obviously, music replaced sports, and like a lot of bands all over the globe, Orgy discovered the digital side of music composition. However, American electronica has a very different style from their European counterparts. European electronic style are usually a duo work in a studio. America has a strong, ingrained guitar and band-oriented history, which transferrers to the unique sound of American digital tunes. Orgy take pride in being a real band who performs together and collaborates.
"I think the general public is ready for new dimensions in music, especially the people in America. If you look at The Prodigy, for example, they're such a huge success, it simply proves the fact that the audience is hungry for new ideas.
But I'm used to be in a real band, being a member of a band and not just being locked away in a studio. If yo're in a real band, there's so much more going on, especially on stage. Far more visual effects and all that."
Another reason why he thinks that it's so important to be in a band is, that Orgy loves playing live. "We know how to use a computer, but it's important to produce that sound live on stage. We're listening to tons and tons of stuff, like albums, new albums, old albums, and then we find a sound, or just a fragment of a sound we like and we sample it, change it around and come up with a new sound. Our drummer Steve has a brand new system, he can play it live... We don't want a computer on stage, we're a rock band with a singer, not a studio project. Okay, we often face some technical difficulties, but so what? We['ve managed to overcome them so far and we'll continue to do so." Jay starts explaining what was the original idea behind Orgy and why the glam punks embraced the electronic sound with such a ferocit.
"We wanted to do something else, something completely different. Our guitars shouldn't sound like guitars, but like weird space sounds. I love drums, real drums, and I love a real bassist, but there's no reason that a bass should sound like a real bass. The technique is always going forward and is giving us new dimensions to work with, some real sound adventures and it would be really narrow minded not to use them. There's no reason not to use everything that's available." His background as a sound engineer also started to give him the habit to collect drum machines, he confesses the he collects them excessively.
"I think I own a graveyard of drum machines, they always fascinated me. Of course, now they're all outdated, but I still keep them, they sound so cool and you can always use them again. I'm not parting with them."
Jay Gordon already explained that his previous musical tastes helped him to "assimilate" a lot of different styles, but his influences are firmly planted in the 80's new wave and electronic roots and not in the 90's sometimes gruff industrial genre, even if he is a fan. "Of course I listen to industrial, I like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails amd all that, there are a lot of cool elements in industrial. But, I think it's a bit boring to listen to the same loop over and over, for a lot of people it's just noise. I think the gothic element has a lot more feelings to offer and it makes out sound more accessible for people.
"I think it all started in the 80's, they paved a way, music was accessible fr almost everybody due to the new technologies that were available. Depeche Mode, New Order, Scritti Politti, Eurythmics, Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy, they showed that there are new dimensions in music, they opened the doors and we're trying to walk through one."