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I’m Tom Petersson, bass player for the group Cheap Trick. I’m here in London, England at Sixty Sixty Sounds, Denmark Street.

I came with our guitar player Rick Nielsen, he and I came to London in 1968. We went to Cliff Cooper’s shop, Orange music which is around here somewhere! I don’t know where the exact location was and he was just starting to build Orange amps in the back room. 

Once the british invasion hit that kind of took over everybody’s lives at the time, it just kept going on and on, and people are still listening to it, its amazing!

We first saw Orange amps being used by Fleetwood Mac, they came over in ’69 in the US and they had the big giant bass rig. Peter Green and Danny Kirwan the tone they had was killer, I love to have the feel of the air being pushed like 412 cabinets. I’ve always liked the sound of tube amps, i’ve never liked transistors, it never had the right warmth to it and distortion. We’ve never used pedals for distortion, it’s all totally the amp being pushed to its maximum. I love the sound of the amp sounding like its about ready to blow up, like Jeff Beck is that perfect example of just great tone. Of course it’s in his hands, so it is different in that way but its just that sound and that warmth and that real distortion that you can’t get from transistor. You can’t match the sound of tube amps.

What I like about Orange is the quality of the gear and just the tone, it’s got that warm tube sound and you can push it. If you back off it will clear off a bit, it will be relatively clean and if you dig into it, it breaks up great. So you have got a lot of room with getting your own sound, with muting and it brings all the subtleties out in your playing. Something about the sound about the analogue amps is unbeatable.


Something about the sound about the analogue amps is unbeatable.

For us reliability is a big key and you don’t need amps breaking down. Having vintage amps is a pain, you can’t replace them, they get busted up traveling and the Orange gear just covers all the bases really.  You can get it anywhere and they just have great sound, they really are unbeatable.

I use an AD50 guitar head running a 412 orange cabinet and an AD200 bass head running a 412 orange cabinet and that is it!

I play a 12 string bass, my rig is really the same for a 4 string as a 12 string bass. Its that same guitar sound, your just really adding in the high, it’s a bit like a 12 string guitar playing along with a bass. When I switch over sometimes to a T-Bird or a Fender Precision, they both have that grand piano sound which is great. So you get that great guitar distortion and they have great low end. It’s really basically the same sound, the twelve string is a bit bigger because they’re are high strings going on. Get the great guitar sound and then just add bottom, nothing to it.

The main reason we keep going or most musicians, is that you don’t have a back up plan, it’s not like I can fall back on my lucrative dentistry career! I have been doing this since i was 14 years old and started playing in clubs since I was 15 and it’s really all we know. It’s what we love to do and I can’t imagine stopping. You are not thinking anything, you are playing for the love of it, there is mainly no money in it. You just do it because you love it, we have kept going and there is no reason to stop, yet!

Let’s dive right in and talk about your history with Orange – do your remember your first ever encounter with the brand, whether it was playing it yourself or seeing someone else play one?

Danko: Yeah I totally remember, and the reason is why I play Orange. We went on tour with The Supersuckers, and the only way we could do that was if we could use their gear, and I used Ron’s Orange head, and I remember thinking “Holy fuck, this is just the best head I’ve ever played!”. That’s how I started with Orange, before that I’d seen other use it and I’d always liked it, but I was playing a variety of amps so it wasn’t until playing through Ron’s that Orange was really put on the map for me. When I then got the opportunity to work with Orange myself that just made sense.

You guys are known for touring relentle-
Danko: I mean – yes, yes we do, or at least have done that, and I guess we’ve been on the road a fair bit this year as well even though for me it feels like an off year. We opened up for Skindred in the UK at the start of the year, came back for festivals, made an album, and now we’re here again. The off years are always the year we make the albums, although looking back at it now it doesn’t really take us much off the road at all.

When constantly on the road, how does a day in the life of Danko Jones normally look like?
Danko:
You know, not that exciting to be honest. On a day like today, I pretty much just hang around near the venue. I need sleep for my voice, so that’s about it, lots of down time. The best thing is to not think about it too much, and especially when it comes to playing the show; the moment I start thinking about things, I fuck it up on stage. There’s also this banter between the band and the audience that you just can’t plan, I’ve seen bands do that, script their set – and whenever someone shouts something at them from the crowd, they have no reply and there’s just no way of bouncing back form it. Have the songs rehearsed and that’s it, whatever happens happens. The best thing to do most days is to just go at it with a blank head and brain. So many bands these days have backing tracks and vocals and everything just seems so pre-programmed that there’s little room for spontaneity, and I think the audience picks up on that. I don’t mind if the show goes off the track, cause at least it shows the audience that they’re getting whatever we can serve them on the night, and there is something to be said for that. We go out there pretty low key, play the songs, and see where they take us.

You mentioned off years are album years, do you still write when you’re on the road or do you save that for when you’re back at home?
Danko: No, we allow enough time at home to do the writing then. We spent some time this time last year as well as before and after summer digging deep into writing, and with those sort of writing sessions we were able to figure out what we wanted, and pick 11 or 12 favourites to go on the album. Ever since Rich Knox (drums) joined the band, I haven’t felt nervous before any of the releases, more than anything I’ve been excited and impatient for people to hear what we have been working on, which means I’m confident about the songs. This album we’re due to release is another one of those. I’ll admit there’s been some albums previously where I’ve been slightly nervous whether people would like it or not, and whenever I’ve had those sorts of doubts, those are always the albums that have had mixed reviews. I’ve always liked it, but it might not appeal to everyone else. The last two albums we put out, Fire Music (2015) and Wild Cat (2017) I wasn’t even nervous, and the reviews were really good, and our new album is just as good as both of them, if not better.

To dive back into Orange for this last question, what’s your setup for tonight?
Danko: I’ve got a Rockerverb 50 head, and you know what, I’m not a gear head, I’m a creature of habit – whatever I find and like, that’s what I stick with. I can’t give you any specks of what it is I like about the head, it just have to sound like this (makes riff noise), which is a sound I’ve been making since I was seven. If it sounds like that, great. I don’t go searching for new products, and usually if I switch to something else or try something new, that will have to be presented and put in front of me. To me, amps aren’t precious possessions or collectables, they are the tools of my trade, the tools I need to do my job, and I gotta be honest, Orange is the best tools I’ve ever used.

Giannis: Hello, I am Giannis and I’m the guitar player from 1000 Mods.

Giorgos: I am Giorgos, I play for 1000 Mods and the reason I started playing guitar is because of Black Sabbath.

Giannis: The reason why I started playing guitar is because some of the first bands I ever listened to were MC5 and Motorhead.

Giorgos: We knew each other from a very young age. With Lampros, the drummer, we knew each other since we were three years old. After meeting Giannis later on, we started a few bands and we had a few music groups. Under the name 1000 Mods in 2006 we started recording albums.

After a few shows in the Corinthia region and a few festivals, we moved into the Athens music scene, as we wanted to play there and meet different bands. There was a really good music scene there which we became a part of, which as you know there is now a lot of recognition about this scene in Europe. I think all bands either from Greece or coming to play in Greece have only good things to say about it.

Giannis: The first band that I ever saw in a music video playing Orange, were MC5 and then in more modern times, Slipknot. The first Orange amp I ever played with, was an OR-120 and sometime in the middle of 2005, I bought a second one, an Orange 50 Watt Rockerverb.

Giorgos: The first experiences I had, was the Black Sabbath music videos, Paranoid and Iron Man. I remember a very good story when I bought Holy Mountain by Sleep they had written οn the back cover, if I am not mistaken that they were looking for Orange amps and wanted to buy them etc and this made a great impression on me.

I remember a funny story was when we went to Athens to various guitar stores and music stores and we went to a shop that was selling Orange at the time to try a Rockerverb 50 or 100. I remember when we put it on, we turned up the amp
too much inside the store causing some strings from an acoustic guitar to break!

Anyway, when we listened to Orange we realised that this is where the sound is. As the store employee told us, it has a very good “honest” mids and a great headroom and that’s how we started being involved with Orange and buying Orange. I remember buying a Rockerverb 50 then Giannis got an old Orange OR-120 which we used live and from then on we continued experimenting with our sound and with Orange in general, because we loved it. Soon after, Orange started to become more popular, where we were playing, there were Orange and generally we all started playing on stage with Orange and many other music bands, were using Orange amps.

Giannis: From Orange, that is a very fundamental part of my sound I am using an Orange OR-120 1970 and an Orange Rockerverb 100 which are the very base of my sound and I consider them as a part that I can’t replace.

Generally I do a blend of sounds from the two Oranges, where the low and mid frequencies are coming from the old one and from the modern I get the high frequencies that I desperately need.

Giorgos: As we moved forward, we tried different sounds with other amps as well and blended them and about a year ago, it was a great honour for us, to have Charlie coming to Desertfest in London and suggesting us to collaborate and be a part of the Orange roster and become Orange ambassadors.

This period we are on our second round of promotion of our album “Repeated Exposure to…” and in the future we hope to start working on some new material hopefully in the middle of 2019.

Jonathan Higgs (Vocals and Guitar):

Hi, I’m Jonathan Higgs and i’m the singer and the guitar player in Everything Everything. My current setup is the Rocker 32 combo, it’s a pretty versatile amp. You can use it in the studio and we have done, but it really comes alive on the road, it’s very resilient and it sounds great on stage.

The best thing about the amp if the simplicity, its just basically a big volume knob, it’s just simple; you turn it up and there you are. You can sometimes get bogged down in all sort of settings with amps but this is nice and simple.

Alex Robertshaw (Guitar)

Hi, i’m Alex and I play guitar in the band Everything Everything. So at the moment i’m using the Orange Rockerverb MKIII, I decided to go for the Rockerverb MKIII because it has a very high Wattage and I wanted an amp that was really clean. It’s got loads of headroom, I want an amp with loads of headroom, so I can keep bumping it up and I am not hitting any compressed ceiling.

Jeremy Pritchard (Bass)

So i’m running the AD200 head and the 8×10 cab and the pedal board goes straight into that and it just covers everything you need in terms of frequency response on stage. I’ve always favoured any amplifier with just very high quality but simple components. I’ve always liked the heritage of the brand as well.

The actual look of the cabinet design and the head design is so distinctive, so you always knew if you were watching someone playing Orange. I used to go see bands like SUNN O))) and Sleep, really heavy stoner doom bands and they would always have these very distinctive cabinets and heads on stage. And a lot of those bands that i was really into and still am used Orange.

Plus our mates Foals, who have such a ferious live sound, Walter was always using the 8X10’s and Jimmy’s entire guitar rig is Orange. Even when I was a teenager and seeing Noel Gallagher with that classic Orange look was really memorable.

There were a lot of whispers within the company about Marcus King before his London Islington Assembly show, a gig where Orange founder and CEO Cliff Cooper embarked on a two hour journey to introduce himself and say hello before the show, and where I had countless phone calls, messages and emails from various colleagues around the globe pre interview, making me aware of how.god.damn.important. this 22 year old guitar prodigy was for the future of music and how they’d send me home on the first flight to Norway (not really…) if I didn’t make a good impression – so no pressure there.. During the interview I found out more about his love for the charismatic frontman, and that he started playing guitar at the age of 3, an age where I personally was still trying to grow a full head of hair. To get back into it, ladies and gentlemen, the ever so clever, Marcus King.

Finding someone like yourself playing this sort of music and playing it as well as you do at 22, really makes me believe there’s hope for future generations. I assume you must have been young when you started playing, may I ask how young?
Marcus King:
I first started playing when I was about 3 or 4, and I’ve been playing professionally since I was about 11.

I’m guessing music’s been a natural part of your upbringing as you come from a strong blues background with your dad being fellow blues man Marvin King. Apart from that, there are such strong elements of soul, funk, and even some latin grooves in your playing, what other types of music did you listen to when growing up and learning to play?
Marcus King:
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.

You got your band with you, The Marcus King Band, here tonight – how do you work when you make music, do you write the most of it on your own and bring it to the band, or is it done as a unit?
Marcus King: Most of the songs I write and bring to the band for them to add in their flavour, and that’s what creates a Marcus King Band song, a collaborative effort. To those of you who don’t know, The Marcus King band is:

Drums: Jack Ryan – 6 years in the band
Trumpet: Justin Johnson – 5 years in the band
Bass: Stephen Campbell – 4 years in the band – Uses an AD200
Saxophone: Dean Mitchell – 4 years in the band
Keys: Deshawn “D-Vibes” Alexander – 1 year in the band

Now to put you on the spot in front of founder Cliff Cooper, how have you been finding using Orange on this past tour?
Marcus King: I’ve loved every second of it – I’ve never had a mishap using an Orange, which is one of the things I love the most about them, how dependable they are. Plus, you can play ‘em straight outta the box! Tonight I’ve got a Rockerverb 50, which is my favourite Orange head, and a 4×12 cab. I’ve also always been a reverb guy so when Orange’s Pat Foley in Nashville introduced me to the Rockerverb, I was sold on it. Pat’s great, and he’s become close friends with my dad as well.

Hi I’m Dan from Boston Manor and I play Orange.

Well I have always been a big fan of music and bands, I really loved Blink 182 and my favourite member was Mark Hoppus. He was my main influence I think because he sung and played bass and he jumped around a lot and I was really into all that. Picking up the bass as well, I was like this is different from guitar and not that many people I know play bass, so I thought it was a really cool instrument to play.

With the Terror bass what I look for is reliability and tone, it’s just flawless in every way.  I love playing it and being small it fits in the van, under my seat, that’s why I love it so much. The reason I got the new one is it has features of the older Orange AD200 which I used to play quite a lot but they were really heavy and big. I still really enjoyed the tone and sound of them, it kind of has those features all built into this one tiny terror bass head.

My setup on stage is, I have the Orange bass terror, the new one. I have the Orange 4X10 cab and then underneath it is a 1X15 cab and they are paired together. I put it on the clean switch and I also mess around with my pedals to kind of get a grittier tone and it works really well with a couple of pedals on the clean sound. I’m still figuring it out at the moment, I do like to try different things as much as possible. I feel like it sounds better live using the Orange stuff than using it in the studio because I always try to crank more for live, to give it a bit more gain. Once you really crank the gain on those things it really proper drives it and helps the song.

I just think Orange are cool, they have always been that cool, i’ve seen many punk bands using Orange as well. I’ve always just thought they looked awesome as well. We recorded our EP’s and our first record with them and like I said I used it at uni, I always thought Orange were the go to amp head and cabs as well. I’ve always just loved Orange and thought why not have one for myself.

It feels amazing, I never thought growing up, even five years ago when we first started the band I never thought we would one get to this point and two, have Orange who I have always looked up to, support our band and support me individually.  I feel blessed in a way because I never thought it would happen.

Glenn Hughes – bassist extraordinaire and singer from a different dimension, a musician who played a vital part in British heavy rock and introduced Deep Purple to funk, briefly fronted Black Sabbath in the 80s, released an album with Pat Thrall, and played with musicians such as Joe Bonamassa, Joey Castillo and Jason Bonham, to mention a few. Most recent, is his “Glenn Hughes plays Deep Purple” adventure, where he’s re-living what he did with MK III and MK IV over two extensive world tours. 

First of all, let me just say I think it is so wonderful that you’re doing this tour, not just for myself, but for a lot of people who maybe got to know Deep Purple through their parents, and also just for long time Purple fans from way back when – it’s a tremendous pleasure and even privilege to be able to hear these songs being brought back to life decades after being written – how has it been playing these shows, and bringing this music to a new generation?

Glenn: In 2017, I was asked by promoters around the world if I would be interested in doing these legacy shows with what I did with MK III and MK IV. If you know me, you know I have played some songs in my shows previously, as well as other songs from my past bands such as Trapeze. I’ve never done a complete two hour show of this music, which meant I had to go back and dig deep to figure out which songs, arrangements, how I’d play them and if I’d be able to do so with the same angst and energy as I did when I was 23.

When this tour became a reality, I had to get in shape, which I did, and you know, Ella, and you can tell me later after the show, I would not do this, if I could not deliver. This isn’t about some guy walking on, grabbing a guitar and just standing still, this is a man who’s gone into character. When I’m up there, I don’t want to be 23, but I feel effervescent, I feel young, and when I sing those songs, you can’t really tell the difference. I’ve grown my hair, and I’ve got the outfits. Not the original ones, as a lot of them were lost along the way, and some even displayed in the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Luckily, I’m friends with some incredible designers, and fashion is something I’ve also always had a keen interest in, which I got from my father. But of course, it’s music that is the centre of my universe, what I live for.

In recent years you’ve also been pretty busy releasing new music, latest being last year’s Black Country Communion’s fourth album BCCIV, have you got anything else lined up either by yourself or with others?
Glenn: The plan for now is to do this for two years, go around the world twice. I’ll be back again here in the  UK next May for more of this, and I’m doing three American tours, one of which I just completed two weeks ago. When the time’s right, I’ll figure out what’s next, but something will come up for me because I’ve sat around for too long – I mean, I have a great home in L.A and a great lifestyle, but I was becoming restless, and people who know me, knows that I am very much a live singer, I’m not someone who can settle for spending all their time in the studio, I need to be performing, live on stage.

Now, let’s get slightly more technical and talk amps, Orange Amps. Obviously, when you’re at this place in your career where you are now, you can pick and choose among all amplification manufacturers around the world, how did you end up using Orange?
Glenn: Let’s just say, before I started using Orange five years ago, I was with other companies. Big ones. As I was walking through NAMM in L.A I was approached by Orange who asked if I wanted to come try out some of their amps, which I had always wanted to do, genuinely. When I got to the stall, there was a P bass in front of me, and and Orange amp with four knobs. “That’s easy for me”, I thought. When I started playing, I was getting this sound that was very, very similar to what I had with Purple in the 70s, and it was something that I wanted to be a part of. That day, I forgot about everything else that wasn’t Orange. I want you to hear the sound I’ve got tonight, it’s such a dynamic sound, a dynamic, and really wild sound, that says Orange, and it says Glenn Hughes. Cliff Cooper, he believes in me as an artist, and he believes that I love his company, which I do.

I can’t speak for Cliff, but I feel like I can safely say on behalf of the company, it is very exciting to have you as one of our artists, someone that has played such a big part in British music history and heavy rock, and I dare say even bringing funk to British hard rock.
Glenn: The funk for me, will come from my love of Motown which I’ve had since I was a youngster. Growing up living in America, and knowing a lot of great black musicians. Then all of a sudden, I find myself being in Deep Purple, as a rock star, and icon, but also remembering that my background is from Detroit. Not only did I change when I joined the band, but the band changed. I came in, and they felt the movement of what I was playing and writing. I didn’t hold them and gunpoint, they went with me, and those pieces of work we did together, are very important to me.

Just before I let you go, back to the technicalities – what’s the set up for this Deep Purple tour?
Glenn: I’ve got a few set ups, maybe two or three, but the ones I’m using right now is two 8×10’s and the AD200. That’s primarily what I use, this is perfect for what I’m doing now, and the 8×10’s been working really well for me.

Hi I’m Steve and I play bass in the band “Every Time I Die”.

The first thing was the tone that I could get out of something that was that small and I was completely blown away by it. Second the portability, especially I remember ETID going on tour and a bunch of people being like:

“what’s that? is that head you’re playing out of?”.

“Ye it’s a bass head”

People were shocked at how much tone and power you could get out of it. Then i remember six months, a year later almost every single hardcore band we toured with, had that head.

I mean it was the choice of the touring hardcore musician, you don’t have to lug around something super heavy and bulky. It was very user friendly, very low maintenance, it was just everywhere and I loved those heads explode and takeoff and see every band use one.

 

So Dan from Orange brought down the new Terror head and I just tried it out and it is everything I hoped it would be. It has the low end of the AD200 which is fantastic, it’s got a lot of growl to it, the high end is punchy and very clear It definitely keeps up with AD200 as far as tone goes.

So as soon as the new Terror head comes out it will be in my rig stage right. Pairing it with the AD200, which has been kind of been my sound which i have been trying to do live and in the studio, Can’t  wait to get it back on the stage.

Ye! No fingers, picks!

Hi, I’m Sergio Vega I play bass in Deftones and Quicksand and i’m sitting here with Orange and we are going to be talking about the Terror Bass.

So my general impression of the Orange brand is legendary! The first time I saw an Orange amp was with Sleep. Their sound is massive and seeing the wall of amplifiers and cabs, it made a big impression.

For me playing bass is a very aggressive, kind of sensual and I play with a pick. It comes from bands that I grew up loving like the Cro-Mags, Amebixs, basically punks bands with gnarly tones and that was my thing and it still is!

The Terror bass amp is cool because it adds a lot of warmth, it adds a lot of detail, it kind of allows me to shape what i’m doing and give it its best possible presentation.

A cool feature about the Terror bass amp that stands out to me is the clean switch, it basically allows the cleaner end of the approach to really sing. When i’m playing clean or when i’m playing my bass six, kind of on the higher strings, I still want there to be a lot of warmth. I don’t want it to start sounding too much like a guitar and this amp has really been instrumental in getting across what I want to get across.

I play Orange amps with Quicksand and Deftones, Orange cabinets as well. They just sound meaty! One of the things i’m definitely really into about Orange besides the bass amps are the cabinets. Something in the construction of it, something in the wood, something in the weight that really stand out, in a way that I heard immediately and i’ve been stuck on.

To me I use digital processors, you know amp processors and I run them straight into the front of the Terror Bass amp so I can add the warmth from the tubes and the extra colouring from the EQ. But it has a really rad effects loop that I have messed around with as well, so if that’s your approach its totally there for as well.

I originally started using the Terror bass amps because it was helpful in taking all of the digital processors that I was using and adding extra girth and width and helping articulate the distorted aspects of my tone, all of the effects that I like to use. Also its really there for me for the cleaner end of what I do, now that they’re back and I have my chance to get my hands on them again, especially with the additional feature of the clean switch, i’m super stoked.

I’m looking forward to many years with this, don’t ever leave me again!

I’m Sergio Vega and I play the Terror Bass!

 

 

Yo, its Tyler from Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown and I play Orange Amps.

So I heard the music of Elvis Presley when i was in first grade and that was that pivotal moment where I became obsessed with music. When I was eleven I went into a guitar shop and I heard this guy called Roosevelt Twitty playing and he asked me if I liked the blues and I said “what’s the blues?”. He said; “it’s what I’m playing” and I said; “well then I love the blues!” I ran into him again and again, long story short, I put a dirtbike that I had on layaway and got an electric guitar and it’s been downhill ever since!

Blues lead me to guys like Johnny Winter and Jimi Hendrix, which lead me to the Black Crowes and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. So the blues led me to Rock n Roll which inspired me to get out of high school when I was seventeen and move to Nashville. There I started focusing on songwriting and forming a band, and I ended up with a band called the Shakedown. That’s kind of how it all played out.

I was actually riding around Nashville, with Graham Whitford who is also in the Shakedown and he said i’m going to stop into the Orange amps office and try some amps. So I said I will go with you and plugged into a Rockerverb. I wanted something I could get a lot of sustain out of and I tried the Rockerverb and got one, I loved it so much. I just use one channel on the Rockerverb, the clean channel and I drive it hard and I use the attenuator to set the volume and its as simple as that. I just love how much sustain I can get out of that amp. I just happened to rolling around with Graham in Nashville and played one and here we are.

So I always want an amp that has a good clean channel but also sounds big, if I don’t have a pedal on. But I don’t want an amp that is so distorted that I can’t have some control at my pedal board. So it’s this fine balance of an amp that’s big and full and that’s almost on the edge of being crunchy but still clean and precise. I like to hear, it’s hard to explain, I want the amp to sound glassy, like I want to hear the tubes and feel that play between the guitar and the amp.