Band: Orgy (Ryan Shuck - Guitars, Paige Haley - Bass)

Date: 5/15/04

Location: Hartford, CT

Interviewed by: Meg Enos

Meg: Orgy is based out of LA.  What is the music scene like out there? 

Ryan: Its pretty lame.  LA has never been a big innovator. LA is a place where, a lot of bands, when they start cooking, tend to move. That’s where the studios are and that’s where the labels are. Usually you are going to record a record in LA.  The booking agent is probably in LA.

Paige: One way or another you are going to wind up there. 

Ryan: As far as a scene that innovates, that’s really new, I would say Orange County, LA’s neighbor is probably the last of the innovation.  Korn. Offspring, the entire thing that exist right now. We kind of imported ourselves. 

Meg: Everything else is kind of cookie cutter right now?

Ryan: It’s pretty unexciting.

Paige: There are a lot of good bands though.  I go out and see a lot of good bands all the time and everything.  But, like he said, there is nothing that is really, right there.

Meg: What are some of the bands, some of the locals that maybe haven’t made it out this way and are worth looking into? 

Ryan:  You are assuming that there are some worth mentioning. I don’t know that there really are right now. 

Meg: There might not be.

Ryan: There are friends of ours that are in bands right now. St. March is a band that some friends play in. Science, actually, I think they changed their name to The Drug.  They are just starting. They aren’t going to be coming out here, so it’s kind of hard for me to say, “Well, look out for this.”

Paige: Ima Robot 

Ryan: They are doing well. When they got signed, you could see that they were starting something.  

Meg: They have made it up here.

Paige: Yeah, they have been touring around.

Ryan: They are a great band. That didn’t really start a scene or anything.

I wouldn’t say that this is necessarily breaking, but there definitely an electro scene. I’m doing another band called Julian K. It is an electro band. One of the reasons I though maybe people would actually listen to this was this scene.  It is still so small, that I wouldn’t say it is really doing anything yet.

Meg: What was the recording for the new album like and how was it different from the other two? 

Ryan: You want the honest truth or the summed up version?

Meg: I want the honest truth. 

Ryan: How much tape have you got?

Meg: I’ve got enough.

Ryan: This record is thrown together. 

Paige: It was actually done about a year and a half ago. 

Ryan: Yeah. 

Meg: Really? That long ago?

Paige: Almost.

Ryan: …and we all just said “F*ck it!” 

Paige: The main tracks were pretty much laid.  It was still missing some guitar things here and there, some vocals.

Ryan: Mainly it was missing vocals.  The band basically said “f*ck you” and we all walked away from it. Then over a year and half, Jay put together the vocals. 

Paige: It started going again to complete it. Once it was in the process, things were going really well. By that time, everybody had time to gather their heads and get their lives straighten out, so we all decided to go out on the road together and see what happens. 

Ryan: To see if we would have fun. Honestly though, the record direction wise, Jay wanted to be heavier and a little more live.  Any good band obliges their singer. We tried to do that. I’m not that into that.  I love Orgy and I like the record, but I’m not into that approach. That’s where some of us threw our hands up.  But, when it gets finished, when somebody goes in and completes it, and you hear it, its like, “Ok, lets give it a try”.  It’s been fun. I’m glad we did it.  

Meg: That is one of the prominent things about this record is that it is noticeably heavier.  It sounds terrific, but it definitely has the heavier edge.

Paige: Actually, I think our first album was our heaviest album. There is some heavy sh*t on that album.

Ryan: What many people think of as heavy…Paige and I, and Amir as well, are more in a dark sense.

Meg: We are working off of different definitions of heavy.

Ryan: Jay likes it Korn heavy.

Meg: Right. 

Paige: I’m more into sinister. 

Ryan: I like The Cure.  I think Depeche Mode is heavy.  

Paige: Not that I don’t like that style, but I don’t think that is our ultimate direction. There is certainly a lot of cool stuff that came out of it.  I love it either way.  

Ryan: I don’t look at the record as our body of work.  We have three records.  In that body of work we have offshoots, so it’s cool, I can deal.

Meg: So the band is split, kind of half and half?

Ryan: We are totally schizophrenic. I’d say that me, Paige and Amir have everything from Jane’s Addiction to Depeche to Cure still running really strong in our veins. Jay has Pantera and Slayer in his veins right now. 

Paige: Which is awesome. 

Ryan: Which is just not our thing.  Bob definitely likes rock better.

Meg: What are some of your favorite tracks off the new album.

Paige: Vauge. I love Vauge. 

Ryan: Inside My Head. 

Paige: It’s hard to even pick.  Like I said, it’s been almost a year and a half. I’ve already gone through all the demo versions, showing it to friends, etc. We finally got it done and I’m already ready for a new one. I know this one to death.

Meg: Paige, while you were taking a break from Orgy, were you working on anything else musically? 

Paige: I have a project called Insect. I’m going to be the singer of that project.  I’m writing all of the music and doing everything myself right now, but in terms of coming out live, I’ll just be singing in that. When I get home after this tour, I’ll start finalizing everything. I’ve been recording for a while now. I’ll put it out and see where it goes from there.  I just constantly write.  I’m not trying to be my own solo act.

Ryan: None of us are necessarily trying to do that.

Paige: We are all just musicians.  We don’t have to just do Orgy music and that’s it. This stuff I have started singing on, and my voice is definitely different than Jay’s. I already have it written that way, but some of it could definitely fit into Orgy. I think its cool for everybody to do their own projects. 

Ryan: It’s all about having fun.

Meg: Now, are you singing as well in Julien K?

Ryan: Yes.

Meg: Switching everything up for the side projects.

Ryan: We sing in Orgy.  We sing quite a bit actually. Jay and I both write lyrics and Paige as well. Jay played some of my guitar parts. Paige did too. I don’t think Jay is even really comfortable being a singer.  I think he would rather play, even though he is a great singer. We were always happy to oblige.  I write better on bass.  I don’t write that well on guitar.  I’m not that great of a guitar player. I write vocals better than I write guitar stuff.  When we took a break from Orgy, I just kept writing.  Without these guys to curb me, it’s going to be Depeche Mode. It’s going to be electro. With these guys, I get to scratch both itches.  I get to rock the f*cking house, and with my other band, make everyone dance.

Meg: Who came up with the title “Punk Statik Paranoia”? 

Ryan: Jay. 

Meg: Was it something he came up with and then brought to you?

Paige: It had actually been around for a while. That was actually one of the compositions for the second album I believe. A few other names seemed to work for the situation at the time.  You have to understand.  We fell apart making this record. It’s just a perfect name.  

Meg: How’s the tour been going so far? 

Paige: It’s been going real good. Irving Plaza was awesome last night. 

Ryan: We are doing this tour with zero press, no video on MTV, no single on the radio. 

Paige: This tour is basically word of mouth. The people that do come want to be there. Everybody there is totally into it. It makes it really good.

Ryan: I think last night we made a pretty strong statement.   

Paige: Yeah we did. 

Ryan: It actually made me think, “Whoa, we really have something here.” To go out and do what we are doing, I can’t believe it. We are making more money than we ever have on this tour. There is no label. It’s all us.  We are D1.  Just like Elementree. We were Elementree.  That is Korn’s ability to sign a band to another label. Elementree, for all intensive purposes, financially, was Orgy.

Meg: Right.

Ryan: We built Elementree. We sold 2.5 million records. 2.5 million times 16 bucks a record is 30 million dollars. We were Elementree because no other bands did anything.  We put some Korn kids through college.

Meg: (Laughs). 

Ryan: We were partying with David from Korn, and he bought me a bunch of drinks and I was like, “Let me buy you some drinks.”  He was like “Ryan, I have made so much money off you, don’t ever feel like you need to pay me back.  My kids are going to school because of you!” 

Meg: So there really is no press for this? 

Ryan: There’s no press. Normally there would be four or five interviews a day.  It’s completely different, but we are doing it.  We are going out booking a show, selling tickets and playing.  We rolled through the heart of the enemy in NY last night.  Those kids were louder than we were. It was insane. It hurt my ears when we first came on.   

Paige: I thought it would be good, but I never expected what happened.  

Ryan: It will be like that in Chicago and LA.  We booked three shows in LA. That’s weird. When never did that when “Blue Monday” was in the airwaves, followed by “Stitches”. Two top singles on the charts at the same time, we didn’t book three shows in the same place. It’s interesting to see the core, what has melted away after those two and a half years. It’s still there without having to scratch their backs all day long.  They have been waiting there. It’s amazing.  I’m blown away.

Paige: Fans will go, “It’s about time! We have been waiting three years for you f*ckers! 

Ryan: We have no drawing support acts.  It’s all support acts that we are drawing the tickets for.

Meg: Right.

Ryan: We are helping them. Again, we are completely alone and financially sound which is so cool. 

Meg: Are their any plans to make a video for MTV?

Ryan: Apparently.

Meg: Apparently?

Ryan: It’s not like we go to the label and say, “Hey, can we have a million dollars to make a video?” We have to come up with the money. If we come up with the money, then there has to be reasons for it.  MTV has to be willing to play it. That is how it works.  They don’t have to play it.  I think we are going to make a video for either “Vague” or “Pure”.  We are going back and forth.  The label wants “Pure”, we are building “Vague”. My heart is telling me that “Pure” is probably a more accessible song to people that aren’t Orgy fans, although, I’m starting to think “Vague”.  With that being said, we have never played “Pure” live, which is possibly dumbest thing we could ever do. You never know.

*Check out a review of Orgy's new album Punk Statik Paranoia

*Check out live photos of Orgy HERE!

For tour dates and more info, check out www.punkstatikparanoia.com