Need tunage? We got you covered. Paws patrol unleashed at @JamintheVan ‘s HQ with the Orange Box and their favourite party anthems. Who let the dogs out? We did. Take your music to go with the portable but powerful Orange Box.
Orange Spotlight: The Lunar Effect
Who are The Lunar Effect?
The Lunar Effect was started by brothers Jon (guitar) and Daniel (drums) Jefford. They were then joined by bassist Brett Halsey and singer Josh Neuwford. After releasing an EP in 2016 the band went into the studio and recorded their first full length album ‘Calm Before The Calm’ in 2018 which was met with critical acclaim. An enforced Covid Hiatus and then later serious health issues with two members of the band derailed their touring plans, resulting in them needing to lay low until making an appearance at Desertfest London in 2021 before heading back into the studio to record their second album in late 2022. Just before the release of this album in 2024 they decided to thicken up their already huge sound by recruiting long term friend and collaborator Mark fuller on 2nd guitar.
What inspires The Lunar Effect?
Our favourite bands are mostly made up classics like David Bowie, T.Rex, Soundgarden, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Aside from that, it’s our overall love of writing and performing which inspires us and keeps us going. Can genuinely see us doing this when we’re all grey and old. We also like the current bands Graveyard, The Heavy Eyes and Turtle Skull.
What Orange gear is important to The Lunar Effect?
Currently we are using a TH30 guitar head and AD200 Bass head. We recently also used a Little Bass Thing and a Rocker 15 Head.
Future Orange amps?
We would love to try using a Thunderverb 200 and Rockerverb 50
What does Orange mean to you?
Orange is a brand that you instantly recognise. Whether you are in the front row at a gig or right at the back of the room propped up against the bar, they’re impossible not to notice. You just know an Orange amp when you hear one, let alone see one. Apart from the sound, the fact the gear is made from quality parts and is incredibly hardwearing and roadworthy. That’s a huge plus-point.
What’s the most memorable The Lunar Effect moment?
We’ve had a lot of memorable moments over the years but we’ll never forget our very first gig. It was on a Tuesday night in a pub in Leytonstone, playing to just the bar staff and one punter. He was absolutely spangled and, inexplicably, had a blow-up guitar with him. Throughout our whole set this bloke was dancing like it was going out of fashion whilst headbanging and strumming away on his blow-up fender. It was all for him.
What’s on the horizon for The Lunar Effect?
Well, we’ve released “Pulling Daisies” and “Flowers For Teeth”, our first new releases in five years and first singles from our new album “Sounds of Green & Blue” (out everywhere, available to order via Svart Records now!). We have a huge album launch show at The Black Heart in Camden on 26th April. After that, as well as the usual London shows we’ll be hitting the road going up and down the country, including a couple of overseas shows in the pipeline which we can’t wait for.
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Orange Jams is a series of live sessions hosted by Orange & Jam in the Van which features Orange ambassadors from across the globe. This session features Orange ambassador Marcus King live with Jam in the Van at Whale Rock Music & Arts Festival.
Thank you for tuning into our Marcus King Orange Jams session, we hope you loved it just as much as we do. Check out the rest of our Orange Jams sessions here, and visit Jam in the Van’s website and socials for more music and comedy.
Orange: Can you introduce yourself?
Pickle: Hey! I’m Pickle from Frankie and the Witch Fingers!
Orange: Can you name five songs you can’t get enough of right now?
1 – “Queen of the Underground” by GOAT
2 – “As Above, So Below” Tom Tom Club
3 – “Cave Crawl” Warm Drag
4 – “Love is the Drug” Roxy Music
5 – “There You Are” Nate Mercerau
Orange: How did you end up playing with Frankie & The Witch Fingers?
Pickle: Oh, I wound up playing music with these boys because they asked me to! I originally met Josh the lead guitarist in 2015 when our former bands did a two-week tour together, and I ended up becoming close friends with the whole Frankie gang over the subsequent years. I was busy playing and touring in other bands, but in my spare time I was always doing whatever I could to support Frankie from behind the scenes. Like, designing show posters and album covers, and making merch for them – plus I did live photography and ran their merch booth on a handful of tours for them. I was already deeply embedded in the Frankie family, so it was a pretty organic transition when they parted ways with their original bassist in 2020 and they asked me to step in.
Orange: Can you tell us a bit about your musical background prior to that?
Pickle: Before I joined this band, I had been playing music on-and-off for about 5 years with another LA-based garage band called Death Valley Girls. That was definitely my longest-running musical group and it’s what taught me the most about touring, but I’ve been jumping around between different LA bands since 2010 when I first started playing music.
Orange: How old were you when you got into playing, and what triggered the interest in music beyond listening?
Pickle: Honestly, I never thought I’d ever be a musician! I grew up in a very musical household, my Dad was a touring keyboardist for Steppenwolf and Berlin among other bands, and he and my uncle were always playing live rock music and jamming around me. In typical teenage fashion I considered it kinda lame. I thought “this shit is for old dudes from the 1970’s”. I loved listening to music, especially classic rock and roll, but I really never considered it my thing – I always planned on changing the world with my visual art instead. I went to college for graphic design and illustration and I never even picked up an instrument. Then, in 2010, I was working as a graphic designer in the marketing department for Guitar Center’s corporate office and everyone around me happened to be a musician. They’d walk around the office with an acoustic guitar and just jam out anytime of day, it was so fun. A friend of mine there taught me to play like 3 notes on his electric bass so that we could jam on some Tom Petty and Green Day songs together for fun, and I IMMEDIATELY ran out and got myself my own bass and joined my first band within like a month or two. I was 27 at the time and hadn’t really touched an instrument before that, and it was like some latent thing had been suddenly awakened in me. I’ve never looked back since!
Orange: Was bass your first instrument?
Pickle: Yep! It’s the first instrument I loved. I had some random piano recitals and violin classes when I was a kid, but I never realized I was actually passionate about playing music until I picked up the bass.
Orange: What’s your experience with Orange and current Orange amp?
Pickle: I remember that a bassist friend who I idolized had taken me to the NAMM show in like 2011 or 2012, and we were so excited about visiting the Orange booth together. The reps were so nice, they let us hang around playing all the various amps and cabs on display there, and he ended up buying a Terror Bass 1000w bass head that we were both so giddy about. Ever since then, I’ve been a fan of Orange. Obviously, you see all these long-haired metal dudes shredding through Orange amps on these giant stages, and I’m like… ME FUCKIN’ TOO, DUDES! Now my Terror Bass comes with me almost everywhere. It’s my secret weapon.
Orange: Would you consider yourself a gearhead who loves to get techy, or are you more of a plug and play kinda gal?
Pickle: I consider myself someone who knows HER gear. I like what I like, and I love getting in the weeds talking about my gear with other people who are also passionate about their tone. I can definitely geek out about the stuff that I like. I think all musicians are like that to some degree. We get really precious about all our little toys, and the cool tricks we’ve learned to do with them. Ask anyone about their rig and they’ll get the same gleam in their eye about it that a 7-year-old does with their favorite set of Legos.
Orange: Your latest album “Data Doom” was released last year, how’s life been since? Have you been working on any new material or mostly busy touring?
Pickle: Yeah, we released Data Doom back in September of 2023, and we toured pretty darn hard around that release. It feels good to be home in LA again for a minute even if we are still busy-busy-busy. Right now, we’re back in the studio writing the next album! We’ll be recording that in a couple weeks and then it’s back out on the road again for spring and summer festivals.
Orange: How’s 2024 looking Pickle, and Frankie and the Witch Fingers?
Pickle: I’m super stoked to get back on the road. As much as I like being home and spending time with the guys being creative and making new songs in the studio, my real passion is performing and I actually can’t wait to get back to the tour grind! We’ve got some really exciting things coming up – like, we’re throwing a big 4/20 show in Los Angeles at this secret DIY spot and we’re also releasing a live album for Record Store Day that day. Then, we’re immediately heading to Austin for Austin Psych Fest and zipping right out again to Europe and the UK to play some sick festivals like Desertfest London and Fuzz Club Fest and like a whole month of shows there!
James Williams and co-driver Ross Whittock battled the elements on the North West Stages – the opening round of the Probite British Rally Championship and Prototyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship last weekend (Saturday 23rd March) to claim fourth overall in the BRC and first in the Asphalt series.
The Welshman was fresh off the back of a busy few weeks, which included driving 5000km into Europe to pick up his new Hyundai i20 Rally2 car last week. The North West Stages added another 45 miles onto the clock, with the fast and furious action played out on the closed public roads around Lancaster.
The Orange Amps driver battled with some of the best in the business – against former British, European and World Champions – flying the flag for Hyundai in Britain’s premier rallying series. The Newcastle Emlyn-based driver was on the pace from the off despite very limited mileage in his new machine.
Williams and Whittock threaded the four-wheel-drive, turbocharged car through the winding, bumpy roads around Garstang. A troublesome morning, soon progressed for the better in the afternoon despite being caught out on slicks whilst battling intermittent rain showers. James and Ross set top two stage times in the mixed conditions to climb the order to fourth overall, just missing out on a podium on his return to the series. The British pairing were duel registered for two Championships and were the class of the field in the National Asphalt Rally Championship – taking the win by 49.5 seconds at the end of the event.
“It was an up and down day, we learnt a lot in the morning and had to get on top of things very quickly. We had a really good run in the afternoon despite being on slicks with a few sudden downpours to content with. Our pace was right up there – it was good to feel confident and good to feel comfortable in the car – I absolutely loved it!
“We had podium pace today – but we just ran out of stage miles, but it was good to be in the thick of the action and mixing it at the front. We wanted a top five and we hit that – so a very solid start to the year. To get the Asphalt win as well is always very special to me – so we lead that series which is nice. We will miss the next round – but we will be back for round three in that series to see if we can take another win.
“We head to the gravel next for us– which will be exciting. I think some of the drivers this weekend have a lot more Tarmac knowledge – so I think it will be interesting to see how they get on, on the loose and I think the order might have a little shake-up… we will see. A big thank you once again to all the team, Ross for dong a great job on the notes, Orange Amps and all the supporters and the #OrangeArmy – I wouldn’t be here without them and I am pleased to get a good result under the belt for them as well.”
The next round of the championship sees James, Ross and the Orange Amps team switch to gravel for the Rallynuts Severn Valley Stages around Mid Wales in April. This will be James’ home gravel round of the championship, and he will be keen to press home the advantage over his rivals in the next bout of the championship. Highlights from the opening round of the Probite British Rally Championship will be broadcast on ITV4 at 17:45 on Tuesday 2nd April.
James would like to thank his team of loyal partners: Orange Amps, Fast Forward Logistics, Hyundai Power Products, Rally Cover, Pirelli, Performance 1st Coaching, Composites Cymru, West Wales Lubricants, Palletline, Craftric Technology, Speedline Corse, Castle Designs, Charlies Stores, ND Civils, Progressive Safety Equipment, Hide Away Wales, West Coast Finance, Ceir Castle Motors and Vital Equipment. If you would like to become a partner, get in touch with the team today – [email protected].
Orange Spotlight: WARPSTORMER
Who are WARPSTORMER?
WARPSTORMER is Adam Davies (guitar), Simon Doggett (bass + backing vocals), James Loh (drums) and Richard Morgan (vocals). We’re scattered fairly loosely across London but the band’s nominally headquartered in New Cross.
The name’s a nod to the science-fantasy universe of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame, in which spacefarers unfortunate enough to be beset by “warp-storms” are sucked into a hellish, messed-up realm of chaos where humanity’s worst impulses are given form as demonic creatures that prey on their souls. Very metal, eh?
The band started out as a studio project that Richard put together with a couple of pals – original drummer Matt Folley and Green Lung finger-wizard Scott Black on guitar – lending a hand in a temporary capacity. This resulted in the Here Comes Hell EP, which was self-released in 2022 with the intention of using it to recruit a full band line-up. Upon hearing about the new project, Simon (an old pal of R’s) said he might be interested “if the record doesn’t suck”. Luckily, it didn’t, saving anyone the trouble of singing and playing bass at the same time.
The EP continued to serve its intended purpose as a recruiting tool – by early 2023 Adam and James had come on board – and since then, we’ve been playing in and around London wherever and whenever anyone will let us, and working on new material as a full band.
While we definitely have one foot in the Sabbath-influenced doomy/stony camp, all the members share a love of punk, hardcore and thrash, and it seems we’re chronically incapable of playing slow enough to stick to the template. Tom Templar from Green Lung once referred to us as “Stoner Thrash”, but maybe we’re Speed Doom – take your pick
What inspires WARPSTORMER?
We all have a ton of influences and quite diverse favourites which, while we might not agree on some things, definitely keeps things interesting and varied when we’re putting music together. Some of the stuff we’ve been enjoying and drawing on recently includes High on Fire, mid-era Mastodon, early Baroness, and Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of The Worlds.
As you might expect given the name, we draw pretty heavily, lyrically, on sci-fi and fantasy themes, but in such a way that they serve as a sort of creative vessel for exploring the more psychologically-harrowing aspects of 21st century life. Just the very act of getting in a room and making a dirty great noise through a dirty great amp can be, in itself, an immensely cathartic experience and we’re aiming to harness that in such a way that the form and content of our music complement one another.
The other great aspect of getting out and playing music with your friends is that it’s nice to get away from a screen for a protracted period of time, and do something fulfilling out in the analogue realm.
The London Doom/Stoner Scene is in a really cool place right now, and has been incredibly welcoming to us and supportive of what we’re doing. There are a load of sick bands kicking around and that sense of community and creativity is a really inspiring thing to have swirling around.
What Orange gear is important to WARPSTORMER?
We have a pretty eclectic mix of gear we’ve accumulated over the years. The key Orange components of our current arsenal are Richard’s old Bass Terror, a Bass Butler, and a big old PPC412. The Bass Terror might be the MVP of our backline rig – it’s currently serving as one half of our bi-amped guitar setup and, along with the Butler, was the key element of the bass sound on the Here Comes Hell record, which is something we’ve had a lot of compliments about – almost all the dirt and nastiness in the sound of that record came from the bass; for Scott’s guitars we just went with a pretty straightforward overdriven sound.
When we were tracking bass for our new record, we spent ages fiddling around with all sorts of amp setups, but in the end we ended up going back to the Butler/Terror combo; it just really nailed the clangy, growly attack we wanted. And then just to kick it up a notch even further we chucked a Fuzzrocious Secret C (the limited edition Cave In signature model) in front of that – the results are pretty gnarly.
Future Orange amps?
Since coming into Orange HQ and playing with all those wonderful toys, everyone’s gear shopping list has expanded exponentially. Particular favourites were the OR-30, which really played up to our shared love of classic 80s thrash (which to be honest wasn’t something we associated with Orange amps before then!) and the swirly, psych-y clean sounds we conjured up running the retro Phaser Pedal into a Pedal Baby. Adam also really loved the MK-Ultra – an unforgiving, but very responsive and rewarding amp to play through.
Our theoretical ultimate Orange amp would be a high-gain monster with a foot switchable second channel – something we currently rely on live to make Adam’s lead parts really pop out with a volume and saturation boost – but that was somehow magically small and light enough to cart around as easily as our Bass Terror – or even fit on a pedalboard!
What does Orange mean to you?
Orange has been synonymous with a lot of the bands we grew up watching and listening to – it’s instantly recognisable onstage even from the back of a big room.
We never really set out with a gear shopping list, or an intent to use a particular amp or brand, but in the course of cobbling together our shared pool of gear and carving out the WARPSTORMER sound, we’ve found the bits of Orange gear that have made it into that pool to be a significant contributing factor to that sound.
We don’t get to use our big cab as much as we’d like outside the rehearsal room, as most shows we play has bands sharing backline, and it’s a bugger to move the thing around, but it’s always cool and reassuring to pitch up somewhere and see you’re going to be plugging into an Orange cab as we know it’s going to be able to handle whatever we’re blasting through it.
What’s the most memorable WARPSTORMER moment?
Following some initial line-up setbacks towards the end of 2022 – just as we thought we had everything in place TWO members of the band ended up moving overseas – we brought Adam and James in at pretty short notice. Our first show with them was in April 2023 and they really hit the ground running after only a couple of rehearsals. The show went great and there was a tremendous sense of relief and excitement at landing on our feet with these two guys, which created a wave of momentum that we’re still currently riding.
What’s on the horizon for WARPSTORMER?
We’re currently in the middle of recording our next release with producer Wayne Adams, the busiest man in UK underground music. It’s the first with the full lineup, and we’re pretty excited with the results so far!
Our other current exciting upcoming thing is that the organisers of Desertfest London have been kind enough to include us on the line up this May – you can catch us at The Dev on the Friday night! Building around that and getting the new record out, we’re aiming to get ourselves out of London as much as possible in the coming year, and make as many new pals as we can in the process. See you in the pit!
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Orange Jams is a series of live sessions hosted by Orange & Jam in the Van which features Orange ambassadors from across the globe. This session features Orange ambassadors Deathchant live at Jam in the Van’s LA headquarters.
Thank you for tuning into our Deathchant Orange Jams session, we hope you loved it just as much as we do. Check out the rest of our Orange Jams sessions here, and visit Jam in the Van’s website and socials for more music and comedy.
Can you name a band or artist that inspired you to get into music in the first place?
Robin: I started rolling around in tin foil and tennis rackets in 1976. Shin guards. Fangs. Whatever it took. That Kiss thing gripped me good from five. I was done for. Eventually at six or seven I opened up to ‘regular groups’ from my Dad’s collection, like Yes and Steely Dan. Blue Cheer. The Jimi Hendrix Experience. But it was the bald guy with the push broom mustache and cigarette breaks at a family wedding that made it all real. Jewel light. Dangerous electric buzz. The pushing and pulling of strings. So that’s what that is. Tuning. Never heard of it. The existence of the celluloid tortoise shell ‘pick’. Felt like I had put a little piece of the spaceship in my pocket when no one was looking. I sat cross legged in front of him all afternoon into evening. He probably thought I was adorbs. I was not. I was flipping the fuck out.
Can you share a recent musical discovery with us?
Robin: Intergalactic dream journey escape genius. Lisa Bella Donna.
What can you tell us about your playlist?
Robin: I keep a playlist of Sabbath inspired desert dirge doom core close. With outliers. Global and of the ages. I love every track. Thanks be to them. This all hangs out the window to and from Joshua Tree, California. I can get there, and back, in about 50 songs. It’s also what I reach for when I want to stop thinking and just play and play loud. And yes it roars on the Orange Box. Best of its kind!
Orange Jams is a series of live sessions hosted by Orange & Jam in the Van which features Orange ambassadors from across the globe. This session features Orange ambassadors Speed of Light live from Jam in the Van’s LA headquarters.
Thank you for tuning into our Speed of Light Orange Jams session, we hope you loved it just as much as we do. Check out the rest of our Orange Jams sessions here, and visit Jam in the Van’s website and socials for more music and comedy.
Orange Acoustic Pedal demo by our friends over at Jam in the Van.