Exclusive Interview with Orange Avenue

[caption id="attachment_1645" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Orange Avenue - Sean, Chris, Derek, Glenn, Jamie"][/caption]


Check out our Exclusive Interview with Orange Avenue!

This is the 49th post in our Musician of the Day series.



Click here to listen to Just Refrain of Orange Avenue's latest album Reset.
[audio http://fansiter.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/orange-avenue-reset-01-just-refrain.mp3]

Orange Avenue is a rising band traveling up and down the state of Florida and gaining a massive following. With the release of their latest EP Reset, this band is already making waves in the Florida music scene. One thing is for sure, these Daytona based musicians won’t be staying in their home state for long, because they’re bound for bigger and better things.



Stephanie Schoppert: So the first thing I need to know is just the basics about the band. How you guys met, got started, and then we’ll get into more fun stuff.

Jamie Pohl (Bass/Vocals): We’re basically a circle of friends. Everybody knew each other in Daytona, Palm Coast and everybody was kinda in different types of bands and we worked with each other in the past and then eventually we just formed the band that we have now. It went through a lot of evolution and different variations. Orange Avenue was the final result.

Chris Yetter (Lead Guitar/Vocals): Yeah we’ve been together for about four years as Orange Avenue and we’ve been just playing, just trying to get the word out about who we are. You can find us at OrangeAvenuemusic.com. You can check out our tunes we’re on Itunes, Amazon, Rhapsody…insert plug here.

Stephanie: Okay I want to get to know your guys’ personalities a little bit. So what are some embarrassing or favorite moments from tour?

Sean Sedita (Drums): We went up to New Jersey, and we were doing a little pitstop at my cousin’s house and all of us kinda scattered into apartment buildings and I call Chris and he gave me like 5F or something similar, and I went to that door and since it was my cousin’s house I just walked right in. And as I walked right in, I walked into a family with a little boy sittin’ there and the wife and the husband trying to kill me. So I immediately ran down and then located the rest of the guys. So that was a very scary moment in my life, probably the scariest to date.

Jamie: I have a lot of embarrassing moments but I was too drunk to remember them. Not really.

Chris: Oh remember when you had those burritos dude? That was fowl…no I just made that up that didn’t really happen. I don’t know. There hasn’t been too many, we kinda set some ground rules for touring. We don’t mess with anybody when they’re asleep cause we wouldn’t want that done to us. So we sorta, right from the gate we started with that.

Jamie: Oh I know, every time we’re on TV or do some sort of major…like we do a show where we’re all sort of psyched up or something that is going to have an impact somehow…somebody always falls. But other than that we’re perfect, we’re so effin’ perfect. That you got nothin’ on us. The Beatles have no- no no just kidding.

Chris: Strike that last comment. That never happened.

[caption id="attachment_1648" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Orange Avenue performing on the Plaza of Universal City Walk"][/caption]

Stephanie: Alright, talk a little bit about the album for me.

Chris: The new album, Reset, we released it July 31st. We called it Reset because it’s kinda…our first record is kind of like a variety of different styles and ideas, and on Reset we were trying to aim for something that was completely all us…yeah this is pointless. Derek go ahead talk about Reset.

Derek Anderson (Lead Vocals/Guitar): Reset is what we think an exciting album. We set out to write and record some good songs, exciting songs people could sink their teeth into and we think we’ve pretty much accomplished that. We’re already starting to work on another EP coming out hopefully by the end of this year. Not sure what is going to be on it, or what it’s going to be called but we’re going to try to keep the same formula going. That’s about it.

[caption id="attachment_1652" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Derek Anderson - Orange Avenue"][/caption]

Jamie: We named the EP Reset because it took us awhile to write tons and tons of songs and finally figure out the style that everybody was happy with and comfortable with. So we named it Reset because it was kind of a reset of our previous work or how everybody knew us and knew our sound.

Chris: Sort of like a reinventing of ourselves.

Jamie: Yeah, we’re proud of what we did before but this is what we’re gonna go with now. This is what we’re gonna ride home with.

Chris: It’s the style that we do best. This is what I was trying to say earlier. Our first record was a combination of a bunch of different styles, like all the different things we can do. And this record si more what we do best, the style that we feel we do best. So that’s also why we called it Reset.

Derek: We just thought, what kind of songs would we like to listen to, would we like to play you know. Just exciting things for us to perform. And what we think other people would like to hear and see from us. That’s just another approach we took when we started writing and getting this album together.

Glenn Sedita (Percussion/Keyboards): True Statement.

Stephanie: I want to know a little bit about your songwriting process, it is always different for every band.

Derek: Yeah, the writing process is different for every band, and it really is kind of based on a song by song basis with us to. But more often than not it’s we come up with some exciting music and I try to lay some exciting vocals on top of it. And certain songs speak to me in different ways and you know, even for me the writing process is different for every song. You know some songs come right to me, other songs take awhile. It all depends on how I’m feeling that day, you know the things that I’ve been going through and all that.

Jamie: Modern technology has been a blessing for us and probably for most bands because we can record ideas and we can email those ideas to each other and sometimes like Chris will lay a guitar part, or he’ll cut the song up or people in the band will take the software they have on their computers and they’ll say “hey I like this arrangement of this song blah blah blah” and we might come back to the table with a song idea from like months prior but because we all had it on our computers and we all had the songs kinda in our heads no one really forgot the song and the song still exists. And it might just show up months later and maybe months later Derek will have the right lyrics and say hey…that makes sense right?

[caption id="attachment_1651" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Jamie Pohl - Orange Avenue"][/caption]

Glenn: That’s not at all how we write.

Jamie: No, it happens like that.

Chris: We get together in a garage. Hot, sweaty, we wear clothes that don’t look like what we’re wearing right now and we write some music that we think is cool that we enjoy playing. And yeah pretty much. We dress up in suits, and

Derek: we have briefcases…

Jamie: The point is that we record our ideas constantly.

Chris: We compliment each other for about 30 minutes before the writing process can commence.

Derek: We have floor to ceiling mirrors all around the garage so we can admire ourselves constantly.

Chris: There’s a video camera at every practice so we can video tape our movements.

Jamie: we’ve got a large catalog of music that we get to choose four of them to fit the genre because we accidentally wrote a fusion jazz song.

Chris: We got a catalog…I pick 41H.

Derek: So uh, this is a nifty microphone is it recording everything, through there, like it’s remote. That’s cool.

Jamie: Once again, modern technology, that’s kind of what I was referring to.

Derek: We definitely , I mean, the technology is available, you know we might as well use it. So we do, after practice we record like all the ideas and everything and we send them around so everybody thinks about their own parts. Everyone had pretty much free reign over their own particular part and freedom to suggest anything at all times. So it really is a collaborative effort.

Glenn: Very good summary.

Steph: (to Glenn) So you’re just going to be quiet the whole interview is that what I’m getting out this? It’s always the ones that think they’re cute that don’t talk.

Derek: So where does that leave me and Jamie?

Jamie: Well it leaves me under the bus.

Derek: Hopefully I’m driving the bus. ..

Sean: We just had a pretty intense sound check so uh…

Jamie: That was a pretty intense sound check, we’re still a bit shaken up.

Steph: Well you’ve already got people waiting to hear you, so that’s pretty good sound check I’d say.

Jamie: They’ll go away.

Derek: After the first couple of songs we totally clear this place out.

[caption id="attachment_1650" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Orange Avenue at Universal City Walk"][/caption]

Steph: So do you guys only play cover songs when you’re here? (Universal City Walk Plaza Stage)

Derek: We start and end the set with our originals, just to kind of show everybody why we’re here and what we’re all about at the end. It gives me a chance to talk about that and say that if it wasn’t for us actually writing our own music we’d never be like even a band. The covers are great and you know we like to think that a lot of the covers we do – some of the covers we do because we think they’re other people’s favorites and not so much ours – but some of the ones, like the newer stuff are the ones that we picked that we would like to do and that we enjoy doing. It’s kind of like a little treat for ourselves, you know but all in all we’re really just striving to just do maybe like one cover a show and something that may be more of an obscure thing. But here you can’t really be as obscure because you want people to kind of to listen and kind of gather round and say “hey I know this song.” We’re really happy for this opportunity being out here at Universal, to let people know what we’re about. I don’t consider us a very good cover band, but we’re just out here really to try to spread the word about our originals really. It’s a great venue that people come from all over the nation, from all over the world, that’s how our albums have gone all the way to Australia, Ireland, Germany, Japan, so it’s a really good thing.

Steph; Now before I let you guys go I want to hear a little bit about your label and how you are creating that.

Derek: I will have Sean answer this question.

Sean: My name is Sean.

Jamie: And what’s your title?

Sean: Executive Drummer. No we’re excited about our label. What we did was a few years back the five of us came together and formed a company and through the years we’ve actually had a lot of help and contacts, and connections through a way of networking and stuff like that that have really helped us. We’ve been fortunate now to re-launch the label, it’s going but we’re going to re-launch it under some new staff and some new guys that are in there that are really pushing to help drill us to the top. Hopefully by, actually its just going into effect now, so hopefully by the end of this year, the label will be doing some things and we’ll be doing some things, so next year should be a big year for both us and the label. We’re excited about it though, lovelamprecords.com. Please go, check it out.

[caption id="attachment_1649" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Orange Avenue before the show. "][/caption]

To learn more about official site www.orangeavenuemusic.com

[caption id="attachment_1733" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Orange Avenue\'s new album \'Reset\' at Amazon"][/caption]