Jay and Carlton from the band Orgy discuss their upcoming tour in Australia, celebrating the 25th anniversary of their album “Candyass”. They guys candidly speak about their influences, touring since covid and the evolution of the band. Orgy have just signed a deal with Golden Robot Records and there is new music coming.
The band has never really stopped releasing music and give us some hints at what they have in store for the coming months. They also discuss the changes in the music industry over the past 25 years, including the impact of technology and social media platforms like TikTok. From what I’m told, this coming Australian tour with Cold will be a series of show that is not to be missed.
Andrew : Welcome to The Rockpit and to Australia. It’s an absolute pleasure to be talking to you guys. It’s such huge news that you guys are finally coming to Australia as a fan from the very beginning, Jay. I’m beyond excited.
Jay : I can’t believe we haven’t come there at all either, and it just sucks, but it’s cool. I’ve always wanted to, so why not now? No better time than the present.
Andrew : Absolutely. The tour is in celebration of “Candyass”, which turned 25 last year. What are your memories of that time, and did you know that you were onto something big?
Jay : I didn’t really know if I was on something big. Getting signed to elementary definitely helped perpetuate growth, so I figured that it wasn’t going to tank. You know what I’m saying? But you never know and then when you put out a cover song as a single, you just never know how it’s going to fly. ‘Blue Monday’ worked out. It all worked out.
Andrew : Jay, in doing a bit of research into the band, I’ve just tried to dive back a little bit into your earlier career, earlier parts of your career prior to Orgy as I came up quite empty handed. You’re a bit of a mystery man. What is your background and how did you come to become a front man?
Jay : I’ve always been in the music business. I’ve always written stuff with people, and I was always interested in all aspects of the music industry and learning about different kind of instruments and playing different kind of instruments and just getting my footing. My whole family was very musical, my godfathers were famous music people and stuff like that. I just kind of have always been around it. I just put together Orgy and started doing it. And then Korn, being friends with those guys, they kind of just perpetuated the deal.
Andrew : I mean, that makes for quite a cool story in itself that working with Jonathan Davis from Korn.
Jay : I also wanted to get a production under my belt before I did the first Orgy record, so I did the Coal Chamber first record with J Baumgardner.
Andrew : I remember that and that was another amazing record that was perhaps a little ahead of its time. Carlton, you’ve been a part of the band now for nine years, is it?
Carlton : Probably more than that. I think Jay and I kind of reformed this in late 2011. First tour was in 2012.
Andrew : I had the pleasure to see you play when you out here in Australia with Berlin. You captivated me and completely blew me away with what you added to the bands sound. What a player and performer you are. I told a bunch of friends you will never guess who was playing in Berlin (laughs)
Carlton : Which show are you at?
Andrew : The Melbourne one at Rod Laver Arena with Culture Club.
Jay : Melburne. Melbourn. Melbourne. We’ve been scolded for saying it wrong. Melbourne.
Carlton : Melbourne, yeah. Yeah, that’s It (laughs). Wasn’t that venue we played at where the Australian Opens held, right?
Andrew : That’s the one.
Carlton : Great venue and we a great time there.
Andrew : It was a great show. The more that I sort of think about it too is that I guess the similarities between the two bands, there’s almost a parallel there in some ways in sound and style and just the fact that you guys write great songs. Is that something that’s important? Would you consider that to be a fairly accurate parallel in some ways?
Carlton : I mean, yeah, there’s parallels in the sense that I feel like they’re great songs and there’s lots of influences based from a synth influences to guitar influences to great drums, whether it’s live drums or drum machine patterns and just things like that, good melodies. But obviously Berlin’s more in the pop world as it would be in Orgy.
Jay : Orgy is a lot heavier, obviously. But yeah, it’s important to me. In all fairness though, he hasn’t seen this live yet, so in person, because I think that maybe that parallel would change. Well, yeah. I mean, I think Orgy is heavier live than you would might expect.
Andrew : I’ve only been able to really go by on, I guess the home video that came out in 2004.
Jay : Of course, the terrible recordings from live shows. But I think in fairness, I think Berlin’s probably heavier live than in the studio.
Andrew : Oh, hell yeah. I told a few people about that.
Jay : I would’ve to agree with that too. So are you going to come to the show?
Andrew : Absolutely, I have been waiting 26 years for you guys to tour.
Jay : Let’s Get some As, but we can’t wait to get down there. We just signed to deal with Golden Robot Records, which is an Australian label. Exactly where they’re based out of I’m not sure, I think Sydney. Do you know those guys?
Andrew : Yes, I do. I had actually heard a rumour of this a couple of weeks ago. What does that mean for Orgy? Does that mean new music?
Jay : There are two new songs that we’re going to work on so that we can get them out and get them circulated before we get to Australia so we can play them at the shows hopefully.
Andrew : Awesome. Now, obviously going back to “Candyass”, and it’s funny again, when you go in and do research and you understand how many people that album actually impacted, how many teenagers that impacted, there are so many people that are going, that was a soundtrack to my college. It was a soundtrack to my teens. For me, the album still sounds exceptionally fresh. I don’t think it’s dated at all. That’s a true credit to the songs and the production, and I guess the vision of the band as the band sort of went on and went to “Vapor Transmissions”, I think that was a slightly more polished record. And then obviously “Punk Static Paranoia”, I think went on a slightly darker path. Would you agree with that?
Jay : Punk Static Paranoia came out way too late. That third one, you mentioned it, it just came out so late. It was really glorified demos. There’s a lot of things that went down with that one We had to get out of our deal first with Warners to get that even out and that took forever as you can probably imagine, but looking up for, looking forward to bigger and brighter, you know what I mean? It’s really crazy that we haven’t played them before, so we’re psyched when we get there.
Andrew : Absolutely. Tell me a little bit more about the new line up of the band. It’s had a complete revamp since “Candyass”. Carlton, you’ve been there for quite some time now. What have the new players brought to the band?
Jay : I mean, there’s lots of gifts. We just got new guitar player. We’re still fluctuating with the drummer situation.
Carlton : We’ve had Nick, the bass player since the inception of this new version, so he’s been there with us the whole time. But the other guitar player position and the drummers have, it’s been a bit of a revolving door, but got a new guitar player named Ty Oliver. He got the call for this last tour, literally 10 days before we left. He had to learn 17 songs and learn a whole new rig and all that stuff; he did great.
Jay : So yeah, he’ll be with us in Australia.
Andrew : Fantastic. When you talking about the new music that’s coming, how would you describe it? Would it be the classic Orgy of the first two records, or is it something that we haven’t quite heard yet from the band?
Jay : I think it’s more along the lines of something you haven’t heard yet mixed in with a little bit of the classic Orgy, because we are who we are.
Andrew : For sure, it’s a trademark sound that you do have.
Jay : I am who I am, so I can’t not have that sound. You know what I mean?
Carlton : But ever evolving and hitting new ground as well.
Andrew : Your voice is a huge part of that. I think that’s probably one of the things that I think drew me to the band as well, Jay, is the way that you, the singing and the way that you sing and the way that you pronunciate, you’re very, very clean in what you do. You add a really nice polish on top of everything that’s going on behind you.
Jay : Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Andrew : For me you’re a band that are timeless. I keep introducing new people to the music, and some people go, Who? What? When I mention the name, but then and you play them the stuff and they’ll go, man, how did I miss this? How did this not happen for me at the time?
Jay : When you name your band and then later on you have kids and their you’re like, whoa, you didn’t tell me that meant that my son who’s standing right here making a ton of noise, by the way, anyways, when he was a little kid, when he was like, I don’t know, maybe eight or nine, he was like, dad, you didn’t tell me you band, you had to do with sex. I was like, I’m like, well actually doesn’t. It has to do with a musical orgy, a blend of sounds, we have a lot of styles, it really is about that. Not that I don’t love sex because I do, have I been in the orgies, not really (laughs).
Andrew : Having followed you guys with the singles that have been dropped almost annually for the last five or six years now, there has been a slight change in the band, and it’s been very exciting to know where it’s coming to; obviously knowing that there is a new deal that’s just been in for two new singles, what can we expect?
Jay : I think you should look for the production game to be way, way heightened on this one. We want to crush the game on these two songs that do there. We probably should have signed for a few more songs, but baby steps, we’ll get these two knocked out. I think that you’re going to be really stoked on that. Hopefully you will be stuff from the outcome.
Carlton : So you’re still throwing things at Jack’s?
Jay : No (laughs); actually, very much so.
Andrew : Who came up with the idea of hitting the road with Cold?
Jay : We have toured with them before and somebody approached us, asking us if we would like to come out to Australia with them.
Andrew : Cold were another of those bands for me. The “Year Of The Spider” album was another one of those records for me that in a time and a place it hit all the right spots, I guess it was something different and fresh.
Jay : Yeah, it was a good thing too. I mean, they have their songs . We have toured together before here in the US. That run of shows was a good combination because we sold out every show except for one, which was like at an Alligator Speakeasy; understand that show. It was the one that was the question mark of the whole tour. But it was really cool. It was a good experience, and we went through five buses. There were things that were definitely daunting and fucked up, but for the most part, the shows were fantastic, no matter how many hurdles we had to jump to get to that level.
Andrew : I’ve noticed, just looking through, since you have been touring for the anniversary of “Candyass”, how relentless you guys are touring wise. You guys are just full on and flat out, out there. Do you still love the touring element of life on the road 25 years later?
Jay : Maybe, the life on the road is questionable, that’s the weird, I mean, there’s lots of caveats with that question. It’s a loaded question because there’s things that you love about it, and there’s things that you just fucking can’t stand about it. There are days off for that, and so you can just chill and regroup and do all those kinds of things. I mean, we went through five buses on this tour, which was exceptional amount of tour buses for anyone.
Carlton : This one was a different animal for all of us.
Jay : I think to all of us, you look tired. I’m tired.
Carlton : I’m still tired and we have been home for almost a week.
Jay : It was crazy. But we really probably got a lot of our emotions out on stage. We just try to bring the energy every night, which we did. I feel like we definitely exceeded expectations. I guess maybe people thought we were just going to be like, Hey, Orgy. I saw Orgy today. People were pleasantly surprised at the energy we brought and the vigour. We were really excited to be there, and I wanted to bring it every night and we did. I’m proud of the guys for persevering and going through all the tour bus nightmares; everybody being diplomatic and trying to be pros about it. Yeah, it was crazy, but the shows made it all worth it.
Carlton : Had a great time with the shows, so stoked with everyone that came out, and everyone was way into it, and it was a lot of fun.
Andrew : So as far as the structure of the band now, who were main writers in the band?
Jay : You are looking at ’em, these two guys.I mean, I’ve always written the music and lyrics and most Orgy songs, but I really enjoy everyone taking apart of it. Not that the first band didn’t do that at all, because Paige did a lot and not that the other guys didn’t. Everybody filled the role and did what they were supposed to do and put their parts down and stuff. But as far as writers in the first Orgy, definitely Paige was very in the running there. Then in this one, Carlton and I do a lot more. It’s like we both put into the fold here. He writes a lot of songs. I write a lot of songs, and we both do a lot of the production together jointly. He will do stuff at his place. I’ll do stuff at mine, and then we get together and fuse the sessions together and see where that takes us and it always seems to work out.
Andrew : I think even listening to “Talk Sick”, the last full release from you guys, I mean, that was such a cool rebirth, and it was such a familiar place in many ways for me. But knowing that it was a completely new line-up and 15 years later still blows my mind.
Jay : People try to sweep that one under the rug, yet it’s actually a really good records. I don’t know why that is. I don’t love the way the vocals sound on that one in particular, but the music sounds fire, and I just wish we could have spent more time on it. That’s the problem. It’s like we take so much time doing the music that the vocals end up suffering. I don’t really have a lot of time to get them done. It became a case of just whatever comes out, is what happens. I am not doing that anymore. I’m definitely going to spend time with these next couple of songs. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m spending more time focusing on vocals after we get the music knocked out.
Andrew : With the fact that technology has enabled a lot of things, people to work remotely and to collaborate, production can be done at home now. Do you find that it’s a blessing or a curse?
Jay : Both. Because studios will still have maybe more powerful computers than you have at your house. It’s hard to, or at least it was until I just got this new computer that I got, but before it was like, oh, my laptop would be barely hanging in there, or my desktop would barely be hanging in there to get all the tracks done. Luckily for these new Macs, I don’t have to bounce anything anymore. I love that I can freeze some tracks and free up all the things that I need, and then I can put it all in one session and don’t have to worry about how it’s going to work out, if we’re going to have all the tracks or wrong or whatever. That was a nightmare. But now it’s not like that anymore.
Carlton : For me, it depends on, I think the type of session you’re doing, the type of music you’re doing. I mean, you look at someone like Billy Eilish her and her brother are doing stuff in their bedroom and have, oh, yeah. In the World, or, yeah, totally different. Totally different, but obviously a lot less going on there than we do.
Jay : But yeah, I mean, that’s the beauty of it is though, too. You know what I mean? I agree with what you’re saying.
Carlton : There is just something magical about going into a nice studio with a huge SSL console and just throwing some stuff down.
Jay : Yeah, nothing really beats that. If you have the budget for it, doing live drums is always way better to me, as far as drums go. You got to get a guy on there to just play it, and then it just feels better having a big, nice live drum room and all that goodness. But yeah, it’s all different.
Andrew : What’s the biggest change for you guys, I guess over the last 25 years in the industry?
Jay : Oh, man, what hasn’t? It’s all different. Touring was the way to go for a minute; then after Covid, then everybody started touring again and now tour buses are so astronomically expensive. There have been so many changes that it is hard to keep up with them and if you don’t do four TikToks a day or something, you get kind of dusted. And I am not doing four TikToks a day, mind you, but I probably should.
Andrew : The whole world and the whole marketing aspect of things has just changed so much.
Jay : With all these security things that people would tell you don’t use TikTok, they’re just taking all your information. I mean, man, it’s tough because you can’t tell these people not to do it just doing. It’s like that’s, the world revolves around TikTok. It’s so crazy.
Andrew : It is. Even as a person that’s in the media, and as a photographer, I still can’t quite wrap my head around it as a format, but mind you, I’m the guy that craves a physical music magazine to come out so that I can hold it and touch it and feel it.
Jay : Kids don’t even think that. They’re like, what is that antiquated form of media dad? It’s like, whoa.
Andrew : And it’s funny. I mean, I guess even if we talk, I mean, my son’s 19 and we look at the formats.
Jay : I have a 19-year-old too.
Andrew : The formats that we have gone through, what we have gone through, and it’s explaining to him what VHS was explaining to him what a cassette was and the art of the print magazine and posters and these sorts of things, how we used to consume music.
Jay : They look at you like you’re crazy.
Carlton : Absolutely. It feels like it’s created such an attention deficit because with the whole TikTok thing, I mean, I don’t even get it. I don’t know it, but it seems like it’s just like instant 15 seconds of this, 15 seconds of that, and no one has time to even listen to a song anymore or much less a record.
Jay : It’s like instant gratification isn’t satisfaction, instant entertainment, and you just pop on and you just, all of a sudden you’re locked in it for an hour and you’re like, holy fuck. You feel like you miss out if you don’t do it again.
Carlton : It doesn’t give people the time to attach themselves to a song or whatever.
Jay : No, it’s throw and go. Everything about TikTok is throw and go. You know what I mean? It’s just you’re up there for a second, then you’re out. It’s really hard to get something to set there and be solid and have a fan base for just whatever you do.
Andrew : Everything just infiltrates everything else. It just becomes this big wash of whatever grabs your attention in that moment and that’s, that’s crazy.
Jay : It’s like oh look a butterfly. Oh yeah.
Carlton : Obviously when we were kids, we’d buy a new album or a cassette tape or whatever it was, and sit there and listen to the whole thing front to back.
Jay : Oh, wear it the fuck out. Yeah. Oh look, that doesn’t ever happen.
Andrew : That’s the thing, I made a conscious decision to go back to vinyl purely so that I can experience music again, so that I can sit down so that I can zone out, and that I can play one side from go to woe and not skip a track and really dive into it and listen to every little nuance about it.
Carlton : Absolutely. Study that cover and the liner notes. And I mean, liner notes are something. To know every member of every band that I listened to and where that was recorded and who was the engineer on it and who produced it and all that, and what their parents are like and who was supportive of their career. It’s a lost art to a certain degree, I think.
Andrew : Going back to your formative earlier days, who were both your earliest influences?
Carlton : I grew up, I was a metal kid. I Ratt, Dokken my two guitar guys were George Lynch and Warren DeMartini in high school for sure.
Jay : Probably my favourite band of Ratt and Motley Crue were the shit. Yeah. I like the production of Ratt’s Records so much, and it still really kind of holds up the Beau Hill stuff. He was just fucking badass. Carlton and I talk about it all the time. They did some really good records back then that really still sound great to this day. You know what I mean? Motley just all their shit was fire, you know what I mean?
Carlton : The early years were that; then later on Nine Inch Nails, obviously bands like The Cure. Now we listen to all kinds of shit. But just saying, growing up, there’s Bruce Lee, David Bowie, Motley Crue, and Ratt. And then from then on, it’s just everything.
Andrew : What bands excite you today? What new music are you guys listening to?
Jay : I love Kissoferstein. I love him a lot. He’s fucking fantastic. What else?
Carlton : Ghostkid is Dope .
Jay : I love Ghost Kid
Carlton : In Horizon.
Jay : We love lot of EDM music and stuff like that. I like a lot of that stuff. Death from Above 1979, I really love those guys for a two piece band. They fucking crushed the game. I don’t know, just a lot of other stuff. The new 3Teeth record is really good too.
Andrew : I’ll have to check that out.
Jay : That record’s fucking badass. You should check it out. It’s fucking really good. Mick Gordon did a kick ass job with production. The band did a great job playing and it just sounds fucking great.
Andrew ; If we can jump back to talk about the Australian tour it’s happening in October. It’s a run of three cities, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. From a live show perspective. How would you best describe Orgy Live?
Jay : It’s probably a lot heavier than you think, and it’s going to be a really good show. We’re going to kill it out there. Don’t look for us to play all candy ass songs since we’re not going to do that. We’re going to play a mix of everything.
Carlton : It’s probably like half Candyass and then a handful of Vapor, and a handful of songs from the rest of the catalogue.
Andrew : It will be a great catch up for the entire career, which is super exciting.
Carlton : It will be a good cross section of everything.
Andrew : As far as the two new songs for Golden Robot, have you got a date for the first one yet?
Jay : No, don’t have release dates. Release dates. We just signed the deal and then we just have to hash out some parameters and then we’ll get started and then we already have some starters. That would be perfect. We just got to figure it out and pick the right ones and do ’em.
Andrew : Well look, thank you both so much for your time today and I really am looking forward to the Melbourne show. And again, it’s a pinch myself moment to know that you guys are finally making it to Australia.
Jay : Were excited to get there. Thanks so much for having us on here. It was a pleasure talking with you, and let us know what you need. We’ll take care of you at the show. We’ll see you there.
Andrew : Perfect. Absolutely. Thank you so much, guys. Have an amazing day.
Carlton : Thank You
Andrew : No worries.
Jay : Take Care. Okay, bye brother. Thank you. Take care.
A huge thank you to The Phoenix and John Howarth for making this happen.
Tickets available here: https://thephoenix.au/orgy-and-cold/
