ORSON: Interview + Live Review!!!

Before Orson's sold out show at Glasgow's Barrowlands, Graeme Johnston caught up with bassist Johnny Lonely for a chat about success, Orson Welles and hats.

G: Firstly I want to welcome you back to Scotland.

J: Thanks.

G: I saw you at T In The Park this summer and thought it was a great set. It seemed to go down really well with the audience. How was it for you?

J: It was awesome. We had so much fun, totally. We were looking forward to that festival, pretty much more than any of them because we had heard so much about it back in January when we first moved to England. We started hearing about us being booked into the festival as we toured around the UK and Europe and stuff, and pretty much T In The Park is the only one that had a reputation back in America that we got all jazzed about.

G: It's got THE reputation.

J: Yeah. It kinda got us more jazzed up than the rest.

G: So tonight obviously you're playing the Barrowlands, which is undoubtedly the best venue in the country.

J: That's what we've been hearing.

G: Yeah. It's hosted U2, REM, Oasis, Bob Dylan, David Bowie - and just from talking to people tonight it seems that the Glasgow crowd are really looking forward to your show - so not that I'm trying to make you nervous, but are you ready for it?

J: Well, you know what? It's alright being a little nervous, that's cool. It kinda helps the unexpected to come out. If you don't have a little bit of butterflies or nervousness, shit would get boring. You gotta have some electricity, kinda spice it up.

G: So what's been the best, most special moment of your career so far?

J: Well I'll tell you personally, playing the festivals this summer was pretty awesome come to think of it. T In The Park was great. I had about 30,000 people sing me happy birthday at V Festival - that was on my birthday and they sang it for me, that was pretty cool.

G: Any bad experiences that stick out?

J: No, nothing exceptionally bad. We're all pretty mellow guys. No-one's really wound up in this group. Something goes bad, goes wrong along the road in a band's career, it's expected. Things are gonna happen. We're all southern Californian guys, we're LA guys. It's all good! Sold out tour, you know?

G: Cool. You took your name from film-maker Orson Welles, who I'm a really big fan of. Has he been an influence on the band in any way, or was it just chosen in one of those silly moments that you've come to regret every time it's been asked in an interview?

J: No man, no regrets. It's all good, you know? We like talking to people about this stuff, we have pretty blessed lives. A year ago at this time, we were all working crummy jobs in LA, practising at night, holding onto the teenage dream of being rock stars - and here we are, platinum records, sold out tours, its all good if people want to ask us about the name. We've answered it a thousand times.

G: And you'll answer it a thousand more times.

J: A thousand more, bring it on! This is all such gravy. We're pretty happy about it.

G: So has he been an influence on you in any way, or was it just literally the name?

J: Mostly, it was just after we adopted the name Orson, that's when we got to reflect on it more substantially, and thought about what a character this guy was. We really kinda fell in love with it in just the form of a name, because we finally settled on something. Then talking about it, realising as far as a person and risk taker...

G: A true pioneer.

J: ...who wasn't afraid to piss people off or wasn't afraid to really more or less do things his own way. We really got more solid with the name. This guy did things outside the system, and hey, we recorded our own album, we paid for it with our own money, put it out ourselves, we paid for our own trip to Manchester to play in the city - all this shit, because the LA music scene just wasn't radical. They weren't getting it.

G: You certainly seem to be more popular over in the UK than America

J: Oh yeah. It's in the UK and Europe that's the only place that it's happening for us right now. We moved to London in January and we haven't been back since. Our record's not even out in America. It's not even on our concern list right now.

G: Why do you think that is, that the British audiences just seem to get what Orson is about?

J: America's got other priorities. Teenage strippers turning into popstars, hip-hop guys that are churning out records, and pop-punk groups and stuff, and we didn't fit the idea. So that's fine man, we go where it fits and here we are.

G: A lot of your songs seem to be about love or heartbreak and in turn a lot of your fans are girls. That must be pretty cool...

J: It's extremely cool! It's extremely cool. We were in Newcastle last night man, it was just bananas with crazy girls. Playing these joints we got 2500 girls singing along, feeling this shit. It's pretty awesome.

G: One of the best ways to garner an audience nowadays is through Myspace. Your page seems very active. How do you feel about the whole craze?

J: Well you know, we were on Myspace before even it turned into this big thing for bands.

G: It was back in 2004 you created your page.

J: Even before that Jason and I were on Myspace individually. It was by extension of that is how we made a page for our band. We only knew a couple of bands that were on Myspace at that time. So once we got that going it was kinda where it all started kicking off for our lives over here, people suddenly noticing that shit worldwide and here we are.

G: It's huge. The whole thing...

J: It's out of control man, it's so crazy.

G: You wrote the song "Easy" for Sugababes. How did it come to be that an American rock band collaborated with a British girl group?

J: Well you know what, Jason and George did that. Their manager works for the same company as our manager, so they just needed some guitar parts for a couple of tracks. When they were in the studio, George was in playing a lead for them and they thought we might have a space for an idea here - he just kinda whittled something off, and they were like "That's interesting, can you expand on that?" The next day Jason came down and throw down a couple of ideas, beat wise and piano wise, and it just kinda grew after that. They said this Best Of album's coming out and they're gonna put out two original tracks - we got some ideas and Jason had this ironic kinda twisted idea for lyrics and he turned it into something for girls to sing. Of course, by the time their producer got a hold of it and they had the girls in there singing it, it turned into a non-ironic, slick dance track. It's alright. It's good work if you can get it.

G: What about future collaborations? Who would you like to work with ideally?

J: I dunno man. We're so busy. That was such an accident, you never know what that's gonna grow into. Sometimes that's just how things work. We'll grow out of that. There's no way to know, we're so damn busy, there's no time for that shit right now! Unless somebody asked and we just so happened to have a day off, just like that Sugababes thing.

G: What are you going to be busy with after this tour, are you going to work on another album?

J: We've got gigs up until the end of the year, promoting another single here in a few weeks. At the beginning of the year we go on tour into Europe and there's gonna be another single in the UK, and then probably some more shows and by March we'll be working on a new album.

G: No time for anything really!

J: We have Christmas off. Three weeks off for Christmas.

G: Finally, and most importantly, I like your hats.

J: Thanks!

G: Is that an essential part of the band's image, or do you all have really bad hair?

J: Well, you know, I've been wearing hats since before I was in this band! I was wearing hats and Jason was the same, I think for him the hats just come with the person! We wear hats in our daily lives and it just so happens that we rock and we like to look good. Plus we both have shaved heads and we don't wanna be like "Oh there's that band with the two guys with shaved heads!"

G: So instead of being known as the bald band, it's the band with really cool hats.

J: Yeah I guess! Mix things up.

G: Excellent. Thanks for doing the interview and thanks for taking the time.

J: It's my pleasure, man.

G: Enjoy the show.

THE REVIEW....

It's a completely different Barrowlands from the one I entered - the empty, pin-drop hall is now a bustling dancefloor of people in suave hats. Clearly I'm not the only one that appreciates Orson's lovely headgear. The various areas of the Barras are rammed like sheep stuffed into an HGV - the merchandise is a bidding war of t-shirt chaos, the bar is an arm-nudging fight for survival, and it's impossible to get a decent spot on the floor - there's a real buzz about the place.

The opening act, LA's Cliss, do all that they can to ruin the mood, churning out a sound so utterly bereft of the funky, catchy choruses that the crowd is set for tonight that someone should be done for false advertising. The band members each take a turn of the three different instruments, guitar, bass and drums - but rather than demonstrating some magnificent musicianship, it owes more to the fact that their sound is so basic that anyone could do it. Rubbish.

A lifetime of set-up later, Orson are ready to wow and make an amusingly dramatic entrance - the hall lights dim, the spotlights circle, and drummer Chris Cano beats the drums like Darth Vader himself is about to sweep out from side-stage. Instead, it's the LA rock dudes in all their glory, and they lap up the piercing female screams before Cano's big beats find a rhythm and the band catch everyone off-guard by launching into fan-favourite "Bright Idea".

Topping that moment proves tough, and a lot of their stuff isn't so widely-known that the whole crowd can chant along - but the tunes are enjoyable and the initial excitement never really wears off, the throng a sea of arms flailing and hips shaking. During "Already Over", Jason Pebworth flaunts his showmanship, casually picking up a saltire that's thrown on-stage and milking the moment for all it's worth. The Scots-Orson army love that he croons the tune with our flag draped over his shoulder, though the kiss at the end raises a chuckle or two.

Single "Happiness" goes down a treat, and the introduction of a mellow piano moment cools us off. The encore, of course, is the true highlight, as chart-topper "No Tomorrow" sends the ladies into one last frenzy of screaming. The band take it all in their stride, smiling and waving as they leave. Cool as Arctic ice.

Graeme Johnston.

http://www.myspace.com/orson