Orianthi is officially back. Back with a new single, Some Kind Of Feeling. Back with a signature Orange tube amp, the Oriverb. And back in Alice Cooper’s band, albeit temporarily, for a string of dates in January and February as she sits in for Nita Strauss who has a scheduling snafu.
It is a minor miracle that she is able to join MusicRadar via Zoom, firstly, because finding space on her couch is a mission, with guitars to the left of her, guitars to the right, and secondly, she is in demand.
The following morning, she will be joining Eddie Kramer in the studio to begin a five-day session tracking guitars on an as yet untitled (and officially unannounced) record with a three-piece supergroup featuring Cindy Blackman Santana on drums and Rhonda Smith on bass guitar.
There are no more details about the name of the band or the record but that with Kramer in the control room it is a safe bet that the Monterey Strat that’s sitting to her right is going to be pressed into service the next day.
“I’ve been recording with Eddie with my ’63 [Strat] as well, which is very similar to what Steven Ray [Vaughan] and Hendrix had, and it’s in perfect condition,” she says. “That one sounds amazing too, and it just goes straight into my amplifier.”
Orianthi also has a solo album to complete. Three more songs to go. The world has heard two of them already, with her latest single, the title-track Some Kind Of Feeling, offering a taste of what’s to come. Orianthi says it was five years in the making but the time was right to finish and get it out there.
I love using the stacks, as any guitar player loves that sound, but there is something about having a combo with glorious reverb
“Lyrically, that song is very positive,” she says. “I am getting a lot of messages from people saying, ‘Thank you for the song. It made me feel super happy. It has brightened my day.’ That makes me feel great.”
It’s also a taste of what you can expect if you pick up the Orange Oriverb, a 2x12 fire-breather the Australian guitarist co-designed with the iconic British guitar amp brand.
That tone you hear, that drive, is just the amp and the guitar doing the work, and it is the sort of thing that would put a smile on any guitarist’s face.
“I love using the stacks, as any guitar player loves that sound, but there is something about having a combo with glorious reverb,” says Orianthi. “It took us a couple of years to put it together. It’s based off the Rockerverb combo but it has been modified quite a bit. When I first got it I was like, ‘I kind of want a little bit more. I want the reverb to sound more old-school.’”
Orianthi requested a number of “minute changes” to the design. Not much when applied individually. But these changes all added up. It might just have ended a lifelong search for her tone. At least for now. Orianthi has auditioned countless amps in the past, visiting Alexander "Howard" Dumble at his house, playing through his amps in the studio, and in her lock-up she has a collection of vintage tube amps.
“I’ve got some vintage Marshalls and stuff like that at my storage,” she says. “I have a whole Mesa/Boogie graveyard, well, I won’t say graveyard, but I went through all of them because I went through this obsession of being like, ‘Oh I want to find the right tone!’ And being a huge Carlos Santana fan, that’s what he used since the beginning.
“I’d get all of them. I’d save up and my Dad would buy me some as well. It was just this search for tone, and I am ever so grateful, teaming up with Orange, creating this great amplifier that really does sound like a new amp but also like an old amp.”
Some Kind Of Feeling was/is being produced by Kevin “The Caveman” Shirley, who pitched in to help reshape and tighten up the arrangements, but the approach is to just let it happen.
Orianthi and her band are tracking live in the studio where possible. The solo you hear on the title track was played on her Purple PRS signature guitar (“it just has my tone; it’s dialled in”) and wasn’t worked to death in the studio. She has a starting point, an end point, and there’s some room to improvise in the middle.
“Sometimes it’s just press ‘record’ and see what happens,” says Orianthi. “I guess I’d equate it to a rapper who’s freestyling. The beat is going and you do it, and end up in a certain spot and sometimes it’s right. With Some Kind Of Feeling, yeah, I did a few takes, but usually you go back to the first take, or the second one, where it is more inspired.
Sometimes it’s just press ‘record’ and see what happens. I guess I’d equate it to a rapper who’s freestyling
“Your brain gets in the way, because you go, ‘Oh, it has to be better! It has to be better!’ And I beat myself up to the point where it starts sounding like crap because I am overthinking. It’s like, ‘No, no no. I need to walk away.’ Because the joy is there at the beginning, then it slowly goes down to… annoyance! [Laughs] It starts from a place of happiness and you want to keep the joy.”
Some Kind Of Feeling features Justin Andres on bass/backing vocals, Nick Maybury on guitar, Ed Roth on keyboards, Jimmy Paxson on drums and Jade MacRae on backing vocals. There’s no release date yet but the album is expected to drop in early 2025, which is when Orianthi is back on tour with Alice Cooper.
When we spoke with her, the gig had yet to be announced but she had some fun memories from previous tours, and says anyone who signs up for a tour with Cooper has to be prepared for anything. This, after all, is the man who ritually decapitated himself to please his audience. This is not Fleetwood Mac. Even the ticker-tape is dangerous.
“Many things have happened on that tour where it could have ended pretty badly,” laughs Orianthi. “Like, confetti cannons that shoot 10 to 20 feet in the air. I would be soloing away in front of them, and you don’t even know the confetti cannon is literally behind you.
You get so caught up in the show and the moment I am unaware of what’s going on – there is so much going on in his show
“A tech would come and push me out of the way five seconds before it was going to go off. I didn’t know, because you get so caught up in the show and the moment I am unaware of what’s going on – there is so much going on in his show.”
And you’ve got to be okay with snakes, too. They are part of the tour. “Pythons. You never know what will happen. You’re on a bus with pythons so there is a lot of crazy stuff that happens. [Laughs] But at the end of the day, when the crazy shit happens, it’s entertainment value, right?”
Orianthi’s Oriverb 2x12 is out now. See Orange Amps for more details. And you can check out her single Some Kind Of Feeling above and presave it here.
