Since its inception when all the members were around the age of 14, then known as Code Orange Kids, the Pittsburgh-based punk hardcore band now just known as Code Orange are certified veterans of the music industry nearly nine years later. Wise beyond their years with everybody in the band in their early 20s, there’s a confidence about Code Orange that strikes deeply within the music, much so on their newest album Forever, out now on Roadrunner Records. Touching on their hardcore roots, it nothing for the four-piece band to break out of the normalcy of heavy music and push the boundaries to the sounds and feelings that come natural to them. The authentic nature of Code Orange makes their music beyond just a collection of songs, but more so an experience.
Recently, I was able to chat with drummer and vocalist Jami Morgan of Code Orange and we talked about what went into making the new album and about the progress of the band as they transitioned from teenagers to adults.
On the new album Forever, you guys don’t just stick to one thing, you dabble into a lot of different textures. What was the mood of the band going into writing and recording this album?
I think it’s just the mood we approached everything which is that we are really hungry to do something different and challenges ourselves and challenge people listening in our own way and provide a new take on this kind of music. That’s what we wanted to do is just make the best record that we could possibly make. We worked extremely hard day in and day out on every single part to make sure it was the best of what we do. We introduce a lot of new elements and new shades of what we do. That’s always our goal and I think we are just getting better at it.
How do you feel like you’ve progressed from the previous album I Am King?
I think the last record we did was like setting the table for what we’re going to do now. We’ve done a bunch of records when we were teenagers and young kids, and then we did the last record and kind of reestablished what we were about. This record we got a lot more creative and experimental, but all through the lens of a 35-day “punch straight in the mouth”! We wanted to make a record that was a big scoped record but through the eyes of hardcore. That’s the music that we love and the brevity of that, but at the time, maybe its tough to hit on a hardcore or metal record with different dynamics and use tools.
The band was formed in 2008 and you were all teenagers during that time. Looking back to those early years, what’s some of your fondest memories?
I think some of our fondest memories of that time was touring and just getting better. There was a lot of struggle involved in all of that, but I think those will always be fond memories. It’s hard to have memories when you just been doing it. We keep doing it. We’re all 23 now and when we started, we were 14, so I think we’ve just had opportunities to experience a lot of stuff people don’t start experiencing until now. We’re already veterans in this game. We’re the youngest veterans ever. I think we’re ready to go. We have a lot of knowledge about how all of this stuff works and hopefully we can get it out to some more people.
Now that you’ve all transitioned from teenagers to adults, what do you think the biggest life lessons you’ve learned being a part of this band?
I think we’ve learned that we just need to, and this record is about this in a way, we’ve learned to trust ourselves and trust our close circle of people we’ve grown up with; it kind of cancels out a lot of the other noise. I think we do have a really strong vision for something that is different than other things out there. A strong vision for the best thing we can be. We’ve learned a lot of lessons about trust. It takes hard work. It’s a steady uphill for us. As always, there’s exciting new challenges and new goals. We’ll always be interested. I think we’re vampires for that shit. We need those goals. We’re hungry for that. I don’t know how other bands operate, but we need that and we’re going to keep fighting for that.
Have you been playing any of the new music out recently?
We haven’t really played a show since August. We played one song at that show, but we have a whole new set up now. We have a new guy playing with us; it’s going to be a new experience. For this tour, we even created an album’s worth of strange music ranging everything from industrial to soundtrack. Our guitar player has made his own album and it’s going to play in between all the bands on our tour. We’re trying to introduce our own experience on a DIY level and just do something different and do something that represents us. Just like all of our stuff, we want our visuals to represent us, we want our music to represent us, and we want our shows to represent us. That’s what we’re doing.
To listen to the full interview with Jami Morgan, where we also discuss pro wrestling, visit freshisthepodcast.com.
Code Orange will be playing the El Club in Detroit on Tuesday, January 17th with special guests Lifeless and Youth Code. El Club is located at 4114 W Vernor Hwy in Detroit. For more information, visit elclubdetroit.com. For more information on Code Orange tour dates or to purchase their new album “Forever”, visit codeorangetoth.com.