Our fourth ‘How I got into playing’ post where we as part of our ‘Learn the Orange Way’ campaign, offer free guitar lessons for all Orange users (more on that here), and share a series of quotes from some of our artists on why how they got into playing.
A lot of the people I grew up jamming with is really fucking good at the guitar, so I decided to look into playing the bass as I’m influenced a lot by it rhythmically and I’ve always appreciated good bass players. I started playing it more myself and realised how much fun it was and stuck with it. We used to have jam sessions three or four times a week when I was younger, and when we started Sacri Monti I bass was what I wanted to play.
My parents introduced me to rock ’n’ roll music when I was a little kid, and I remember hearing The Beatles and I just connected immediately – hearing John Lennon’s voice was just like ‘Ok, I get this, and I really like it.’ My mum would always sing around the house and play a little bit of piano and my dad plays the accordion – you can’t really rock out with an accordion, although Dropkick Murphys figured out how to do. I guess people in my family were always into music and would play at least a little bit. I started playing bass when I was 12 years old, and I dont know what it was or why, but I just fell in love with it.
The first band I ever fell in love with was Nirvana. I remember reading about Kurt early on, and discovered that he’d loved both the Beatles and Black Sabbath. So I checked them out, and ended up sharing his admiration for both. It was around this time that I first picked up a guitar, and it’s been a wild ride since then.
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/18-july-2019-20-scaled.jpg17082560Ella Stormarkhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngElla Stormark2020-04-09 08:00:002020-03-19 14:58:20“How I got into playing” PT. IIII
Hey Todd! Cheers for taking the time to chat to us in these locked down times, would you be so kind to introduce yourself to the reader? Todd: I’m Todd Winger, the guitarist in the UK rock outfit, Collateral. When we’re not out touring I work in a little bicycle shop in Maidstone during the day to keep my wife & daughter fed and watered. I started playing guitar at around 10 years old because my older brother was my childhood idol, and seeing what he could do with a 6 string was incredible! He taught me for a while until I began learning songs by ear which has served me well so far. I’ve never been one for reading music!
How did Collateral come together? Todd: Angelo & Jack have been in bands for a long, long time, I joined just over 2 years ago when a good friend of mine told me Angelo was looking for a guitarist. I’d never met him, but only heard good things about his talents! I sent a couple videos over & it spiralled from there. About 5 months later we needed a drummer and my long time friend Ben Atkinson being the best drummer I know, joined the crew.
You released your self-titled debut album in February and congratulations is in order, so congrats! What can you tell us about it? Todd: Firstly, thank you to everyone who has purchased it, streamed it, voted for it and plugged it all over the world. To reach the top 5 in the UK rock chart is amazing for us! We live an hour apart so we tend to send each other ideas, riffs and demos.. we then change a couple of things, put our own spin on it and send it back.. We usually then track the guitars on a computer clean and ‘re amp in the studio. I’ll run the solos in pretty much last thing when I’ve got a solid feel for the song. We recorded the album with Sean Kenney at Ten21 Studios in Maidstone. He’s a great guy to work with and puts a great mix together! For the album the Orange Rockerverb MKiii 50w was used on every song and on all solos!!
Hell yeah! Can you tell us a bit about your relationship and experiences with Orange? Todd: The first time Orange really jumped out at me was seeing Blackberry smoke at Download 2015.. They are one of my all time favourite bands & for such a dark festival.. seeing an entire backline of Orange was awesome!! A year or so later, at a Cadillac Three gig, I met a lovely lady by the name of Karla-Ann who it turns out, is the Queen of covering the Orange amps & cabs at the factory! She told me about how amazing the company are to work for. Personally, having experienced both sides of the coin work wise that goes a long long way in my book! My relationship with Orange so far, has been nothing less than amazing!! Rapid responses to my ridiculous questions and so, so much kindness!! You’ll have to beat me away from Orange Amplifiers with a seriously big stick!!
What do you look for in an amp? Todd: I like an amp that you don’t have to put a ton of pedals in front of to make it sound good. In my search for an amp head, I trudged to a well known guitar shop with ample choice.. I played a plethora of different brands and models and regardless of my soft spot for Orange.. the Rockerverb MKIII simply blew every other brand out of the water! I wanted the ability to pull some utterly filthy distortion out of it and in turn, dial it back to a nice southern crunch. I rarely use a clean tone, but the Rockerverb has tons of chimey clean through smooth funky tones in the bag, no problem!
What’s your current set up? Todd: I use the Rockerverb 50 MKIII head, PPC412 cabinet loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s. The one and only effect I use is a Zoom …. Chorus Pedal to widen the sound a little, mainly for rhythm purposes. That puppy sits at the back and stays on always. At my feet sits a korg pitch black tuner and under my fingers.. Jackson guitars with either Tonerider (Awesome pickups from down here in Kent) or Seymour Duncan pickups.
Our third ‘How I got into playing’ post where we as part of our ‘Learn the Orange Way’ campaign, offer free guitar lessons for all Orange users (more on that here), and share a series of quotes from some of our artists on why how they got into playing.
I first started playing when I was about 3 or 4, and I’ve been playing professionally since I was about 11. I was really inspired by guitar players such as Clapton, Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn from a young age, another early discovery was The Allman Brothers Band, as well as The Marshall Tucker Band and a bunch of other great Southern bands. Later on, I got really intrigued by “the frontman”, and artists such as James Brown, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin – anyone who had that certain attitude would really speak to me. What really changed the game for me was when I started studying jazz theory, and discovering Miles Davis and John Coltrane was really life changing to me, a clear game changer.
I heard Led Zeppelin when I was four years old, thanks to my aunt, not that she was aware of it at the time. My grandfather was a jazz guitarist way back when, so while I liked that there was a guitar player in the house, I wanted to play heavy rock from the start. Grew up listening to Zep, Queen, Aerosmith, Kiss. Started learning guitar at age 9 but didn’t take it seriously until I saw Ritchie Blackmore on MTV smashing his guitar, and seeing videos of Jimi Hendrix lighting his Strat on fire. Both of those moments made me think “I have to play guitar for life!”
I grew up surrounded by music and the people playing it, my grandmother played and my dad played the saxophone. It was something I just naturally gravitated towards from a very young age, and it didn’t go away. I think you either have it in you or you dont, and for me it was just something I stuck with.
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/DSC01029-II.jpg10801920Ella Stormarkhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngElla Stormark2020-04-02 08:00:212020-03-19 14:54:01“How I got into playing” PT. III
Stoked you’re down to chat from afar while both being quarantined away. Your band Haggard Cat just released ‘Common Sense Holiday’, congrats! It’s a killer record, what can you tell us about it? Matt: Why thank you! We’re both very proud of it! It’s certainly was the most intense writing and recording process we’ve ever entered into. I think from the very first track that we wrote (First Words) we knew that we were potentially looking at something very special, so we set out to make over very own Dark Side of the Moon. I think it’s my favourite album that I personally have ever been a part of. The song writing feels more evolved and mature.
We never want to relax into being the type of band that releases the same record twice, as I’m really not interested in releasing an album where a listener will already know exactly what they’re getting before even hearing a note. Some bands do this very well, but I think it makes the whole scene quite a lethargic place to be. So I never want us to stop moving, I want to take in as many different types of music from different places and allow it all to become absorbed into what we do!
In particular, now that I’m able to stand back and look at the album more critically, I’m very proud of the work I did lyrically, I think each of the songs has it’s own thing to say. I actually isolated myself to write the bulk of the lyrics (which seems quite ironic now given “the event”). I was away for a few weeks in Christchurch, New Zealand – so I set myself the task of cutting myself off the world and really honing in on what I was writing. I went a little stir crazy, but I think it really gave me a unique perspective on what I was writing about.
To sort of recap a bit, how did Haggard Cat come about in the first place? Matt: Haggard Cat has been mine and Tom’s passion project for almost 10 years. It has basically always been our method of writing songs, and practicing material to get it up to scratch no matter what project we were working on at the time; just the two of us going into a room and playing loud. So it only made sense for us to embark on making this our full-time project. It’s definitely the most honest form of us making music together – it’s what comes out naturally. We’ve been playing under the name Haggard Cat since the middle of 2017 when Jamie Lenman took a punt and decided to get us to support him on tour, since then we’ve pretty much been coerced into becoming a real band. Long before any of this ever happened we used to stand a bottle of Bourbon on a wooden stool (named Chris who still comes with us to every show to this day) and we wouldn’t finish the show until the bottle was empty. Hazy, hazy days.
Have you always been into music? Matt: A friend of mine at school’s parents bought him an electric guitar. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever, so basically I copied and begged my parents to get me one too. From that point on I did nothing but play guitar. I’d play in between lessons and at break times I would stay indoors and play some more, I would play non-stop after school and I even got our music teacher to write me a note excusing me from PE lessons to practice. I just loved it, and since then making music is all I’ve really had a true interest in doing.
As a guitar and drum two piece, what would you say you find the most challenging? Matt: This could sound a little pretentious, but the hardest thing is staying as far away from the 2-piece band stereotype that seems to precede any duo’s reputation. There’s definitely a pre-conceived notion that there’s only so much you can achieve between two of you and I think it’s a lazy idea. That was our main mission statement on CSH, to sound as far away from the typical “rock and roll” duo people have come to expect. We treated the production almost like a hip-hop album, and wanted to have a revolving door of collaborators and musicians that would come along and add their own flavours. And then as soon as it came to playing something live it would be an all together re-imagined different beast, kind of like Dylan would do in the 70s, or more recently what the Raconteurs do to their songs live.
Photo by Carla Mundy
On that note, what do you look for in an amp, and what’s your current set up? Matt: I put an unholy amount of bludgeoning low frequencies through my amp, so what’s always been important for me is having something that can tackle those with ease and spit them out with some balls, grit and above all clarity (with the added bonus of being able to do it at ear-splitting volume). My current set up relies on my trusty Orange Thunderverb 200 as its backbone, along with a 1973 Fender Bassman 135 for extra rumble. I also use an Orange Rocker 30 blended in there for a bit of extra sparkly grit, and on the album I use a vintage Roland Jazz Chorus for some spacey wobble. I run all of it through a bunch of tough as a brick-shit-house Orange Cabs loaded with V30s (as is tradition).
What’s your best quarantine activity? Matt: Listening to records and drinking whisky. Yes, I’m a cliche.
Haggard Cat’s heading out on tour in September, after having to cancel their original spring tour due to Covid-19. Full touring schedule below, something to look forward to hey?!
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Matt-Reynolds-Haggard-Cat-by-Carla-Mundy-.jpg10011500Ella Stormarkhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngElla Stormark2020-04-01 08:00:002020-03-30 18:31:34Interview: Matt Reynolds of Haggard Cat
Our second ‘How I got into playing’ post where we as part of our ‘Learn the Orange Way’ campaign, offer free guitar lessons for all Orange users (more on that here), and share a series of quotes from some of our artists on why how they got into playing.
I picked up the guitar when I was 14, and I think my dad’s very much to thank for that. He wasn’t a musician himself, but he was very interested in music, and it was something that was a part of my life from a very young age; him playing various country and classic rock records around the house. I first started playing acoustic, but it only lasted for about a year as I realised electric was more my thing. I was just playing around at home, and signed up to Youtube where I started sharing videos of cover songs I was playing. I didn’t really think much of it besides wanting to share my passion with the world, so the response was pretty overwhelming as I ended up getting millions of views! Back then, it wasn’t many females my age doing that sort of thing, posting classic rock covers, so there seemed to be a market for it and it definitely helped me get where I am today!
I initially started out playing drums as a kid, and didn’t really get into guitar until I was 17. I’d watch people play Nirvana covers on YouTube and just copy what their hands were doing, that’s how I learnt the basics. I guess already knowing how to play an instrument was a bit of a head start but I wouldn’t really say I’m a real guitar player, I just wanted to be able to play the Nirvana songs.
Starting it all off and sparking the interest was definitely the household I grew up in, both my parents and older sister was very into music. My dad in particular is pretty much a rock ’n’ roll historical – not as a profession or a job, but for as long as I can remember he’s just always had this encyclopaedic knowledge about dates, record companies, releases, band members and tours, and he has this amazing vinyl collection that I’d go through as a kid, pick albums to listen to based on their covers and end up with bands such as KISS and The Monkees, but it wasn’t until he played me The Beatles everything changed; I even remember the day and exactly where we were, sat in our car parked up waiting for my sister, and he played me live at the BBC by The Beatles, and I think I must have been about six or seven, I was really young, but it just felt like real life magic.
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Laura-Cox-Rockerverb-50H-PPC212-MD-Carlos-Fabian-2.jpg20033000Ella Stormarkhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngElla Stormark2020-03-26 08:00:002020-03-26 09:02:45“How I got into playing” PT. II
Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Susan: I was born in a small city in the southwest of Spain, Badajoz. I’m a self taught guitar player, and I’ve always been into songwriting. I started a band in my hometown, but eventually moved to Madrid in the hope of making a living from my music. There, I worked as a guitarist in a National TV show and in musical theatre. Eventually, I started working on my own stuff, which I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve toured Europe, the US and Mexico, and released five albums. My last one, ‘No U Turn’ won be the best musician performance in The European Blues Awards, and Best Album Female in The L.A Music Critics Awards.
How did you get into playing in the first place? Susan: I originally started playing Spanish guitar when I was 18, and about two years later I found the blues on the radio – I’d never heard this sort of music before, and I didn’t know what it was but I instantly fell in love with that sound! From that point, I discovered all the classics, Beatles, Hendrix, Cream, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and of course, Stevie Ray Vaughn – my head felt like it was gonna explode when I heard him, and I just knew I wanted to play electric guitar.
As a guitarist, is there anyone else besides Stevie Ray Vaughn that sort of stuck out to you? Susan: I’m influenced by a lot of artists, but Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Tom Petty and The Beatles all bring out a smile and fill me with energy.
On that note, there’s footage of you jamming with Billy Gibbons, how did that come about? As a ZZ Top fan, how was that experience? Susan: Last summer my band and I played the same festival as Billy Gibbons’ Supersonic Blues Machine, and they invited me on stage to play with them, and it was an amazing experience. Just imagine, Billy is one of my favourite guitarists of all time! He was a lovely guy, and it was really funny as he kept speaking to me in Spanish; “Hola Soy Guillermo…”. For that I played one of my other favourite amps, the Rockerverb 50 MKIII head – an awesome amp, perfect for a big stage.
You recently took our TremLord 30 on tour, how did you get on with it? Susan: The TremLord has the sound I always wanted, it’s got a warm and rounded tone, and it’s full of body. The tube tremolo with two speed settings and spring reverb is awesome, and I could use it for playing at home and get a great sound, changing the power mode from 30w down to just 1w. I’d recommend everyone to give it a go!
What do you look for in an amp?
Susan: I’m after a clean sound, with a rock tone. Sparkling, with full body. Before I was a full time musician I used to work in a guitar shop, and I tried a whole bunch of amps. It’s not easy to find clean tone without losing body, or losing tone with pedals. I’m incredibly happy with my current set up!
What sort of stuff are you currently listening to? Susan: I tend to listen to all kinds of music, as I find you can learn from all of them. Of course, I listen to a lot of rock, americana, country and soul. I’ve also been reading a lot of music biographies lately, about musicians such as Erik Satie, Tom Waits, Ravi Shankar and Woody Guthrie.
When catching up with Orange artists, one of the things we tend to ask is how they first got into playing – some were pretty much force-fed music from a young age growing up in musical homes, others found music for themselves. Over the next couple of weeks and as part of our ‘Learn the Orange Way’ campaign where we offer free guitar lessons for all Orange users (more on that here), we’ll be sharing a series of quotes from some of our artists on why how they got into playing.
Mainly KISS and Queen, they were my two main bands. Queen came to Brazil in 1981, but my mum wouldn’t let me go because I was too young. Then KISS came in 1983, and that was my first ever show. Being able to go see them live at their Creatures of The Night tour, was insane, that changed my life. That’s why I’m here! Seeing that, in my home town, at my football team’s stadium.. As I said, it changed everything. When I first started playing, my goal was to play ‘Stairway to Heaven’, so that’s what I told my teacher. She gave me the basics and a good ground to learn on, gradually. It started out with acoustic Brazilian music, before moving onto other things. Slowly I’d expand my music taste as well, and start listening to bands such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix and Cream, all of those incredible vintage sounding bands and artists. I’m also inspired by Brazilian music, and as I’ve become older and developed my taste I’ve picked up on a lot of the older Brazilian music, which has been a huge inspiration to Sepultura. That’s played a huge part in finding our sound, using Brazilian percussion and other bits from our more traditional music.
I was born in Puerto Rico and moved to the States when I was five. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad and uncles playing me music, those dudes loved Metallica. My dad would also drive me around with Pearl Jam on repeat. All my uncles played guitar, and my grandfather the cuatro, so I had early exposure to those instruments. I didn’t pick up a guitar myself until I was 15 or 16, when my dad finally got an acoustic for Christmas and I got bitten by the bug. Eventually I bought an Epiphone Les Paul for money I’d earned selling candy in high school, and once that was done I stopped doing just about everything else to pursue playing. I’d recently been turned onto At The Drive-In and The Mars Volta and was like ‘Damn, that dude’s got hair like mine and he shreds, let’s learn that shit!’ My dad also made sure I knew Led Zeppelin was the greatest band of all time, so I guess that shaped a lot of my playing too, Zeppelin>The Beatles
I come from a musical household where my dad would experiment with home made hi-fi speakers and play bands such as The Beatles, Beach Boys, Johnny Cash and Dylan, as well as church and choral music. My mum, brother and sisters were also into music and would dabble in guitar, piano and singing. When high school came around, my older brother introduced me to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Doors, and it was around this time I bought one of my first records which was Hendrix live. After that I just wanted to play guitar like him, he was a huge inspiration! Strawberry Fields was also a mind blowing experience when I first heard it.
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Andreas-Kisser-Sepultura-crop.png13111890Ella Stormarkhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngElla Stormark2020-03-19 11:00:002020-05-26 13:44:31“How I got into playing” PT. I
BLACK FUTURES by Rob Blackham / www.blackhamimages.com
Can we get the Black Futures lowdown? Space: We are Black Futures aka Space and Vibes, founders of the Black Futures Existential Expedition Club. We attempt to make music, sound and song akin to witnessing all the vivid beauty, violence and absurdity of life in one gigantic hit. Music to fend off the dread, and help us usher in the Niceage. A folk music, a future punk to help us all be collectively MAXIMUM. A tsunami of Joy, a Typhoon of wild abandon! We are both composers, producers and songwriters that have dedicated our life to the craft, culture and community. We are Empathy Machines for fellow radicals like Idles, Jamie Lenman, The Prodigy, Do Nothing, Libra Libra… We have traveled from Mumbai to Nepal to Tokyo to Joshua Tree to Chernobyl to ∞ and beyond creating and documenting the culture of our world. Never not nothing.
We’re loving your mission, and view of life and music – how did it all begin? Space: From my earliest memories, music was a necessity and obsession. My parents had an epic record collection and we were only allowed wooden toys, so listening to records and being in nature were the fuel for my childhood. Before the influence of the outside world I was on a healthy diet of Beefheart, Grieg, Hendrix, John Martyn, Rachmaninov, Joni Mitchell, Robert Johnson, The Beatles…. It was a wholesome diet! I was completely obsessed with the transformative and emotive power of music.
That’s a really interesting mix of music and genres, and intrestingly enough completely different from the music you make yourself with Black Futures. Space: I like to think of music as an empathy machine. I have always gravitated towards music that moves my mind and body to the MAXIMUM. We listen to such a vast amount of music. Whether it’s death, punk, classical, techno, pygmy choirs it has to have a transcendent effect on us. My first true experience of this was at my first gig. A friends dad had snuck us in to see the Ramones sometime in the mid 90’s. I wanted with every fibre of my body shake violently and loose control. I was terrified and completely alive. It was like swallowing the sun. So from then on, if it made me feel complete despair, anger, love, fear, energy, mystery I was all in. At the moment we are listening to Deathgrips, Lingua Ignota, Denzel Curry, Analogue Africa, Full of Hell, Colin Stetson, Tropical Fuck Storm, Oneohtrix Point, Bou, Turnstile, Sleep, H09909, The Clash, Lau, Bowie, Television, Mojave Lords and the Beatles.
Black Futures – how did it all begin? Space: We spent about 6 months scheming and writing. Developing the language, ideas and culture of Black Futures. Basically a couple of weirdos dreaming up wild ideas. The first anyone else knew about it was our first show. We sent out an invite with a location, time and password. The audience were blindfolded and taken to a secret location. Once the blindfolds were on we could be completely in control of the environment. We created our own Black Futures radio station featuring utopian muzak versions of our record and computer generated hosts. With the help of our BF family we built a secret laboratory in a recording studio hosted by a cast of Hazmats. This is where we performed what we called ‘ A Total Display of Love’ our first gig. It was a completely immersive experience designed to pull the audience as far away from their external lives and as close to that feeling of excitement, fear and joy as possible.
Photo by Murry Deaves
That is so rad, what an incredible first show! How did you guys come up with the concept? Space: It all stemmed from the idea of using everything in our arsenal to create a gig experience where the heady concoction of mystery, fear, wonder and energy is at its most potent. The idea is be so inclusive that everyone in the room feels comfortable to transcend conscious thought in their own individual way. That’s why we have a rolling cast of anonymous vibe conduits on stage and in the crowd at our shows. We aim for a totally immersive expression of joy, activism and pure raw energy. A celebration of the radical.
What’s your history and experience with Orange, and what do you look for in an amp? Space: The Rockerverb is the first amp I truly loved. It has been used on every record I have worked on in some shape or form. I was completely won over by the roar it made when you ragged the clean channel into breakup. Also the saturation of the gain channel, it seemed to have that heavy visceral violent tone without being too brittle and aggressive on the top end. What I look for in an amp, is for it to do one thing extremely well, to be unique and living. I am not a fan of loads of bells and whistles or that the price tag dictates the quality. One of my favourite amps is a tiny cigar box amp that Rat Scabies built for me. It’s powered by a 9volt battery and sounds like the sweetest trash.
What’s your current set up? Space: At the moment live I am playing a 1977 musicmaster bass that I loaded with a Thunderbird style pickup that Curtis Novak made for me. That gets split and runs through two different pedal signal chains. One side with a POG doing a bit of Octave down and just a smidge of octave up goes to a profile of a 70’s ampeg svt on a Kemper that I took when making a record. The other side goes into a Rockerverb 50 through a closed back Orange 2×12. The pedals vary all the time. I find that this setup allows me to take up as much frequency range as possible with a single note! ha ha.
I am definitely interested in exploring the bass butler and playing around with combinations of different guitar and bass rigs bi-amped for a monolithic sound. Also intrigued by the tremlord in the studio.
How would you describe Black Futures and your music to your friend’s grandma? Space: MAXIMUM! MAXIMUM! MAXIMUM!
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/BLACK-FUTURES-QFC-work-1-dev-final-scaled.jpg15662560Ella Stormarkhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngElla Stormark2020-03-18 09:00:002020-03-17 14:43:48Interview: Black Futures’ Space
RIFFLORD, who are you and what are you guys about? Wyatt: We started out back in 2007 in the basement of a punk house where 8 people were living. We were all in punk/hardcore bands at the time, and began digging into the roots of heavy music with bands like Blue Cheer, Hawkwind, Deep Purple and of course Black Sabbath lighting the path for us. We soon began hunting down every vintage tube amp we could find to recreate that tone. It’s been 13 years since then, members have come and gone but the core remains the same: loud tube amps, heavy drums, and a loud hammond organ. Being rural midwest boys we were raised with a lot of country and rebelled by listening to heavy/hard rock and metal. Bands and artists like T. Rex, MC5, Sabbath, Motorhead, Hawkwind, Judas Priest, ZZ Top, Robert Johnson, Mississippi Fred Mcdowell, Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson formed us. When naming the band, our options for names were Kilowatt or RIFFLORD. Thankfully we chose the latter.
Photo by Isaac Show.
You’ve released two records so far, what can you tell us about them? Wyatt:“26 Mean and Heavy” was recorded and mixed by ourselves in a basement of the Riff Easy mansion. It was a house that we shared with some local skateboarders. It would repeatedly flood so we had our orange 4×12’s on cinder blocks to protect them from water damage. The house was cursed, literally. The lightbulbs overhead would explode from time to time, a strange black sludge began rolling out of drains in the house, voices appeared on recordings that weren’t suppose to be there. We were messing with some Jimmy Page/Crowley magik then. You can hear that grimy magik on the record, haha. “7 Cremation Ground” was a year and a half challenge. Recorded and mixed by Mike Dresch of Cathouse Studios. I had moved out to our ranch and the rest of the members were living in different states, Texas, Minnesota, and another 3 hours from me in South Dakota. We sent files, bought plane tickets and spent countless hours in car rides to make it happen. When it was all said and done the material spanned over a decades worth of songs pulling from all spectrums of musical influence.
Photo by Isaac Show.
Photo by Isaac Show
Let’s get down to business, what’s your history and experiences with Orange? Wyatt: I first saw one in a pawn shop in Rapid City SD, it was the Orange Hustler Reverb Twin. They had it priced at $125 and i was too young to afford it. The Next sighting was the infamous Black Sabbath live video which made me pine for that sound. My first ever Orange Amp was a gift from my now wife Tory. An Orange twin channel AD140. It was straight thunder. It sonically stood out from anything i had ever heard or played. It started me down a slippery slope which is now a loving addiction. My current Orange collection is two graphic only OR120’s, an OR80, an Overdrive 120, an OR100, and an AD200b.
What do you guys look for in an amp, and what’s the bands current set up? Wyatt: It needs to be able to handle a lot of low end while maintaining clarity, pedal friendly, and not to be that guy, but its got to look good. Orange is all of the above. We’re currently running:
Guitars: two OR120 and an OR100 through two 6×12’s, OR120 and OR80 through two 6×12’s
Hammond Organ/Keys: AD200b through a 2×15 and a 4×10.
Bass: AD200b through 8×10 and 2×15
Photo by Isaac Show.
How does a day in the life of Rifflord look like? Iommi worship and chill? Wyatt: After we take care of the chores on the ranch its stacking cabs, plugging in heads, and cooking tubes.
Kaleidobolt’s Sampo Kääriäinen by Marco Menestrina
Anyone who’s seen Kaleidobolt live knows they’re a force of nature, fuelled by Nordic darkness, and we are stoked to welcome guitarist Sampo to the Orange family! Find out more about him and his love for our funny looking but great sounding amps below.
Okay, let’s get down to the very basics for our readers to get to know you – who are you? Sampo: I’m a 25-year old fellow playing guitar in a band called Kaleidobolt. You can call me a musician nowadays, since I don’t work in gambling industry anymore, haha. One of my first music related memories is when my dad sat my brother and me down in a dark room to listen to “Shine on you Crazy Diamond” at full volume. Powerful stuff when the stuff you’d been listening so far was The Smurfs CD’s. I really fell for this music thingy when my mother got a guitar for her birthday, I was 11, and mesmerised by the instrument. Due to a combination of my mum’s lack of motivation to learn how to play and me being overwhelmed by how cool the guitar was, as well as having nothing better to do, it ended up being me becoming the guitarist of us. As I got older, I went to Kuopio Senior High of Music and Dance, before I eventually left Kuopio for Helsinki, as the Kuopio music scene was rather dull. I ended up joining Kaleidobolt in Helsinki, where I still am six years later, having also just become endorsed by Orange. Woo! It all came together!
Kaleidobolt, how did you guys all meet and end up playing together? Sampo: The original line up came alive when our bass player Marco moved to Finland and wanted to start a band. We all found each other through this Finnish website where you can put ads out to look for musicians to play with. Normally this particular website should be avoided at all costs, but we got super lucky for some reason. Marco and our previous drummer Valtteri started playing together and mastered rhythm duties while still searching for a guitarist. At the time, I was in a jazz-fusion band where the average age was about 47. It was an educational experience, but I wanted to properly start ROCKING OUT, and ended up contacting Marco. At first I thought they Kaleidobolt were looking for a guitarist and backing singer, but I somehow got tricked into singing lead. But yeah, I haven’t looked back since. After our latest tour our beloved drummer Valtteri chose to step down from the drum throne, and we heard through friends that this dude Mårten from Finnish hardcore band Foreseen could fill some major boots, and oh boy, he fills.
Your music carries elements from a lot of different genres, do you come from varied musical backgrounds? Sampo: We have a lot of common ground but we have enough varied taste among the band to make song writing really hard and time consuming from time to time. But, the harder the work the bigger the reward, and at the end of the day it’s all hugs and high fives. At the moment, song writing feels really easy for the first time ever, which almost slightly worried me. But, I think I’m gonna enjoy it while it lasts.
Nordic countries seem to be producing sweet heavy music like there’s no tomorrow, can you tell us a bit about the Helsinki music scene? Sampo: In Helsinki and Finland in general there’s not enough people to have explicit scene for different genres which is really cool. You can see all these same people who attend to punk or psychedelic rock gigs at jazz gigs or whatever. I think you can hear it in music of many Helsinki bands since it’s all big beautiful mess of different genres.
You guys are a pretty damn impressive live band, how often do you rehearse, gig, jam or whatever? Sampo: Haha, Thanks! We did our base work back in the days, rehearsing so much that while touring we can concentrate on all other kinds of activities instead. Again, harder the work the bigger the reward I guess! Of course, it’s not bullshit when people say that gigs are the the best practice, and after this month and a half long tour we did with Radio Moscow a while back I could’ve been dead and still play a gig – NOT FAR AWAY FROM TRUTH TO BE HONEST.
As a guitarist, who was your main influence getting started? Sampo: It was and will always be: Pat Metheny, Alvin Lee and Jukka Tolonen. No one plays guitar as beautifully as Pat Metheny. Alvin Lee has the most badass guitar face, and Jukka Tolonen is so of a combination of the two (minus the guitar face). Pat Metheny Group’s S/T album, Ten Years After’s ‘Live at Woodstock’, and Jukka Tolonen first two solo albums is all I need to know when it comes to playing guitar.
Kaleidobolt by Mika Paananen
Orange – what’s your history and experience with the brand? Sampo: When I was a teenager I remember referring to Orange amps as “those funny looking amps”, and I think the first time I even saw one was some Black Sabbath TV performance. Before recording our first album we had to get me a proper amp and borrowed an Orange AD-140 from a friend, and that was actually first time I tried Orange, and I immediately fell for it. I sort of held onto the amp for a bit longer than I was meant to, to my friend’s annoyance. After handing it back, I went to a music store the next day and spent an afternoon trying out different amps, and I ended up buying Rockerverb 100 MKII which surprised and still surprises me with just how gosh darn versatile it is! Nowadays I refer to them as “funny looking great sounding amps”.
What do you look for in an amp, and what’s your current set up? Sampo: Versatility. I like playing jazz, I like playing heavier stuff, I like bright clean sounds, I like all kinds of different stuff. With Kaleidobolt we’ve got a variety of different sounding shenanigans going on, so it’s pretty important that the gear can handle that. I’ve been playing Rockerverb 100 MKII for six years now and it has been just magnificent. When I joined Kaleidobolt and wanted a muddy guitar sound, it was there for me, and when I wanted to do ripping solos, it was there for me. When we started doing songs which needed a twangier sound, it was somehow still there for me. It still amazes me how simple it is to use and manages to adapt in any situation, which is so great as I’m not any kind of gear head, and honestly a bit lazy when it comes to these things, so I’ve been lucky to have this kind of loyal companion with me all these years. No matter if we’re in studio or tour I can always trust that little buddy. Never had any problems with it whatsoever, maintenance or sound wise. So so, summa summarum: I use Orange Rockerverb 100 MKII with Orange PPC412 and Hiwatt cabinets (looking for another PPC412 by the way, in Finland it’s pretty hard to find those, WINK WINK…)
