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New Wave Of Metal, Or Just New Wave?
03/10/1999 9:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Bryan Reesman
When one first hears the dark, driving tunes that make up the Orgy repertoire, heavy metal is not what pours forth from the speakers. Rather, it's energized electro-rock with some Gothic undertones. The quintet even sports a look seemingly influenced by '80s new wave bands. Yet oddly enough, the successful new group was recently featured on MTV's 1515 as part of a "new wave of metal" overview. This doesn't bother Orgy drummer Bobby Hewitt. "I didn't see [the 1515 report]," he confesses, "but honestly, I think there's always going to be people thinking different things about our music, so as long as they're talking, that's fine by us."
People certainly are talking about Orgy. After doing their first tour ever as part of Korn's Family Values festival, appearing on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and releasing a debut (Candyass) that's burning up the Billboard charts as it nears gold status, Orgy are achieving the kind of quick success most bands just dream about. Even 31-year-old Hewitt is shocked by the album's swift rise.
"Honestly, I thought it was going to do well, but I didn't think it was going to do this well," he remarks. "I've been playing in bands all my life. This has all happened really fast, from doing the demo to getting management to getting signed. Next thing we knew, we were up in Tahoe doing this record." At the moment, Hewitt is on the phone from Pennsylvania, where the group is in the midst of doing five radio shows before joining Love & Rockets on the road throughout March. Following that, they're hooking up with Sugar Ray for an MTV-sponsored tour. (Who thought of that pairing?)
Orgy's sound is akin to that of a synth-pop act being pummeled by an industrial group. It's distorted but melodic, most notably on the Gothic "Revival" and the heavy, danceable remake of New Order's "Blue Monday," a track that's garnered them plenty of attention. "We were in the studio, and we wanted to do an old cover," recalls Hewitt. "We were throwing some songs around, and it just came up. It came out so amazing, we decided to keep it."
Orgy and their management agreed to toss "Blue Monday" out as a single to see how people would react; the gamble paid off. That single aside, Orgy benefit from a sound that's similar to the crossover-friendly electronic rock of Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, and their audience is correspondingly diverse. "At our show, it's funny, because we'll see total Goths to younger ravers. It's crazy, the different kinds of people that come to our shows." And the group works to keep the fans entertained.
"We wanted to come out and do something to make kids love to see us live," the drummer declares. "Even with writing the music, we didn't want to make up stuff in the studio and either not play it live or have tape rolling live. We play everything. It's the same with our stage set. We went to great lengths to design something really cool that the kids can trip out on. We have these blue Plexiglas walls, a round drum riser, and strobelights. But we also change it up. We have these huge, space-age-looking panels for backdrops that light up."
On Orgy's current cross-country treks, the spectacle has to be downplayed a bit, given the smaller capacity and stage size of the venues they'll be playing. Even though the band's now performing at thousand-seaters instead of arenas, Hewitt says he's enjoying the clubs. "I like playing the smaller places better--it's more intimate and the crowd gets crazier," he says. Look for Orgy fans to get crazy at a theater near you soon.
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