On Tour With Orange Goblin…
Cut from the same beer-stained cloth as the greats, UK stoner rock metal act ORANGE GOBLIN are still riding high and leading the pack in ‘balls to the wall’ heavy metal thunder. Emerging amid the exhilarating melee of the mid-‘90s stoner rock and doom explosion, ORANGE GOBLIN immediately endeared themselves to a generation of metal fans by simply going for it at full, beer-swilling pelt and some twenty five plus years later, nothing has changed! Moving through 2024 it’s all hell for leather with the release of their tenth studio album, the first one since 2018’s The Wolf Bites Back and the first for new label Peaceville Records.
Being eleven years since their last trek to Australia, ORANGE GOBLIN are way well overdue for a bone jarring jaunt and have promised to pull out all the stompers for an intense and intoxicating atmosphere that will truly show the power and might these British heavyweights are armed with. Vocalist Ben Ward speaks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.
Eleven years between tours, you must be really looking forward to getting back to Australia this April?
Yeah, absolutely. It’s been eleven years since Soundwave. We had a brilliant experience doing that with huge venues, great crowds and being our first time in Australia, it was a bit of an eye opener. It was a whirlwind visit and we didn’t really get to spend much time in each city. It’s going to be a similar case this time with a show every day, but we are looking forward to it, it’s a beautiful country, amazing people, I think we get on very well with Australian folk due to our enjoyment of rock ‘n roll and good times.
How do you cope with the jet lag and then playing five shows in five days? That’s a pretty gruelling schedule.
It’s a big trip for us. We’re literally going to sort of circumnavigate the globe in two weeks. We fly from London to Shanghai and Shanghai to Tokyo. We do two shows in Japan, then fly from Japan down to Adelaide, start the tour, do five shows in Australia, and then whip over to New Zealand for three shows there. From New Zealand fly across the Pacific to New York and then New York to London and then it’s all done and dusted. So, I think I’m going to be in a kind of daze, but I stopped drinking a couple of years ago and I’ve been sober for two years because it was having implications on my health and everything going on in my life. I’ve done my fair share of partying over the past thirty years with the band and it was time to make a call.
I think it’s going to be a bit easier for me doing this trip than it might have been had I been hung over every morning. Nonetheless, it’s still going to be a lot of hard work, but we are used to it. As I say, we’ve been doing it thirty years and this is part and parcel of it. Any band will tell you that you got to be prepared to do the miles, the schedule might be gruelling, but it is rewarding at the same time.
I was reading somewhere that you are literally flying in from Japan into Adelaide and then heading straight to the show. It doesn’t sound like there is much room for error with schedules and you must have someone really quite on the ball who’s doing all the coordinating and making sure everyone’s at the right place at the right time?
Yeah, Soundworks have been brilliant with putting this all together and they’ve got contingency plans if flights get cancelled, hopefully it is not going to be needed but you never know. They’ve also got backup instruments waiting for us in case our luggage does not arrive. So, hopefully despite the logistical nightmares involved, the shows will go on.
Do you get to check out much of Australia while you’re here or is it just pretty much airport, hotel, venue and then do the same for the next few days after that?
Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. I don’t think we’re going to get to see a great deal of each city, which is a shame. At least on Soundwave there were a couple of off days. We did some side shows and got to see a bit of Brisbane, we saw a bit of Sydney and Melbourne and went to Perth for a day and took in a bit of sort of sightseeing, that kind of thing but not on this tour. It’s going to be like you say, airports, hotels, and venues for a great deal of it but that’s alright. Our drummer Chris has got family down there, so he is excited that he gets a chance to see them and we’ll mean the most of it.
Is there a particular focus for this tour or are taking fans on a journey across the entire sort of back catalogue?
I think that’s always been the case with Orange Goblin. We put so many of our personal influences into our music that it’s like a big mixing pot. The two main ones would obviously be Black Sabbath and Motorhead. I think there’s still an element of that across this new album. We’ve thrown in some King Crimson, Rush and some yes adding a bit of progressive element to it. To me it just sounds like a really well produced and, and mature Orange Goblin album. Lyrically it’s got evidence of stuff we’ve done before, maybe some stuff people wouldn’t expect, it’s got a kind of dystopian science fiction theme, which is easy to write about really when you look at the world around us. George Orwell’s wrote 1984 God knows how long ago, but it’s all coming to prominence now and big brother is watching us. There’s a bit more social commentary on this new album, I guess.
Are the supports Dr. Colossus and Astro Death picked by the band?
Well, Astro Death is band I was aware of because I’m good friends with Youngie from King Parrot, and I think he manages them in some way, shape or form. He’d been sending me their stuff because I work as a booking agent when he was looking for someone to represent them in UK and Europe. I was aware of Astro Death and I think they’re a great addition to the bill. Then the promoter suggested Dr. Colossus and informed us that they’re like a stoner tribute to The Simpsons, which of piqued my interest shall we say. Every interview I’ve done, people have told us how strong these supports are so I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to seeing them and checking them out each night.
When you reflect on your career as a whole do you pinch yourself thinking, gee where has all the time gone?
It’s been a roller coaster. It’s been thirty years. It’s over half my life doing this band, but when we started as nineteen, twenty year old kids, we had no illusions of where it was going to go. We just wanted to get together, have a bit of fun, and make some music. We thought if we could do some shows in our local pub, it’d be great. We’ve been really fortunate. We’ve got to tour the world, get to do it with your best mates, free drinks everywhere and experiences that we’d have never had if it weren’t for the band and the music. We’re really entirely grateful for that. It’s exceeded our expectations tenfold. We’re still doing it because because we love it and we’re grateful for everything that we’ve had.
Is the new album likely to coincide with the start of Australian tour?
The album will be announced before we come down there, but it won’t be released until the summer. We’ve just finished approving the mixes, the master and everything delivered that to the label and they need a decent run up for the marketing campaign and getting the vinyl pressed and things like that. So, unfortunately the album won’t be released by the time we’re down there, but we are looking forward to playing a few songs off it. Obviously, with ten studio albums under our belt now, there’s a lot of material for us to pick from, but I think people will be keen to hear a couple of new tracks and a good mix of everything that we’ve done from our catalogue.
With a later release date does that keep the door open for a possible return back to Australia at some point next year?
Yeah, with Orange Goblin you never know, it’s always taken us a while between albums. It was five years between Healing Through Fire and A Eulogy for the Damned. It’s been six years since The Wolf Bites Back, but that said, in those six years, a lot happened. The world got shut down for a year and a half, our bass player left, we changed labels, and we have a bit more stability now. So who knows, we really enjoyed the writing process on this one and we went into the studio better prepared than we ever have before. So who knows? We’ll see!
Do you think that this period of time for Orange Goblin, has been the most exciting for you?
Yeah, I think it is. Even though we’ve been doing it for thirty years, I think in the early days we were just a little bit naive and didn’t understand the ins and outs of the industry, whereas now we’ve got this experience, I work as a booking agent, I’ve worked as a manager, Chris works at a van hire and backline hire company. Everybody plays their role in this band. We’re self-managed, we’re in control of everything, all our merchandise, all our publishing and things like that. That’s got us into a really strong position now that we can just sort of enjoy what we do without having to worry about paying a percentage in commission to an outside influence to handle something that they probably don’t have the same shared vision as the four of us. It’s nice to have that control and this album I think is a reflection of that.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Orange Goblin on the following dates, tickets from SWD Presents…
