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Interview – Steven McDonald of Redd Kross and the Melvins and Orange Amps

Steven Hi, I’m Steven McDonald, I play in both the Melvins and Redd Kross, I’m also in another band called OFF! which I should mention, which I have played Orange amps in. Tonight I’m here at the Electric, Brixton in beautiful London.

On MTV they used to show, or there was another music television programme in America that would show old clips of Musikladen, the German TV rock show, they had live performances by classic bands such as Alice Cooper, Hawkwind and Black Sabbath. They had an all Orange backline, there is a couple of really great Alice Cooper clips of “I’m eighteen” and “Under my wheels”, super badass! I’ve always loved the sound of their guitars and maybe weren’t using Orange on their records but they certainly reproduced the sound of their records really well on those performances.

I remember one of my bands, this band I play in called OFF!, we were going to the South by Southwest festival, so I had this bright idea of getting this little head that is powerful as fuck and just bring it with me on the plane and I could just put it in the overhead compartment. It was like a total revelation when OFF! did ten gigs in like three days and every venue has at least a decent 8X10 or 4×10 cabinet but they never have good heads. So I would just plop that 500Watt bass terror down, it was very simple to work with and I had this consistent, badass sound, every show.

Then I started playing in the Melvins and Buzz was interested and I helped him get an OB1 and I took that out on the road and I really dug that. Then on this tour that I’m doing, since I’m doing both bands, Melvins and Redd Kross. I like the 4 Stroke because it has the full parametric EQ thing.

With Redd Kross its a bit cleaner and the EQ feels a bit more, I don’t want to use the word muddy but I can dip it around 200 hZ. In certain genres of rock like the Melvins, its great “mud that shit up” the whole bands works as this whole kind of one instrument, so that works good. But with the 4Stoke I’m able to pull some of that stuff out and get a more contoured bass tone.

There is that and the other part is, its really fucking loud! I’ve never played with a louder guitar player than Buzz and he doesn’t always play that loud, he doesn’t need all that amplification to make his point. I’ve never been on a stage with a guitar player where he has his power amps and he just turns them up and its like “Whoa!” He is also using a pedal, a boss bass distortion pedal, its got big ass bottom end on it, so it’s quite easy to get lost in that when you are a bass player, this amp has been great for me.

So I do Melvins sound check and I play with Buzz and I get it to that level and its been really easy. I like the way it is notched, the main output, makes it really simple for recall, formulae seems to be Melvins is somewhere around noon and then Redd Kross is two clicks down, done, easy!

I really think of Orange nowadays as the guys from Eagles of Death Metal and Dave Catching, he is badass, every musician I know respects. Its a classic name and for me I always go back to those Alice Cooper videos, that is about as cool as you could ever hope to get, so I’m proud to be a part of that.

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BANDS WE DON’T ENDORSE BUT THAT WE LIKE (WE MAY ENDORSE THE BAND AS WELL) – MARCH

Welcome to the third installment of this ever popular blog that gives you a window into what has been Orange’s radio (or digitally streamed playing device) this week.

We have changed the name back to the first month because, it’s still annoying our marketing director and we have boring lives!

So here we go:

Daniel’s Choices

Superorganism – Something for your M.I.N.D.

Superorganism are an eight member indie pop band, their debut album came out this month and they can be best described as a mixture between The Flaming Lips and MGMT. “Something for your M.I.N.D.” is the bands first single and perfectly sums up the band’s dreamy, synth pop music.

 

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The Orange Guitar Cabinet – A industry standard.

The Orange cabinet, is a classic of the Orange range, it has been used over the past fifty years by all of the greats in music. But how did the Orange cabinet come into being and why is it different?

In the beginning…

The Orange shop in 1968 was building amplifiers for musicians and it became clear that there was a need for a cabinet to go with these amplifiers. In 1968, Mick Dines joined the company as a salesman in the Orange Shop, where he immediately became involved with the design of Orange cabinets. Mick was a young bass guitarist and understood how equipment could be mistreated on the road. So the priority was to make some of the most solid and robust cabinets on the market.

Mick in designing the first Orange cabinet, created a design which has stayed largely the same since the 60’s, some of the main features are unique to Orange cabinets.

Basketweave

The speaker front cloth was a major concern for the cabinets durability, Mick decided to choose Basketweave as it was a tough material. But with Basketweave also gave a “thickened” sound to the cabinet, which guitarists loved and gave them the “Orange” sound.

 

Skid Runners

The Orange skid runners, were the original idea of Mick Dines

 

 

Instead of fitting plastic feet, or castors which we found tended to rattle and roll, we came up with the idea of having tough wooden runners – which we called skids. The original idea was durability, making loading and unloading out of vans, or onstage, easier. It turned out that the skids dramatically improved the sound by acoustically coupling the cabinets to the stage or wooden floor.”

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Interview – Steve Micciche of Every Time I Die

Hi Steve Micciche here, I play bass guitar for Every Time I Die!

I would say probably Weezer and Black Sabbath is when I saw an Orange Amp. I remember seeing a Weezer video in like 94′ and Matt Sharpe the bass player was playing an Orange. His bass tone was awesome and his live show was really sick, so that was the first time I saw a bass Orange amp. Then there were some Black Sabbath videos, like “Paranoid” there is some Orange in there.

Oh the look was so cool! Just Orange on there was just rad! So it was the look first and then the tone.

What I look for in an amp is simplicity and then tone, all the Orange stuff has it. Plugging in a bass for the first time, was with Every Time I Die actually, using the AD200 and I was blown away. It sounded like a chainsaw, it was great, exactly what we need for this type of band. You’ve got to kind of play defence in Every Time I Die and kind of hold it down. The guitars are going at 11, I need something that is going to keep up with the guitars but something that is super simplistic, that I know is going to sound good everytime I turn it on. That’s what I get out of Orange every single time.

I actually started with the AD200, then I had the Terror bass head and then moved on to the OB1-300. The 300 is great, the tone is massive but the extra mojo that is in there is great too with the gain circuit, where you can blend in a bit and give it that extra grit. Which is great and I don’t lose any low end on it too!

Basically the rig is stage left the AD200 through the OBC810 and then stage right I have the OB1-300 with the OBC810. The mix is fantastic, we were running all sorts of mics on the cabs, the DI’s and the blend I get of the nice tube head, the warmth and also what the OB1-300 has to offer as far as the extra grit I can add in there on the stage right, everything just blends fantastic. I’ve been using them over here when we have been on European shows and I just really loved the low end and the tone I got out of them. So then I switched to them in the States and I couldn’t be happier.

It’s an honour, it’s incredible, to see all your childhood heroes playing Orange and then be part of the roster, it’s something I’m really proud of.

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Orange Artist Spotlight

Formed in 2012 in Sydney, “With Confidence” came to Orange’s attention after a chance meeting between drummer Josh and I at Slam Dunk Festival.

The band’s album “Better Weather” released on Hopeless Records in 2016 has led to headline tours in Europe as well as a support slot with State Champs in the US.

The band last single ‘Voldermort’ is a great pop punk single, while also including

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Interview: Adam Kenny of The Rumjacks

Adam: I’m Adam Kenny, mandolin, bouzouki and banjo player for the Rumjacks. We play fast Celtic punk rock. I grew up in western Sydney with Irish parents, where I was exposed to a lot of Irish music like the Pogues, The Cheiftans, The furyeys, Christy Moore and more at our family barbecues. At the time I laughed at them thinking I was too cool, and it wasn’t until years later when I was listening to Joe Strummer playing with The Pogues, I found heard a beautiful mix of punk and folk, something that inspires us as a band to this day.

Music was clearly a part of your childhood being played at the house, when did you get into playing yourself?
Adam: My Dad gave me a Stratocaster copy when I was 13 or 14, He taught me ‘House of the rising sun’, and I was hooked. I did a year of classical guitar before I discovered Nirvana which became all I wanted to play for years. I played in a few different punk and hardcore bands and joined The Rumjacks as guitarist in 2008. After a few line up changes I ended up teaching myself mandolin, which in turn led me to tenor banjo and Irish bouzouki. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of touring and recording with other folk/rock acts like Handsome Young Strangers, The Go Set, The Clan, and Irish singer/songwriter, Damien Dempsey.

Can you tell us a bit about The Rumjacks?
Adam: We’re a celtic punk band formed in 2008, in the Blue Mountains, Sydney, Australia. We were all involved in different projects at the time, but as we found such a great sound together we started playing shows in Sydney, followed by the rest of Australia. In 2015 we did our first of many European tours, and in 2017 we did our first USA tour, before hitting south east Asia and Japan in 2019. When we tour, early starts and long hours in the van is normal for us, we keep it simple with a very small crew, so we are still involved in the fun load-ins and outs.

What are you up to during these strange locked down days?
Adam: I’ve been writing a bit, taking care of the garden and hanging out with the family cat. I’m lucky enough to be stuck in my hometown in the blue mountains right now, I just hope I can leave again for the upcoming summer festivals in Europe!

What’s your history and experience with Orange?
Adam: I first started noticing Orange at live shows around the 2000s when I was watching a lot of punk and hardcore bands in Sydney, the sound they gave really blew me away, especially when driven for the harder styles. Naturally, the bright colours and cool symbols for the controls stood out to me. I was so used to seeing just big black Marshall and Peavey stacks, Orange always intrigued me. Over the years, I saw more and more of them popping up onstage (and in studios), and I thought these amps must be the real deal. After shifting to acoustic instruments live and in the studio, I was always on the lookout for good acoustic amps an DI preamps, it’s always a battle playing acoustic instruments live with with full volume band, so the notch / feedback controls were a must for dealing with different live stages. I also hated having a pile of single DI boxes in front of me, so the dual channels on the Orange Acoustic Pre really stood out to me.

I use passive flat piezo style pickups in some of my instruments, and I can still get a steady and ballsy signal to the sound desk. Outperforms itself every night, a great piece of kit! I’m currently running an Orange Acoustic Pre for mandolin, Irish bouzouki, Tenor banjo and acoustic guitar, and the Crush Acoustic 30 for onstage foldback and in the studio. K&K banjo twin pick ups in the banjo and Irish bouzouki, Crafter mandolin with CnR-4 pickup. Godin acoustic guitar with Lr-baggs M80 pickup.

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Introducing The Bass Butler

Your awesome tone has arrived, Sir.

Orange Amplification unleash The Bass Butler, an entire Bi-Amp bass rig in a pedal. The new pedal splits the bass guitar signal, at input, into completely separate, parallel, analogue signal chains, just like a real bi-amp rig – without an amp in sight.

The always active ‘Clean’ Bass Channel can be adjusted for compression, bass, treble and volume. An optical compressor circuit, cut/boost tone controls and dedicated, bass cabinet-simulated balanced D.I. output is always on hand with all manner of classic clean tones.

Five smaller knobs control the Volume, Treble, Middle, Bass and Gain (with four stages), of The Bass Butler’s ‘Dirty’ Guitar Channel which can be added with a footswitch. Coupled with a guitar cab-simulated balanced D.I. output and an expression pedal jack for extra control over the input gain, The Bass Butler serves up everything from bright vintage tones to floor-splitting, wall-crumbling modern destruction.

Both channels have XLR balanced output allowing the Bi-Amp bass tone to arrive complete at the mixing desk. The Bass Butler also features an Amp output, which takes a blend of the two channels, set by the volume controls,  before the cabinet simulation circuits from a 1/4” jack, making it perfect for connecting to the front end of any bass amp. This set up means on-stage sound can be controlled completely independently of what the audience hears or the output can be used on its own, just like a plain old preamp pedal. A ‘Ground Lift’ switch eliminates ground hum when The Bass Butler is hooked up to a PA and a bass amp at the same time.

The pedal’s sturdy steel enclosure is made to last a lifetime; it is perfect for in the studio and on the road. The Bass Butler is quite possibly the only pedal bassists will ever need.

Check it out at the Orange Amplification booth #4644, Hall D where all the other Orange products can also be seen.

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