Interview: Orange

4 November 2011

Orange are starting to make waves around the UK pop-punk scene, bringing a much-needed edge to the genre.

We spoke to front-man Joe Dexter a couple of hours before the band supported Bowling For Soup in Manchester.

-The tour's nearing it's end - how's it been?
The tour has been one of the best experiences of all our lives actually. It's been the biggest tour we've ever done, and it's also been the first tour we've ever done without any days off. So, it's also been quite gruelling, but it's so worth it. It's been a dream come true for me, to tour with Bowling For Soup. I've been such a fan since I was 13 years old.

-I was going to ask, with the pop-punk sound of your music, whether they were a big influence?
Absolutely, yeah. I remember the first moment I heard 'Girl All The Bad Guys Want' on Kerrang! and I was totally hooked. Here we are, ten years later, on tour with them.

-They do get their critics from the purists in the pop-rock scene. Do you see the criticisms?
Nah, I just think they're amazing at what they do, which is amazing pop-punk songs. At the same time, when you listen to it, they've actually got really good, serious songs too like 'Where To Begin', 'Turbulence', there are a lot of them.

-How have you gone down on the tour with their fan-base?
Great, man - really good. Particularly the last year and a half, when we started getting into the pop-punk scene, was when we started to find our feet. Before then we were living in L.A., signed to an L.A. label, and touring America all the time with all these pop punks - Misfits, The Addicts, all these punk bands.

While it was a huge honour to tour with bands like that, it just didn't make any sense. As soon as Zebrahead took us, that was our first pop punk tour, and our fan-base in the UK grew really quickly after that.

-Do you still get awestruck at all at the people you get to tour with, or do you take it in your stride at this point?
At this point, I think we take it in our stride, which is cool. The thing is, we've been around for 11 years. For me, being so heavily in the music scene over the years and becoming friends with so many of my influences, it becomes easier for me to see them as people, rather than people that I idolise.

-Earlier this year you toured with New Riot, how were they?
Oh, they were really cool guys. They were really fun. We drew really good crowds, it was a co-headlining thing. We were just really happy to do it. They had just come off tour with Reel Big Fish I think. It was great.

-Also on this tour is Suburban Legends - you're both from California. Had you played with them before this tour?
No, never. I'd heard their name floating around forever, and I've seen them play for a lot of a bands we wished we'd have played with. We're actually talking about us and them doing a co-headling tour next year, maybe in April. It's in talks, but I mean it's not confirmed whatsoever.

-Will that be in the US?
No, that'll be here - we don't tour America anymore. We'd been touring there for ten years, and it's just been s***. As soon as we started touring here, it's been working. So, you've gotta go where you're wanted.

-Is there much of a difference between the crowds?
So much difference, yeah man. F****** audiences in America are very judgemental, serious and very aggressive. The kids here come wanting to have fun, they're not scared or thinking about how good they look. They're just here to rock out and have a good night.

-Well when I spoke to Chris [Burney] from Bowling For Soup at Download this year, he mentioned how there's a bigger emphasis on radio play, in terms of getting tours?
Huge, it's massive. If you're not on the radio in America, it's hard to do anything, which is unfortunate. There's so many great bands over there that are not on the radio, but have hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube or whatever.

The problem is most radio stations just stick to their favourite 20 bands that they've been playing for the last 20 years. Radio is still flooded with s*** from the '90s over there.

-Despite your fan-base growing, there will be people who don't know you yet. For those people, how did the band actually start?
When I was about 13 years old, I moved to L.A. and me and my friend at the time had started playing bass. We were both into Sum 41 on that time, we thought - let's start a pop-punk band, but it'll just be two bass players, that'll be it.

We thought it was really cutting edge, then realised it was complete s***! We got a keyboardist, and it was even more s***. We became a disco-sex-pop-act - it was terrible.

What happened one night was we went up to go see Sum 41 in L.A. and we left the venue thinking...oh, that's what we should be doing. It was that very night that we formed the band, we became Orange.

-Recently you've released the Dead Sexy EP to coincide with this tour. Have you managed to gauge much of a reaction to it yet?
We don't get sales reports until a few months after, because it comes in quarters, but Facebook buzz has been really good. All the fans are responding super well to it.

We kinda did it to give the people who don't know Orange coming to this tour, something to discover us by, something new. Each album, it feels like we've progressed so many steps. Dead Sexy is a really good teaser for the next record we're going to do next year.

-Have you started work on the next record then?
Yeah. The thing is, I'm always in the process of making a next record, all the time. I'm never not working, so it's definitely in process. We've got probably about 80-something songs. When we get back to L.A. from tour we'll start working on that really heavily.

-I'm not sure how it is in the States, but over here there's quite a heavy download culture. Is that something you've found difficult?
The thing is, it was difficult at first, especially because when we first got signed and put out our record, it was just as downloading hit. We never really sold that many records to be honest. We've been lucky enough to have word of mouth, YouTube hits and TV stuff. I think downloading is the way of the future. You've gotta adapt to a new kind of music business if you want to survive.

-Moving back to the EP, Ryan Hewitt produced it. Are you looking to work with him on the next album?
Definitely, I don't wanna work with anyone else at this point. He does such a good job.

-What was it he brought to it then?
What I really loved, was he brought such a good energy. I've always been really into good vibes, energy and different spiritual things. He's just got such a good attitude, and he's also really creative.

-In terms of that energy and vibe, is that something you try to bring to the live environment?
Totally, yeah. We always bring a really heavy impact of high-energy fun to our sets. Actually, just yesterday, I've been a little bit ill so I've not been able to go as crazy as I normally do. Hopefully I'll feel okay by tonight, but there's never a moment where we're just standing. It's pretty mental, the whole show.

-Is that important, particularly when you're supporting someone?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I think live shows, how you dress, what you say, what songs you play, how the set flows - it's so important. You're not really going to get s*** from records these days. Everyone who sees you, you've got to make that count.

Our shows are scripted - we know exactly what moves we're going to do here and there, what we're going to see. That's what a lot of bigger bands do - I mean, Green Day, all their shows are scripted. I think that's a really good way of delivering the best you possibly can.

-I was reading something that said you had a major music publishing deal?
What happened was we got chosen to do the theme song for Cartoon Network's Generator-Rex, about a year and a half ago. From that, we got hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube. It really helped propel the band a bit.

The publishers heard about that, and liked the sound of my voice. They asked me, it's kinda a funny story. They asked my manager if I'd be willing to do a demo for a film called Arthur. I went and sang on this, and I didn't know the song was a cover, I thought it was an original.

I was like...this song sucks - the arrangements are terrible. I was really going on about it - let me help you make it better. I sounded like a right arrogant p****, but she was really impressed by that, she was like - "F***, this kid's got initiative!" They took a shot at me, and we signed a publishing deal about a year ago.

-What's on the horizon with that, then? Are there any plans at the moment?
Well, how that works is they send you assignments every week or so, and you just pick and choose what you want to have a go at. To actually get picked for something, it had better be f****** good. A lot of luck is involved.

-Is it something you find hard balancing with the band?
No, it's totally easy. All I do...I don't have a regular job, I just sit home and write songs all day. It fits in really nicely with how I work with Orange.

-Moving to the pop-punk scene as a whole, there are bands like yourself and Forever The Sickest Kids making waves - what do you think of the state of the scene at the moment?
It's a little confused. Every time there's this new pop-punk band coming out that everyone excited about, to me it sounds really...just to whiney, too nice. There's just no balls to it anymore.

-I've noticed pop-punk bands recently starting to heavily rely on synth, more than they should.
Yeah, it's true. It's all becoming too sugary for me. I like to bring a side of aggression to the pop-punk scene, like '90s pop-punk was really high-energy and fun. It had good lyrics, and it wasn't so whiney.

It sounds like all these pop-punk bands right now, their first influences of music were things like Fall Out Boy - there was nothing before that, which is where everyone's going wrong. It's a little confusing to me, but you have to go with the times if you want to survive.

-You've mentioned the new album and possibly a co-headline tour. What else do you have planned?
We're kinda just focusing on making the best album we can at the moment, and definitely planning coming back to the UK in a couple of months for another tour. Beyond that...no idea. I just want to get those two things sorted first.

Female First - Alistair McGeorge

Orange are starting to make waves around the UK pop-punk scene, bringing a much-needed edge to the genre.

We spoke to front-man Joe Dexter a couple of hours before the band supported Bowling For Soup in Manchester.

The problem is most radio stations just stick to their favourite 20 bands that they've been playing for the last 20 years. Radio is still flooded with s*** from the '90s over there.