Last year we introduced you to British garage band Dirty Orange and in just a few months, the band has been getting some serious buzz around their country. The London trio are a hybrid of early Arctic Monkeys meets The Stooges. It is a rock and rollers love affair rolled up with a modern twist.
Read Our 2016 Interview with Dirty Orange
After releasing their fantastic EP, Short Story About the Lady of the Night, the band have returned with two brand new singles, "No Life Beyond 20," and "Would You Rather?" In an era when rock and roll is on life support, the two singles help inject some much needed adrenaline. The lead single, "No Life Beyond 20," is a catchy number with serious hooks that is the most Britpop sounding release they have had. "Would You Rather," is a straight punch to the gut with roaring guitars and savage riffs that pin you down to the ground and make you want to scream "uncle" in order to release from its submissive hold.
As the new songs just landed on all streaming services, we spoke to singer George Wilkins about how the band has been coming along since we last spoke a few months back.
After being
together for over a year, you have been gigging all over England. How has the
experience been?
Eye opening! As an overall experience it has been second to
none. Every gig has been mad, for example; not having a kick pedal five minutes
before we were due on in Manchester, to eventually playing in front of capacity
crowd, which arguably was our best gig to date.
What has being in
the band taught you so far?
I think we’ve learnt never to take shortcuts and to not take
anything personally. Being a member of Dirty Orange requires a shit load of
patience.
How have the
crowds been?
Up and down as you can imagine, but we received nothing but
positive feedback from crowds in general. People seem to respond well to our
sound.
Where has been the
best place to play?
Manchester and Camden, Camden isn’t probably what it was in
the late 90s and early noughties, but it’s still buzzing every night of the
week, and a mega place to gig.
Are you planning a
debut?
No just yet, prioritizing, gigging, getting a bigger
following and constant improvement… then we’ll start thinking about our debut!
How did the new
songs come about? Were they left over from the EP sessions or just two totally
new tracks?
‘Would You Rather’ was a brand new song which we decided to
record last minute and ‘No Life Beyond 20’ was golden oldie which we had been
planning to record for some time.
What inspired the
new songs?
‘Would You Rather’ in particular was a real quick process
based around a lead break and a drum roll. ‘No Life..’ was a longer
progression, which started with telling lyrics, followed with music which
perhaps is more widely appealing than our other songs.
When can we expect
you in America?
Before the end of 2017 for sure.
What has been the
best thing about being in the band thus far?
Being able to express ourselves
as individuals and as a band, finally doing what we want to do not what society
expects of us. There’s plenty of people out there who feel the same as we do,
music just happens to be our medium to say how we feel. You only have to watch Connor
play drums for half hour to see how pissed he is with tiling for a living. All
in all though, we ain’t stopped learning, we ain’t stopped drinking and we
ain’t stopped laughing.