Los Angeles, CA · industrial-rock · nu-metal

Orgy

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Synth-forward nu-metal in vinyl trousers — the New Order cover was the hit, but the originals leaned genuinely cold and chrome-plated.

Orgy formed in Los Angeles in 1994 around vocalist Jay Gordon, guitarists Amir Derakh and Ryan Shuck, bassist Paige Haley and drummer Bobby Hewitt. Derakh had previously played in the 1980s metal band Rough Cutt, while Hewitt came from Electric Love Hogs. The band pushed synthesizers and downtuned eight-string guitars to the front of what was otherwise nu-metal, terming the result "death pop."

Jonathan Davis signed Orgy as the first act on Korn's Elementree label, and the band's debut album, Candyass, appeared in 1998 and went on to sell close to two million copies. Davis himself appeared on the album track "Revival." The record produced two hits: a cover of New Order's "Blue Monday," which became a fixture of late-1990s rock radio, and the original song "Stitches."

Orgy toured behind Candyass alongside Korn, Limp Bizkit, Incubus and Rammstein, and later with Love and Rockets and Sugar Ray. Their second album, Vapor Transmission, released in 2000, took a science-fiction theme and produced the singles "Fiction (Dreams in Digital)," "Opticon" and "Eva."

The band's music turned up beyond rock radio too: "Faces" featured on the soundtrack to Zoolander in 2001, and Orgy performed "Opticon" on the television series Charmed. In 2003, a snippet of "Ashamed" appeared in Freaky Friday, with Derakh taking a cameo role and coaching Jamie Lee Curtis on her guitar scene.

Shuck and Derakh formed the side project Julien-K in 2003 to explore electronic material outside the band, while Gordon remixed Linkin Park's "Points of Authority" as "Pts.of.Athrty." Orgy has continued intermittently since, with Jay Gordon the constant presence.

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industrial-rocknu-metal