ORGY - Revival
Goth Rockers Enter a New Era
Written by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment - Sense Music Media | Saturday 05 March 2022
ORGY frontman Jay Gordon is pacing around his Los Angeles home, hoodie zipped up to his chin, trying to keep warm as the normally sunny city dips to about 4 degrees Celsius. He has a bullet in his leg, but I don’t know that yet.
As he moves around his living room, I see framed gold records on the wall. He explains that issues with the tour bus have postponed the upcoming American tour. The real reason for the delay – insurance for the bus – is a bit too sensible, so I suggest telling people that the real reason is that they snapped an axle under the gargantuan weight of strippers and cocaine. Jay’s a bit hesitant, and I find out that it’s because his teenage daughter is right beside him. Whoopsie.
The Interview
I’ve got to ask – how does she go knowing that her dad is in a band with the name ORGY?
My son, he’s older now, he doesn’t care anymore, but when he was young, he tried to find my band online. Yeah … That wasn’t too cool. He literally came up to me and said, “Dad! I can’t believe you’re in a band and it’s about sex!” I’m just like, “Well, it’s not exactly about sex. It’s like a musical thing, where a lot of styles come together.” He goes, “No, it’s about sex, because I found a lot of stuff on there!” [Laughs] I was like, “Oh, man…” London, my daughter, she doesn’t really get it either. She knows it has to do with sex. These kids are not dumb these days, you know? I said, “Look, I named my band way before you came along,” you know what I’m saying … They understand, especially the older one. He’s fine now … He’s probably trying to throw one of his own. I’m like, “No, no! Not yet!”
Family Values Tour 1998 Tour Poster
One of my formative musical memories was being given a pirated copy of the 1998 Family Values Tour video when I was a teenager, and that was how I found your band and absolutely fell in love. That was a hell of a lineup – what were your memories of that tour?
It was crazy as hell. That was the most rowdy tour I’ve ever been on, ever. It was cool. Everybody was having a blast. We were all out there like, “Woah, this is crazy!” That was like our first tour, so for us, it was really special. We also got into a lot of trouble. Like, RAMMSTEIN would just get us in trouble so much. I can’t blame it on them, but those guys … they’re just beasts. They just don’t care, and they make a lot of money doing what they do, and they’re out there just like, yeah, let’s throw some TVs around, have some fun – throw some bottles at each other … And a certain “basketball team” with numbers instead of a name – you know who I’m talking about – we were at that place, and we pushed over all these lockers, and we just got in so much trouble. So you know, they cost us some dough. I mean, you know, it was all in good fun … putting axes in the walls. There are some hints of that in the Family Values video, but us and RAMMSTEIN together? Oh man, [they] were just some crazy days, you know?
They got arrested on that tour, didn’t they?
Ah … no comment. [Laughs] Yeah, they did. Probably because of what he does with the crowd thing. [On this tour, during performances of Bück Dich, frontman Til Lindemann would pull a fake phallus out of his pants and spank it on a bent-over Christian "Flake" Lorenz until it erupted with a stream of liquid. Til would then turn this appendage on the crowd.] They told him that if he did that – if he whipped it out [he’d get in trouble] …
You’ll be able to answer me that question – what actually was in it? Was is [liquor]?
I don’t really know. I mean, I don’t think that they would be really allowed to spray booze into a crowd of children, basically. [Laughs] You’ve gotta use your imagination there. There’s no way they’re going to let them do that. They did get arrested, but I don’t really know. Who knows? It’s a mystery. I really don’t even know – it could’ve been iced tea for all I know, it could’ve been Jack Daniels! If it was, yeah, I don’t think I’d be wanting any of that Jack Daniels, but I love Jack Daniels … [Laughs] Not coming from there though! Can you imagine? “Hey, can I get a drink of that?” “Hey, let me get a shot!” Nah bro, not going to happen! I think, more often than that, I think it was the act of it that made whatever city mad, and they got arrested for that … I’m sure whoever arrested them was probably up there rocking out, like, “Oh shit, I’ve got to take these guys to jail! Fuck!” I don’t know.
Pictured: Jay Gordon
Photography: Kimberly Woo @kimwoophotography (composite image)
Going back, what kind of guy were you in high school?
In high school? I played a lot of football. Football, basketball, you know … but then, you know, I loved hanging out with stoners too. I played in a band, and then I kind of left to go do music and stuff … I went to a school to get a degree in audio engineering. I took it more seriously after a little while. I was like, “Well, if I’m going to do this professionally, you’ve gotta know your stuff.” You can’t just be bailing out of school, like “see ya!” Man, I got shot in high school…
Woah-woah-woah-woah. Story time. What?
[Laughs] Everybody thinks that San Francisco … They have a very different vision of San Francisco because of a certain movement that started there involving rainbows and everything else. They think it’s like that, and it’s really not, at all. That’s just an area of San Francisco, but the rest of it is a concrete jungle like New York or L.A. or anywhere else. I’m from a certain area in San Francisco, and there’s other people from other areas who recognised my cousin and myself coming home from baseball practice, and yeah … And I hated baseball, so there you go. I was never a fan. I’m a football guy, I like basketball, but football was my jam, and I just wanted to stay in shape, so my cousin and I tried out for the baseball team. We were just coming home from practice one day and this guy blasted on us … literally blasted on us, like boom-boom-boom-boom. I just got hit on the back of the leg, so it wasn’t crazy, you know? To me, it felt like in the movies where everything goes silent and you’re like [impersonates slow motion], everything goes slow, you know? It’s still in my leg, actually. I wasn’t a hardcore gangster or anything like that, it was just like the neighbourhood I’m from, and being recognised. That’s what it was, you know?
I find it amazing that you once shared a stage with Ice Cube, and you’ve got shot, and I believe he hasn’t. [Laughs]
Bro, he’s the shit. I love Cube, man. He gave us his white boy booze that he didn’t drink. He was like, “Here, you drink this shit? I don’t fuck with this.” He was really cool. We got, like, a sandwich back then – “Here’s a sandwich and some cupcakes. See you later!” It was really a lot of fun playing with those guys, and when we played the Cow Palace in San Francisco, my family made some really good for those guys and everybody, and they were like, “Damn, this shit’s good!” It was really fun touring with those guys. We had a good time.
I kind of associate ORGY with the goth and industrial scenes. I don’t know how accurate that is, but it just seems to be, in my experience with the goth scenes, ORGY was a pretty big band.
Yeah. I mean, it’s one of those things where … I love that stuff. I mean, that shit is fire, to this day, you know? It kind of circles back through all the time. You can’t forget where you came from, and you’ve got to keep going with it. There’s a lot of that stuff on this new record actually, and it feels right, you know what I mean? It’s got that good goth/industrial vibe, and then there’s like trap drops and other things like that, just to break it up a little bit. That’s kind of what the band’s always been about from its inception. It’s colourful – throw it all in there. I can’t stay in a lane – I get too bored. Like, imagine doing acoustic songs and that’s it? I could never be John Mayer. I couldn’t do it … No, you know what I mean, just getting stuck in a rock rut, or an industrial rut, and that’s it? Some guys are so good that that’s all they should do, you know what I mean? I don’t know what I’m really good at. I just fuck around with a lot of different things. I like some different styles of music – that’s kind of where the name came from, and that’s how it all began, you know? Staying true to form, I’m going to keep doing that.
You’ve persevered with the ORGY brand where the original members haven’t. What compelled you to push forward with it?
It was not really my intention to push forward without the other guys. It’s just that it wasn’t lining up … They have their version of the story or whatever, but honestly … our timelines weren’t aligning. So, you know, they have another project … god bless ‘em, all that good stuff. I was just feeling like I wanted to get back out and do this another way, because it wasn’t really working out, time-wise, with the other guys. It has nothing to do with me being Axl Rose or any of that kind of weird, kooky shit. People are entitled to their opinions – you can’t tell them that they’re wrong – but I put together a band because I felt like it was the thing to do. And I have every right. I mean, I started this band. I wrote a good 90% of the songs. I don’t understand why that wasn’t acceptable, but I don’t mind talking about it. I have nothing against anybody else from the old line-up, Paige [Haley] especially. Love him to death. Love those [other] guys too; Ryan [Shuck], Amir [Derakh], Bobby [Hewitt]. All of them are really cool. We just kind of went in different directions, and I felt like this was the best way to still be able to get back out and do this. It was hell putting it together, trust me. It took a long time to get people comfortable with the band, and we’re going to see how this new record pans out.
ORGY are touring the U.S. through March and April. Tickets available below.
ORGY: L-R Nic Speck, Marton Veress, Jay Gordon, Carlton Bost + Creighton Emrick
