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Interview – Rune Rebellion of Turbonegro – Desertfest 2017

This is Rune Rebellion from Turbonegro at Desertfest, London.

My dad was in a band in the 70’s, like a rock band, well he’s a Jazz musician but in the 70’s you couldn’t make any money playing Jazz so he had to! So he had like a Deep Purple/Tom Jones cover band and I was like 7 and I got to come along to soundcheck, help him rig the gear. There was a guitar player who had just bought a new Orange rig, wow amazing, he plugged in and I was like Wow! this was my first true rock n roll experience.

This is the exact same guitar player that rumour says they were playing a wedding and he ended up in bed with the bride, thats rock n roll!

First time I played regularly was like 10 years ago, since then I have been using it all the time, its become my, the love of my life. For the studio I mostly use the 50 Watt and also when I do club shows but for festivals there is the 100 one, to step it up a notch.

Obviously Orange has become the mainstream amp for rock n roll these days, you guys are doing a really good job of reinventing the brand and the sound, so ye it works for me and obviously for a lot of other guys as well.

 

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Miami Girls Rock Camp

About the camp:

Miami Girls Rock Camp is a week-long summer day camp program for girls aged 8 to 17 that uses music and performance as a platform to promote self-esteem, community, and creative expression, for young women and girls in Miami. The program offers instrument instruction, songwriting/band practice, live performances by visiting artists/DJs, workshops, and culminates in a showcase concert. Campers receive two hours of instruction each day on selected instruments (drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, vocals), in semi-private groups organized by skill level and age. All classes are taught by volunteer women musicians. Campers do not need prior musical experience.

This entry was posted on behalf of Carolina Souto:

I’m Carolina Souto, a local Miami musician and music teacher. It’s cheesy, but I was a lucky kid. I grew up around musicians, and I mean good ones, many of whom still work in the music industry today. And I’m also especially lucky to have had inspiring teachers who helped shape my future.

Still, despite all the luck and positive learning experiences, the fact didn’t escape me that I was also mostly surrounded by boys…and boy, did that create some social and mental barriers growing up that I just couldn’t see past. But no sob story here.

Last year I volunteered for the Miami Girls Rock Camp. I got to teach a room full of girls how to plug in their guitars, turn up the volume, and be heard. Just us girls and our guitars…magic.

I also coached a band that performed an original song at the camp show finale. Six girls who had never played together before, some who had never touched an instrument before, worked their brains off to write an original song and perform to a pretty big audience. They rocked the house and blew me away.

I knew this experience was going to be special for the campers, but I had no idea how much it would change my own perception of the music world around me. Barriers be damned.

Since then, some of the MGRC guitar campers continued to take music lessons and are seriously on the road to becoming the next batch of crazy-good musicians to come out of Miami. And as for myself, I finally shared some songs I had secretly written. Can I say it’s all because of MGRC? Without a freaking doubt.

This year will be my second time volunteering for Miami Girls Rock Camp. I can’t wait to meet the campers, to be in the room with the girls and our guitars, and to help a new band come together and create music. Here’s to another rockin camp year!

Websites:

@miamigirlsrockcamp
facebook.com/MiamiGirlsRockCamp

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The Future of Rock ‘n’ Roll

This is Maddox aged 8, casually dressed as The Trooper while waiting for Iron Maiden with his dad at the O2 earlier this year. (Spot the proud dad on the left) At the same show, I also spotted some kids sporting the same Black Sabbath tour tee I’ve got at home from their 2017 farewell tour, and a little girl in a Zeppelin tee, and you know what? Few things makes me happier than seeing stuff like that, accompanied by some proud parent who’s clearly got the whole parenting thing on lockdown. We live in a world with a pretty screwed up celebrity culture, where musical idols have been replaced by make up dolls based on the amount of followers and nearly nudes they’ve got on Instagram

Personally I’d say I was raised incredibly well, Daddy cool sure as hell didn’t want a pop princess of a baby, so for as long as I can remember he was blasting Motörhead, Ramones, Deep Purple, Kiss, Bad Religion Zeppelin, Sabbath, Rainbow, Pink Floyd – and the list goes on, and to this day without failure, we’ll set camp by his sound system every time I go home, and he’ll break out some old gold like Uriah Heep’s 1973 live album, German krautrock band Jane, UFO or Scorpions. As I type, my dad messaged me saying ‘I remember when you were a kid you’d get so scared you’d nearly shit yourself from the intro of this song’ and send me a link to ‘Too Much Rope’ by Roger Waters. That banging in the beginning would make my heart skip a beat, in a bad way, and he’d play it A. for his amusement and B. well, because I needed Roger Waters in my life.

Yours truly circa ’94-’96.

There’s no secret that many of the good ol’ timers are still going strong; Rolling Stones are kicking it even in their 70’s, Ritchie Blackmore’s brought back Rainbow, Iron Maiden are still shredding away and Alice Cooper is still the coolest cat in town. Sadly, Black Sabbath’s retired, Lemmy, Bowie and Dio’s passed away, and when all the good one’s are gone, who’s going to take over? In times like these, times where the biggest new musical acts tends to be pretty faces with an army of social media experts and a team of ten that writes them a hit of a pop song that’ll come down like a plague of locusts gone rogue, yes, in times like that, we need kids like Maddox more than ever.

Stadiums and arenas seems to be mostly for the olden golden Gods and teenagers in thongs, and you gotta go searching in dingy dive bars, basements, caves, mountain tops and trees to find the real talent – bands that deserves armies of fans and private airplanes with marble fireplaces, bands that will blow your mind and melt your brain. We’ve had Beatlemania, Woodstock, the swinging 60’s and the sensational 70’s where rockstars ruled the world. For some reason, it feels like the majority of the 2017 population of planet earth doesn’t recognize talent even if it’d come at you as despite nearly being knocked over by a wall of sound. Some of the best musicians and bands I know are working day jobs to support their musical careers, slavin’ away between nine and five in some soul-killing, uninspiring and draining job all so they can spend their evenings and weekends shredding the f* out. We need more parents like Maddox’s mum and dad – you gotta get ‘em while they’re young before they fall into the dark whole of mainstream and mindless pop. We need a musical revolution, and kids like Maddox can make that happen. Little man, please pick up a guitar, bass, or get behind the drums – you might just be the savior of rock ’n’ roll.

Massive thanks to both Maddox and his dad for potentially saving future generations, and letting me snap the photo above to share with the world.

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Interview – Richard Hepp & Devin ‘Darty’ Purdy of Chron Goblin – Desertfest

 

Darty: I’m Darty, I’m with the band Chron Goblin

Richard: I’m Richard, I play bass in Chron Goblin. And this is our second time at Desertfest but we don’t really remember much of the first time…

Darty: We have an amazing scene in Canada but it’s just amazing to come over here and just see people that are into our music. We live so far away from home and everyone is so grateful and so nice to us, and we are so grateful to be here. Fuck we love love Desertfest!

Darty: So the first time we ever saw Orange amps was when we came to Desertfest 2012 just to watch the festival. Everyone there was using Orange Amps and it sounded amazing! So when we returned to Canada we were dead set on trying out some Orange Amps, right after that I bought my first Rockerverb 100 Head. It’s been Orange ever since.

Richard: Ye same with me. I saw them, I was aware of them but they were so high end that they were a kinda out of my price range for quite a bit and I wasn’t in a band before. So we came to check out some stuff, we had a play through the OBC810 and an AD200, the bass head, it blew me away when we played with it at the Underworld! Like everything was shaking on me it was so awesome! It’s been my pursuit to play through that since, I need to have that again!

Darty: Ye the Stage Manager at the underworld literally made us play it at full volume and it was unheard of. It was crazy! It was awesome!

Richard: It was awesome! ye the Brits like it loud and so do we!

Richard: I use the Orange AD200 Bass head, the tube, and then recently the 15 and the 410 cabs and it’s amazing. I keep my pedals pretty simple so I just have a distortion Boss pedal and then a wah and a tuner and that’s about it and the head does everything else.

Darty: Like Richard says, pretty simple set up. Actually right before I got here I just got the new Orange Rockerverb MKIII with built in attenuator which is unreal because you can really set up in any kind of room with the ability to change the wattage as well. So it’s fantastic! So I run that through just a 412, a Dunlop Crybaby, pretty simple, and just like Richard here, let the Orange Head do the work.

Richard: Oh and recently I got one of those Palmer Pedals that you take the active signal out of the head and it turns it passive so you can DI it after the head, because in Canada most people DI the pedals before it gets to the head. So essentially what you have is a gigantic stage monitor right behind you, which isn’t the worst thing to have but your not really getting any of that tube sound out.

What’s it like to be an Orange ambassador?

Darty: It’s literally like a dream come true. It’s so awesome we are so grateful! You know we would be using Orange gear regardless of your support and to be able to have the support is amazing. So ye we are very grateful. Orange until death!

Richard: Ye it’s a very rad thing to do. We are picking up Orange gear for the entire tour after this show and without that we would of had to rent the Orange gear. That would of been a decent dent with the exchange rate now. So you know it does unbelievably good things for touring bands. Like Matt Pike has his wall you know and I’m sure that’s great but for us we just get it out there and as long as it sounds rad we are going!

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Interview: Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson

As Cheap Trick embark on their 2017 tour, which marks the 40th anniversary of their ’77 self titled debut record, I met up with bassist Tom for a quick pre-gig chat. As I arrive at the Kentish Town Forum for my interview, I seek shelter from the rain while chatting to one of the main security dudes who pretty much find me roaming the backstage area there on a monthly basis with all sorts of bands, as the venue almost seem to be a Mekka for Orange ambassadors.

While waiting around as a drowned cat dreaming of the remaining of my pint that’s been left in unsafe hands with my mate at the pub (low and behold – it was still there when I got back!), Cheap Trick’s tour manager and Tom comes to find me, leaving me to wish I could time travel back to 1978 to tell my 18 year old dad what was about to go down. Tom brings me upstairs to his hospitality room, where he introduces me to his wife and two kids, his daughter being sat on the sofa chilling out and playing the bass – cool kid = level expert. We take a seat, and I make myself as comfortably as humanly possible sat face to face with rock royalty and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

First of all – congratulation on the 40 year anniversary of your first record! How does it feel to still be going that strong after four decades in the industry?
Well, we’ve always just been taking it one day at a time, it was never anything we did while trying to plan our future, it’s just something that’s been happening – You do a record, you do a tour, and at first it was a massive thing just being able to do it and survive, and we’ve just been lucky enough to be able to just go along with it. It’s not like we had some master plan on how to do it or how to make it, we fell into it and did our best, got extremely lucky, and made it.

I had a quick chat with you last year right before you got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and you mentioned then that your plan was to release a new album every year?
And we went and did it, didn’t we?! And even more to come, as we’ve actually just finished recording a Christmas record about two months ago, which will actually make it three records in two years! The Christmas record will be released around Halloween, and it came out great! We did one standard, and then all sorts of different songs on there, it’s really cool.

Are they your own Christmas songs, covers, or a little mix of both?
We’ve got a few originals, and we covered songs from artists that we really like which have done Christmas songs we think’s really cool, you know, Roy Wood and that sort of thing. The only confusing thing about recording this record, is that every song had the word Christmas in it, so we could never keep it straight during recording, trying to figure out which song was which; ‘Ok guys so let’s do the Christm….. the sleigh song next.’

That’s so awesome, and the fact that after all these years playing together you’re still hungry for more and keep coming up with great new material.
It just seems very natural for us, I can’t really explain it. People will ask for advice, and, I just dont have any. We love recording and writing together, and we always search for that perfect record which you can never achieve, so I guess that might be one of those things that keeps us going, there’s always room for improvement and change. Occasionally you get this one tone and we’re all just like ‘No one moves, stand in this spot – THIS.IS.IT!’

So, the reason we’re both here today; Orange Amps.
Yes, and you know what? Our guitar player Rick Nielsen and I were friends before we started working together, so in 1968 we came to London, I was 18 and he was 20, and everything we loved, came out of London. It was the British invasion, and we were totally into it. So when we came here, we went to Cliff’s shop, and he was telling us all about his plans of putting out a line of amps which he was building in the back of the shop, and the first ever band I saw using Orange was Fleetwood Mac. They came to the US in ’69, and it was so great. At that time they had those really big ones, you know, giants. The cabinet was like ten feet tall, it was a joke. After that, we all just absolutely loved Orange Amps, and I’ve loved them ever since.

How long have you been using Orange yourself?
For a very long time, I don’t even know what year it was. I’ve had an Orange guitar head which I’ve had for years that I use when I record, but I dont take that one on the road. I love the AD50 and the AD200, and what’s so great with Orange having done so well for themselves, is that I can go pretty much anywhere in the world and get those amps, the exact rig that you want.

So what is it about the Orange Amps that draws you to them, is it the fact that you can pretty much just plug in and play?
Yeah absolutely! I don’t use any pedals, none of us do, so it’s just straight out, and I really like the push. Orange is great because you can push them and make them sound great at low volume too. Mainly I get a guitar sound, and add low end to it for bass, which I find especially useful since I’ve got a 12 string bass.

Let’s talk some more about your famous 12 string bass…
Well, when I decided I wanted a 12 string bass, there was no such thing as a 12 string bass, there was an 8 string, but that was a crummy lil’ thing that didn’t have any low end, they didn’t fret out, and they just weren’t all that great. We just wanted our sound to be as big as possible, so I thought, ‘Why don’t I just get a bass with a whole bunch of strings, so it’ll sound kind of like a guitar player just playing along with the bass player?’ I originally started out as a guitar player, so it’s sort of just like a huge, giant rhythm guitar.

Well, you mentioned your Christmas Record being released later this year, are you still planning on sticking to the whole ‘releasing an album a year’ thing after that as well?
Yes, absolutely! As long as the label allows it, and they were the ones who suggested it, so there’ll definitely be more new music coming your way…

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Interview: Ghost Bath’s Dennis

Hey man, who are you, what’s your band, and what are you guys up to?
Dennis: Hey, I’m Dennis, I sing and play guitar in Ghost Bath. We play depressive, suicidal black metal, and we’re on Nuclear Blast! We’re currently on tour – we got here on the 5th of May, and we’re flying back to the states on the 26th of June, and I reckon we’ll have about a total of ten days off in that time. Busy times!

It’s a pretty accurate description that, ‘depressive suicidal, black metal’ – when you started up the band did you all want to play ‘depressive suicidal, black metal’, or did you come from a black metal background and just wanted to do something a little bit different?
Dennis: Until 2015, I was the only member of the band and writing all the music. Originally I heard bands such as Agalloch and was really into them, as well as bands such as SBM (Scream Blue Murder), and I wanted to make depressive suicidal, black metal that was recorded very well, as a lot of the recording quality on that sort of music is – I wont say it’s bad, but purposely made more rough, so I wanted to take that and have it more polished.

Makes sense, a lot of the black metal sounds like it’s been recorded in some cave in a Norwegian mountain at night time, in winter.

Anyway, you recently released your latest record ‘Starmourner’, how’s that been received?
Dennis: It’s been pretty polarizing like all of our stuff, people either love it or hate it, but a lot of people have said it’s more of a grower not a shower, basically.  The first time you hear it you’re not quite sure what to think of it, then the more you listen to it the more you’ll get into it, and I get that myself with music as well; a lot of the records I listen to today was records I wasn’t quite sure of at first, and then they slowly grew on me.

Now, let’s get down to business; Orange Amps. What’s your history with the company?
Dennis: I grew up in a small town in the mid-west in the US, but we still had a decent music scene. One time this one band I was really into and looked up to brought out this Orange Amp on stage, and it just looked so cool and really stood out with the bright colour. I’m not too sure how old I was, but I reckon it was early teens. Since these were guys I looked up to, I just knew that I needed to get an amp like that eventually, and I finally did about eight years ago when I got a Rockerverb 100, which I could just plug in and play, I don’t even have to tweak anything, it just sounds better than all the other amps I’ve had, and that’s literally all I’ve used since.

From doing these interviews that’s probably what I’ve heard the most – ‘I just plug in and play’, which is exactly what you want. You don’t want to sit there for 40 minutes fiddling around, tweaking a bunch of knobs.
Dennis: Yeah, I had a Rectifier before the Orange, and that one I couldn’t even tweak. I’d be at it tweaking for weeks just all like ‘ugh oh why…’. So yeah, I’ve never looked back after I got an Orange!

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Stone Free Festival

This Saturday, it was time for the annual Stone Free Festival at London’s o2, and new to this years festival, was the Orange Amps stage in the foyer of the arena, providing festival goers with banging tunes from the very first second they set foot in the venue.

THE ORANGE AMPS STAGE
Evil Blizzard: 18.00 – 18.45
Buck & Evans: 17.00 – 17.30
Massive: 16.00 – 16.30
Massive Wagons: 15.00 – 15.30
Death Valley Knights: 14.00 – 14.30
Tequila Mockingbyrd: 13.00 – 13.30
Riff Rath: 12.00 – 12.30

Evil Blizzard delivering a killer set at the Orange Amps stage. When one bassist just won’t cut it…

As far as for the rest of the festival, it saw the likes of bands and artists such as The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Blue Oyster Cult (among others) who played their 1972 self titled debut album in it’s entirety at a sweaty and packed Indigo2.

Blue Oyster Cult at Indigo2 – Photo via Stone Free’s Facebook page

In the main room, we saw performances from 70’s glam rockers Sweet who delivered a whole bunch of bangers such as Ballroom Blitz, Teenage Rampage, Fox on the Run, and Hellraiser. Following Sweet’s performance there was a half an hour break leaving you with just enough time for toilet breaks and running to the bar to buy some pretty expensive pints to spill all over yourself and everyone else while awkwardly trying to parkour your way through the crowd getting back to your seat, before it was time for the headliner of the day, where living legend Mr. Ritchie Blackmore would bring his Rainbow playing the classic rock anthems of both Rainbow and Deep Purple.

Ritchie Blackmore – photo via Stone Free’s Facebook page

Touring Rainbow and Deep Purple songs without Ronnie James Dio and Jon Lord is risky business, but Ritchie Blackmore’s 21st century Rainbow delivered an absolutely incredible performance, playing songs such as I surrender, Man on The Silver Mountain, Mistreated, Child in Time, Black Night and Burn. I go to gigs several nights a week most weeks, and I think it’s safe to say this is one of the best ones I’ve been to in a very, very long time. All hail King Ritchie Blackmore!

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Metal Hammer Golden Gods 2017

Two nights ago, it was time for the annual Metal Hammer Golden Gods awards at London’s indigo2, a celebration of pretty much everything related to heavy rock. The night saw performances from bands and artists such as UK Stoner legends Orange Goblin (who’s frontman Ben Ward snapped up the ‘Defender of the Faith award along side partner Sandie Soriano after a hugely successful fundraiser to help Team Rock employees that was left unemployed right before Christmas last year), Swedish windmilling extraordinaires and edwardian pirate uniform cladded Metal band Avatar and Orange family friends Clutch and Mastodon, the last one winning ‘Best Live Band’.

Personally, the highlight of the night was the final award, the ‘Golden Gods’ awards, when they began dropping hints about who it could be, four guys from Birmingham, all that jazz. I pretty much held my breath for what seemed like forever, until iron man, the golden god himself, Mister Frank Anthony Iommi walked out on stage and accepted the prize on behalf of Black Sabbath. And there I had been with an AAA pass all along not knowing I was within the same establishment as this living legend – probably for the best, as it would have turned into a human hunt fueled by free Monster energy and gin drinks…

A huge thank you to everyone involved in making this evening such a success, we’re very proud to have been a part of it. Plus, we can’t forget; A massive congratulations to all the Metal Hammer Golden Gods 2017 winners, all very well deserved!

Best New Band: Venom Prison
Best Underground Band: Pallbearer
Best UK Band: Architects
Best Live Band: Mastodon
Best International Band: Avenged Sevenfold
Best Independent Label: Nuclear Blast
Dimebag Darrell Shredder Award: Airbourne’s Joel O’Keeffe
Riff Lord: Devin Townsend
Best Game: Iron Maiden’s Legacy Of The Beast
Breakthrough: Avatar
Defender Of The Faith: Ben Ward and Sandie Soriano
Inspiration: Exodus
Best Album: Magma by Gojira
Spirit Of Hammer: Prophets Of Rage
Icons: The Dillinger Escape Plan
Golden Gods: Black Sabbath

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Interview: Napalm Death’s John Cooke

Photo by Gobinder Jhitta

It’s a pretty neat bus you’ve got here, which I’m guessing will be your home for the next couple of weeks. I know you’re 15 shows into quite an intense tour, how’s the last couple of weeks been?
Yeah they’ve been good! A lot of sold out shows and the crowd’s been pretty crazy. We’ve also got quite a busy summer ahead, we’re playing Glastonbury which will be interesting – it’s quite a different crow. We’re also playing a few festivals in Germany and Romania, and I reckon we’ll be busy all the way up until December.

Whoa, that’s pretty busy. Are your days hectic when touring or do you get time to sit back and relax a bit as well?
When we’re on a tour like this one on a bus, it’s pretty relaxing. We roll in, and I get to sleep until 11 if I want to. When you’ve been touring for as long as I have, you end up having friends in lots of different cities, so before and after soundcheck I do get quite a lot of time to hang out and catch up with them. Flying tours on the other hand, is less relxing. You’ll end up having to get up at 4 in the morning after 3 hours of sleep to rush off to the airport, fly to where you need to be, hopefully have a nap, then play the gig and do it all over again – or change it up a bit and sit in a van for 16 hours, hah. There’s a lot of just sitting down in moving vehicles or planes…

What’s your history and experience with Orange Amps?
Before joining Napalm Death as a live guitarist, I used to be in a band called Corrupt Moral Altar, and I was actually endorsed by Orange Amps. I had a PPC412 and a Thunderverb 200 and I just really liked the tone and that big fat sound, especially that raw kind of tone you get from the speaker cabinets. I very much look at the tone when buying an amp, which is why I’ve ended up with and love Orange.

Were you a big Napalm fan growing up? And what other kind of music were you into?
I was definitely a big Napalm fan, and it’s kinda surreal to be in the band now. I also used to be in Venomous Concept with Shane and Danny from Napalm, which was pretty surreal as well. As far as music goes, I was into a lot of punk bands like the Exploited and Discharge as well, anything that was noisy really. Iggy and the Stooges, proto-punk and all that kind of stuff, and then after that it just got heavier and more and more extreme. I also listen to other stuff, one of my favourite bands is My Bloody Valentine, I like Lush, and a lot of shoe gaze with delays and stuff like that. Coming off stage with Napalm I’m not exactly gonna go and blast the same kind of music when I need to wind down.

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Interview: Linz Eel from Vodun

Orange Amplifiers caught up with Linz from Vodun at this years Desertfest in London. We discussed how trying a Tiny Terror in London lead to him using the TH30 and then the Rockerverb. Linz uses a complex guitar amp setup to give him a full band sound from only one guitarist. Using a TH30, Rockerverb and OB1-500 to give him the massive tone Vodun are known for.

Go check out the band on the current tour:

2nd June – London – Decolonise Fest
16th June – France – TBC
17th June – Germany – Freak Valley Festival
18th June – France – Hellfest
20th June – Italy – Rozzano
21st June – Italy – Pordenone
22nd June – Italy – Turin
24th June – France – Rock In Bourlon
25th June – Netherlands – Rotterdam
27th June – Spain – Barcelona
28th June – Spain – Madrid
30th June – Spain – Bilbao
1st July – Spain – San Sebastian
15th July – London – Metal Brew
22nd July – Portugal – Woodrock Fest
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