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Orange Spotlight: Purple Kong

Who are Purple Kong?

We are Allan ‘lil Enos’ Skjönsberg on bass, Dr. Tompson on guitar & vocals, and Sylvy ‘Styx’ Notermans on drums.

Dr. T: We met in the Alpha Centauri 666 sector of the universe. Humans don’t know much about this sector, it’s been well-hidden for years. That’s where we met. Purple Kong is actually the name of our planet, so we thought we’d represent our planet whilst we’re here, masquerading amongst you puny humans on Earth.

Dr. T: We started the band about 4000 years ago, in Earth times…

AS: It depends on which dimension we’re in as well.

Dr. T: In the Earthly dimension, when did we start?

AS: Oh yeah, roughly 4000 years ago.

Dr. T: We are based in.. well we fly around, so it all depends… as long as we don’t get clamped we park our spaceship wherever we can away with it these days. It’s very hard to park in London without getting clamped.

SN: Our ship is our base.

AS: And sometimes we stay at Area 51, you know… Run a few tests…

What inspires Purple Kong and why is music important to you?

SN: It’s a part of life, so that’s a very important reason.

Dr. T: Music is life. My favourite bands might not be relevant to the sound of Purple Kong, but definitely inspired. I’d say for me personally if I would say two bands that inspire me as the guitar player, for PK it would be Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard, but if you were to ask me what my favourite bands were, I would say AC/DC with Bon Scott and Funkadelic. We also take inspiration from outside of music

AS: Yeah, I mean I suppose in a way history, sometimes medieval history, like in our songs Village of Fire and Name of the Rose, that old classic. That kind of stuff, to me, has the same kind of vibe as Purple Kong.

Dr. T: 70s horror movies, Hammer House… Vintage TV horror.

SN: I like books, I like poetry… In things that inspire me, I would say books and stuff more so than films. I’m not as much a film buff. But art, any kind of art and expression, it can be anything.

AS: Our music, it’s almost like an account of what’s happening on planet Earth, with humanity and everything that’s wrong with it.

Dr. T: I just describe it as heavy as f***

AS: Can’t argue with that either. 70s inspired heavy rock, blues-based rock, but a bit heavier.

Dr. T: 70s heavy metal let’s say.

AS: Groove, I think. It’s not all about that heavy sound, it’s also about the rhythm, the groove, that makes people nod their heads and get into it.

Dr. T: Sonic low-end. We want people to bang their heads backwards and forwards.

What Orange gear is important to Purple Kong?

AS: I have the OB1-300 bass amp. I have it because of the crushing distortion, with a mix of a clean tone, so that’s why I really like it. It sounds very punishing, and at the same time it cuts through where you need it. That’s the reason I wanted it in the first place.

Dr. T: I use Orange cabs cause I love‘em, and I use a Fur Coat and a Getaway Driver which I often get to cuddle up to one another to create an even crazier sound

Future Orange amps/gear?

AS: The Bass Butler. That’s the one. Joe from Orange let me try a Bass Butler and it was over expectations.

Dr. T: I’m very, very interested in the Marcus King (nudge, wink), and get my pedal board back together. Never thought I’d say that in a million years! I would very much like a Marcus King and a Dual Dark, I love the gain stage of the Dual Dark. I love the OR-30 as well, it has a great gain stage, but the DD has that little bit more filth in a different way that would probably suit the band a little bit more. But the Marcus King clean sound as an open palette which I could add a fuzz or heavy pedal to, a distortion pedal, would be an absolute dream to me. Sold without a guarantee. What I would love Orange to build, is basically the OR series, but with a little bit more filth, maybe just 5 to 10% extra filth, so maybe you’re kind of adding a little bit of extra gain stage to it and maybe a little bit of Dual Dark filthiness to it as well. That’s it. Unless Orange wants to come with a Marcus King on the A side and the new Dual Dark crossover on the channel B then that would be my dream amp. Thank you, Orange.

SN: I would really like an Orange drum kit… make it happen and I’ll play it.

What does Orange mean to you?

Dr. T: We know Orange just from footage of bands from the 60s, originally. They’re a huge part of the stoner rock scene, without a doubt. When you see it up on stage you know it’s gonna be a good gig. It’s gonna be something loud enough for our tastes.

AS: You’ve seen them in band photos forever. You see them and you know it’s gonna be a good line-up. And the distortion. The built-in distortion in the bass amp, definitely. The bass sound you can get from Orange. As soon as you hear a fuzzy, crunchy bass, it’s always going to be Orange.

SN: If I see Orange amps on the stage I’ll be more inclined to think “OK this is something I’m probably gonna like”. I know little about amps but if you ask me, as a drummer, what brands I know it’d be Marshall and Orange. It’s a very positive thing to know when you see Orange it’s gonna rock. And they are really nice people to work with. Unpretentious.

What’s the most memorable Purple Kong moment?

Dr. T: When we were recording our first album, on the hottest day of the year. And performing at Masters of the Riff.

SN: Definitely memorable. LDC’s Masters of the Riff.

AS: Shout out to Chris and Ollie from Old Horn Tooth and London Doom Collective, they’ve made a lot of things possible for us.

What’s on the horizon for Purple Kong?

SN: We are not touring-touring, but we have a few gigs coming up. We finished an EP and want to release that. And what we want to do is just play cool shows, that’s what it’s about.

Dr. T: Play shows to as many people as we can.

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Photo Credits – Ryan Shotison

by Joe Gray

Articles, Spotlight

Orange Spotlight: Longheads

Who are Longheads?

Longheads are a five piece psych rock outfit. We all met in our home county, Norfolk but we are now based in South London. We are; Al Bishop (Guitar), Sam Mitchell (Bass, Vocals), Nick Oakes (Drums), Ben Reeve (Guitar), and Mitchell Corrigan (Synthesisers).

The band started almost ten years ago when myself and Ben attended a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard show in London. After witnessing a life changing live show we knew we had to start a band. Since then the project has gone through many names and a few line-up changes. In 2020 we settled on the name Longheads and began developing our heavy-ish style of psych. Our music is a combination of modern psych and classic rock with a sprinkling of prog, doom, kraut rock and proto-metal. In our last EP, Mars Doesn’t Feel Like Home Anymore, we explored odd time signatures and long extended jams. With our upcoming album we have continued developing some of those themes but have explored heavier tones, adding some doom and a thrash metal track into the mix.

What inspires Longheads?

Al: When I sit down to write a song, usually inspirations seeps in from whatever I’ve been listening to at that point in time, sometime in less than obvious ways. When we were composing some of the early Longheads tunes I was getting really into the band Death. I was super into there use of tempo and time signature changes. Although we never wrote any death metal tracks I did take huge inspiration from those elements.

Deathcap Farmer, the lead single from our upcoming album features a riff that is heavily inspired by the intro to ‘Arrival’ by The Alchemist. I basically just took the rhythm, swapped the horns for some new heavy chords and added in an extra beat to give it some trademark Longheads weirdness. Lately I have been getting really into Rush and have been doing a deep dive into all their albums. I would one day love to experiment with going full prog but I don’t think my guitar playing is quite up to scratch yet!

What Orange gear is important to Longheads?

Al: For our upcoming album, Layers of Wax, we recorded two doom inspired songs. For these we used some classic OR120 tones. We were able to use a great selection of amps in the studio to really dial in our perfect heavy fuzz tone.

Unfortunately we are not yet able to take a selection of 4×12’s with us to gigs. We are often at the mercy of house cabs. I am always happy to see an Orange cab when I arrive at a venue. Orange are my preferred cab of choice especially for live. The bass response and overall tone really gets me going when we are playing our heavier stuff.

Future Orange amps?

Al: I need to try a few out and go from there. I’ve had my eye on a Dual Terror head for a while as well as an OR30, defiantly something I need to check out in the future. I like to keep both small and larger heads on hand and often decide which one to use depending on the venue.

What does Orange mean to you?

Al: I’ve been aware of Orange since my early days of learning the guitar. However my favourite Orange moment has to be Matt Pike of Sleep’s rig rundown. Seeing him blast through some of the heaviest tones I’ve ever heard while standing in front of a huge wall of Orange amps is just the coolest thing. One day I’d love to try playing through a similar rig!

What’s the most memorable Longheads moment?

Al: My favourite Longheads moment is when we supported SLIFT two years back. That was our first big gig. There were around 400-500 people there whereas before we’ve only really played to 100 people at the most. We all went out to Bens place in the sticks to practise for a week to make sure the show was tight. All just for one show! We converted an old caravan into our practise space. It turned out to be a really special night though getting to support one of our favourite bands and the crowd (hopefully) digging our set.

What’s on the horizon for Longheads?

Al: We recently released our new album, Layers of Wax, which came out on the 4th of November. It’s been in the works and under wraps for almost two years at this point and I’m relieved it’s finally out. After that we are hitting the road for some UK dates in December. Got some exciting things in the works for 2025 as well!

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Stoomfest pictures by Artur Tarczymil

by Joe Gray

Articles, Spotlight

Orange Spotlight: WARPSTORMER

Who are WARPSTORMER?

WARPSTORMER is Adam Davies (guitar), Simon Doggett (bass + backing vocals), James Loh (drums) and Richard Morgan (vocals). We’re scattered fairly loosely across London but the band’s nominally headquartered in New Cross.

The name’s a nod to the science-fantasy universe of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame, in which spacefarers unfortunate enough to be beset by “warp-storms” are sucked into a hellish, messed-up realm of chaos where humanity’s worst impulses are given form as demonic creatures that prey on their souls. Very metal, eh?

The band started out as a studio project that Richard put together with a couple of pals – original drummer Matt Folley and Green Lung finger-wizard Scott Black on guitar – lending a hand in a temporary capacity. This resulted in the Here Comes Hell EP, which was self-released in 2022 with the intention of using it to recruit a full band line-up. Upon hearing about the new project, Simon (an old pal of R’s) said he might be interested “if the record doesn’t suck”. Luckily, it didn’t, saving anyone the trouble of singing and playing bass at the same time.

The EP continued to serve its intended purpose as a recruiting tool – by early 2023 Adam and James had come on board – and since then, we’ve been playing in and around London wherever and whenever anyone will let us, and working on new material as a full band.

While we definitely have one foot in the Sabbath-influenced doomy/stony camp, all the members share a love of punk, hardcore and thrash, and it seems we’re chronically incapable of playing slow enough to stick to the template. Tom Templar from Green Lung once referred to us as “Stoner Thrash”, but maybe we’re Speed Doom – take your pick

What inspires WARPSTORMER?

We all have a ton of influences and quite diverse favourites which, while we might not agree on some things, definitely keeps things interesting and varied when we’re putting music together. Some of the stuff we’ve been enjoying and drawing on recently includes High on Fire, mid-era Mastodon, early Baroness, and Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of The Worlds.

As you might expect given the name, we draw pretty heavily, lyrically, on sci-fi and fantasy themes, but in such a way that they serve as a sort of creative vessel for exploring the more psychologically-harrowing aspects of 21st century life. Just the very act of getting in a room and making a dirty great noise through a dirty great amp can be, in itself, an immensely cathartic experience and we’re aiming to harness that in such a way that the form and content of our music complement one another.

The other great aspect of getting out and playing music with your friends is that it’s nice to get away from a screen for a protracted period of time, and do something fulfilling out in the analogue realm.

The London Doom/Stoner Scene is in a really cool place right now, and has been incredibly welcoming to us and supportive of what we’re doing. There are a load of sick bands kicking around and that sense of community and creativity is a really inspiring thing to have swirling around.

What Orange gear is important to WARPSTORMER?

We have a pretty eclectic mix of gear we’ve accumulated over the years. The key Orange components of our current arsenal are Richard’s old Bass Terror, a Bass Butler, and a big old PPC412. The Bass Terror might be the MVP of our backline rig – it’s currently serving as one half of our bi-amped guitar setup and, along with the Butler, was the key element of the bass sound on the Here Comes Hell record, which is something we’ve had a lot of compliments about – almost all the dirt and nastiness in the sound of that record came from the bass; for Scott’s guitars we just went with a pretty straightforward overdriven sound.

When we were tracking bass for our new record, we spent ages fiddling around with all sorts of amp setups, but in the end we ended up going back to the Butler/Terror combo; it just really nailed the clangy, growly attack we wanted. And then just to kick it up a notch even further we chucked a Fuzzrocious Secret C (the limited edition Cave In signature model) in front of that – the results are pretty gnarly.

Future Orange amps?

Since coming into Orange HQ and playing with all those wonderful toys, everyone’s gear shopping list has expanded exponentially. Particular favourites were the OR-30, which really played up to our shared love of classic 80s thrash (which to be honest wasn’t something we associated with Orange amps before then!) and the swirly, psych-y clean sounds we conjured up running the retro Phaser Pedal into a Pedal Baby. Adam also really loved the MK-Ultra – an unforgiving, but very responsive and rewarding amp to play through.

Our theoretical ultimate Orange amp would be a high-gain monster with a foot switchable second channel – something we currently rely on live to make Adam’s lead parts really pop out with a volume and saturation boost – but that was somehow magically small and light enough to cart around as easily as our Bass Terror – or even fit on a pedalboard!

What does Orange mean to you?

Orange has been synonymous with a lot of the bands we grew up watching and listening to – it’s instantly recognisable onstage even from the back of a big room.

We never really set out with a gear shopping list, or an intent to use a particular amp or brand, but in the course of cobbling together our shared pool of gear and carving out the WARPSTORMER sound, we’ve found the bits of Orange gear that have made it into that pool to be a significant contributing factor to that sound.

We don’t get to use our big cab as much as we’d like outside the rehearsal room, as most shows we play has bands sharing backline, and it’s a bugger to move the thing around, but it’s always cool and reassuring to pitch up somewhere and see you’re going to be plugging into an Orange cab as we know it’s going to be able to handle whatever we’re blasting through it.

What’s the most memorable WARPSTORMER moment?

Following some initial line-up setbacks towards the end of 2022 – just as we thought we had everything in place TWO members of the band ended up moving overseas – we brought Adam and James in at pretty short notice. Our first show with them was in April 2023 and they really hit the ground running after only a couple of rehearsals. The show went great and there was a tremendous sense of relief and excitement at landing on our feet with these two guys, which created a wave of momentum that we’re still currently riding.

What’s on the horizon for WARPSTORMER?

We’re currently in the middle of recording our next release with producer Wayne Adams, the busiest man in UK underground music. It’s the first with the full lineup, and we’re pretty excited with the results so far!

Our other current exciting upcoming thing is that the organisers of Desertfest London have been kind enough to include us on the line up this May – you can catch us at The Dev on the Friday night! Building around that and getting the new record out, we’re aiming to get ourselves out of London as much as possible in the coming year, and make as many new pals as we can in the process. See you in the pit!