ORSON’S lead singer lives like a giant pig. Not our words, but of the man himself, Jason Pebworth.
You see, he’s spent the morning trying to dodge a TV crew who were after a look around his house.
“They wanted to see what a day in the life of Orson was like,” he says. “There was no way they were going to come to my house, though. I don’t know what it is, I just can’t keep a room, let alone a house, tidy. I just block it from my head somehow and don’t notice it. I know they wanted to see something kind of real, but it was too embarrassing.”
Jason, who – onstage and off – always wears a black trilby, says life in the band at the moment is exciting although the cameras from this particular television show wouldn’t have known it.
“We just took them around a market in Shepherd’s Bush that we go to. That’s where I get my cheap falafel wraps and buy coat hangers. I’m sure they saw all the really interesting stuff you’d expect from a band of our stature,” he says, sarcastically.
Orson – who consist of singer Jason, guitarists George Astasio and Kevin Roentgen, Johnny Lonely on bass and drummer Chris Cano – hail from Hollywood, California, but moved to the UK in early 2006 when their debut single No Tomorrow went to the top of the singles chart.
The years prior to that had seen the quintet do everything they could in America to get signed, but no one was listening to what they had to offer.
“Nobody could have predicted the success of No Tomorrow, or the album,” explains Jason. “The exact same album that was successful over here sat on a desk at every record label in America, and they all said the same thing – that they didn’t get it, they didn’t understand the hats, that they didn’t understand what were doing or that they didn’t know if we were a joke or not. Whatever it was, we got passed over for loads of reasons.
“We didn’t care, we were just doing our thing, having fun and we were going to make another album and then get on the road to promote the first album in America. That was when we threw our stuff on MySpace and on the website, and within about a month people in the UK just went bananas for us.”
Moving here, then, was a logical move, but not only did it bring Orson closer to their biggest fanbase, it also changed Jason’s perceptions of the world that lay outside the States.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love the USA dearly. The place is my home and my family are there, but being away from there makes you realise there’s a world out there. Why not live in Australia, or South America, or China or any other place?” he questions. “The world is gigantic and there are a lot of people out there who love music. We’re not losing sleep about not living in America.
“When the time’s right, we’ll go back. We’re thinking of heading back there sometime next year to see what we can do, but it’s hard to break away from the UK where our fans are so wild. It’s hard to leave that even for a second.”
There Ain’t No Party is the lead single from their new album Culture Vultures, which was released on October 22. Unsurprisingly, given the title, it’s a record destined for nightclubs in every town in the land, and not too dissimilar from the band’s aforementioned breakthrough single.
The album as a whole is not a million miles away from Orson’s first LP either, but while the other suffered from its overpolished finish, Culture Vultures sounds more natural, and when its explained that it was completed in a mere five weeks, it makes total sense.
“A lot of things about the new album are the exact opposite of the first album,” says Jason. “We had about nine months to make the first album, recording it in people’s bedrooms, and most of the time was spent worrying about the best possible sounds or where we positioned the microphones.
“Luckily, this time we had a bit more money so we went to a great studio where they’ve taken all the guess work out of the acoustics. We just concerned ourselves with turning the guitars up loud, making sure the drums were loud and that was it. It has a lot more energy because of that.”
Talking of money, the band can’t be short of a bob or two after their runaway success. While that may or may not be true, you won’t see the five-piece making any lavish purchases. Their years spent on the LA circuit, scrimping and saving to make ends meet has made Jason, by his own admission, rather Scrooge-like.
“We’re a bunch of guys that worked a lot of bad jobs to get where we are. We’re not 19, that’s for sure, and I think that’s why we’re a little tight with our cash. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, right? God, that sounded awfully southern Baptist of me, I can’t believe I said that!
“But you know what I mean. We all did a lot of our partying in our early 20s, and we did all the things you would expect a rock band to do, except we did it when we had no money. If we were like that now we’d be completely unbearable, so we have all that out of our systems and we’re keeping hold of our money. Who knows how long this is going to last?”
