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| In the best possible world, and more.... |
“So, we're in a really fortunate position where we basically get to go on holiday with our mates, get free booze, get paid for it, and see the world; and every night you're expected to get up on stage and play the music that you enjoy for an hour and 20 minutes or so."
"Ha, it's a hard life, hey?!"
BW: Yeah! I just wish that we were making a living by doing it...”
That last thoughtm the one about making a living as a heavy metal band came up in every interview (video or otherwise*) I read in a frantic attempt to catch up on Orange Goblin. The two words that consistently show up in the next sentence or two are “mortgages” and “families.” The same words came to mind each time I closed a browser page, or logged off for the night: “they’re regular blokes,” I’d say. (* Not totally regular: both lead singer, Ben Ward, and (I think) bassist, Martyn Millard, were apprentices for Queens Park Rangers at age 16.)
"Ha, it's a hard life, hey?!"
BW: Yeah! I just wish that we were making a living by doing it...”
That last thoughtm the one about making a living as a heavy metal band came up in every interview (video or otherwise*) I read in a frantic attempt to catch up on Orange Goblin. The two words that consistently show up in the next sentence or two are “mortgages” and “families.” The same words came to mind each time I closed a browser page, or logged off for the night: “they’re regular blokes,” I’d say. (* Not totally regular: both lead singer, Ben Ward, and (I think) bassist, Martyn Millard, were apprentices for Queens Park Rangers at age 16.)
To drive home the point about Orange Goblin’s fixation with keeping ahead of finances, that quote up top came out of a 2010 interview on The Quietus (worth reading for the lede alone…but stay for the quick note on touring through Bozeman, Montana). The band swung at an honest stab of living off music too, when Ward, Millard, Chris Turner (drummer), and Joe Hoare (guitar) set off on a world tour to support the album Ward still rates as their best, 2012’s A Eulogy for the Damned. They traveled the world, “[went] on holiday with [their] mates,” (probably) got their fill of free booze…but after a year or two of touring and struggling to pull together the next album, the financials never came together. In spite of international fame – defined here as being able to fill a large-ish room with highly-interested people (this part is necessary) – the logistics and costs of touring simply don’t pencil out for a band like Orange Goblin. For what it’s worth, I do think they all miss their families too. These are very nice, responsible men, I can't stress that enough.
Noisey put out a solid retrospective about that spirited attempt around the time of the release of 2018’s The Wolf Bites Back; if you want a pretty solid one-stop snapshot of what they’re about, that feels like a good source. While circumstances forced them to downgrade Orange Goblin to a really kick-ass (hopefully lucrative) hobby, every member holds down a day job to keep home, family, and hobby together. All the same, they don’t sound anything like giving up. When TotalRock interviewed Ward at the 2017 Download Festival (link above under “video”), the way he describes the beginnings of The Wolf Bites Back – e.g., band members swapping of riffs and ideas, getting the ideas bubbling – and the fact that they got together as recently as 2017-18 to write and compose together, organically, and that everyone still keeps bringing ideas to the table, that reads like a fair sign this won't be their last album. Their last tour...well, that's another story.
Noisey put out a solid retrospective about that spirited attempt around the time of the release of 2018’s The Wolf Bites Back; if you want a pretty solid one-stop snapshot of what they’re about, that feels like a good source. While circumstances forced them to downgrade Orange Goblin to a really kick-ass (hopefully lucrative) hobby, every member holds down a day job to keep home, family, and hobby together. All the same, they don’t sound anything like giving up. When TotalRock interviewed Ward at the 2017 Download Festival (link above under “video”), the way he describes the beginnings of The Wolf Bites Back – e.g., band members swapping of riffs and ideas, getting the ideas bubbling – and the fact that they got together as recently as 2017-18 to write and compose together, organically, and that everyone still keeps bringing ideas to the table, that reads like a fair sign this won't be their last album. Their last tour...well, that's another story.
