ORGYMANIA
Their industrial-style remake of the Eighties hit "Blue Monday" has brought hard-rocking Orgy fame, fortune and a shitload of new clothes. by Christopher Scapelliti

Some has to take the heat for all those pre-fab guy groups, those N'Syncs and 98 Degrees. Who would have thought it would be and industrial-hard rock group from L.A. named Orgy?
When Orgy scored a record deal just six months after forming, more than a few critics began sharpening their knives. Not only were the group signed to Elementree, the Warner-Bros.-distributed label run by Orgy's pals in Korn, but they were presented with a coveted spot on Korn's Family Values tour last summer, despite having never toured. It didn't help that, until recently, Orgy were better known for wearing makeup and girls designer tops than for writing enticingly dance-heavy grooves, or that their management company, in addition to handling Korn and Limp Bizkit, also represents a certain teeny-bop sensation know as the Backstreet Boys.
Then came "Blue Monday," the hit single from Orgy's debut album, Candyass. The song was a hit on modern rock radio this past spring, peaking at No. 2 on the club charts and turning Orgy's opening spot on the current Sugar Ray tour into a nightly riot of screaming girls and mosh-pitting boys. But while the kids danced, it was left to the critics to point out that "Blue Monday" had been a hit once before, in 1983, for the British electronic-dance group New Order.
What's a band got to do get a little respect these days?
"People will say whatever they want to say," guitarist Amir Derakh says without a hint of defensiveness. "Our version of 'Blue Monday' sounds enough like us that a lot of people don't even recognize it as the New Order song. We even created the chorus -- the 'how does it feel?' section -- because the original song didn't have one."
As for the band's glammy fashion sense, Derakh admits that, at the time of Family Values, Orgy was more femme than its members had intended. On the Sugar Ray tour, the group has opted for what guitarist Ryan Shuck calls a "cleaner, futuristic look" that probably wouldn't look out of place in a stage production of Blade Runner. "The clothes and makeup are things we were doing before we were a group," Shuck explains. "I was a hairdresser before I joined the band. Fashion is a way of life for us, and it always will be."
Whatever the naysayers think about Orgy's sudden emergence as a synth-rock sensation, the fact is, each of its members earned his leather pants the hard way, working L.A.'s aggressive club scene. Both Shuck and Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis were members of the band Sex Art and together CO-wrote Korn's hit "Blind." Derakh, for his part, drew some attention in the mid Eighties as guitarist for Rough Cutt, a hair-metal group who scored a minor radio hit with nothing less than a cover of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart."
Inevitably, the incestuous forces that shape L.A.'s music community drew Orgy's five members together, united by their shared ideas about music and fashion. "I think we first noticed each other because of how we looked," says Shuck. "We saw each other as being a little cooler than everyone else."
While their critics have yet to be entirely won over, Orgy does agree with them on at least one point: the group's success is a little premature. "None of us expected this kind of response so soon, because we're just starting out," says Derakh. "It's a little overwhelming sometimes. When we played in Oregon in April, the fans totally swarmed our bus. They had big signs that said, 'We Love Orgy,' and they were screaming and yelling. They ripped Ryan's $800 shirt, and he was whining about it for a week."
"There are time when they just won't let go of us," says Shuck. "We call it 'Orgymania'."

GUITAR WORLD How have your lives changed since "Blue Monday" became a hit?
AMIR DERAKH It's gotten pretty crazy, especially since we started the Sugar Ray tour. Because we have so many more fans now. It's good, though -- things are a little easier, and we get treated a little better by the media. But we've got more work to do: more interviews, more shows.
RYAN SHUCK It's also weird, though. We can't go to McDonald's sometimes. We walk into the hotel lobby and there's maniacs waiting for us.
GW Most groups spend their first year or so trying to figure out who they are and what kind of music they want to make. How did you attain such a focused vision in so little time?
DERAKH We came into Orgy knowing what we didn't want to sound like or look like, and we just took it from there. That's how we figured out what we wanted to do in this group, by narrowing our focus.
SHUCK The number one thing is, we don't want to sound like anyone. When Orgy first got together, everyone had spent 10 years playing in other groups, figuring out what kind of music they wanted to play and what they wanted to do with the music. Orgy just happens to be a group of people who all agree on those ideas. For example, Amir and I didn't want our guitars to sound like guitars, which is why he uses the Roland guitar synths. And I felt that when the guitar was playing rhythm, it should sound like a machine. So there's an example of finding a vision by the process of elimination.
GW Your first touring experience was opening for a lot of tough testosterone-charged acts on the Family Values tour. Did their fans ever make you fear for your safety?
DERAKH Korn has very open-minded fans, and the fans on that tour were pretty cool. Obviously, you'd think we would have gotten killed for wearing makeup on such a heavy tour. And there were definitely nights when there were hecklers in the crowd. They might throw a water bottle at us, but that shit happens any way. Basically, the audience was there to check us out, and now they're coming because they've heard the music and want to see us.
GW How did you come to remake "Blue Monday," and how did it become your first single?
SHUCK We had a couple of cover songs that we were considering, and "Blue Monday" happened to be one of them. It came together really easily. After we finished the album, Warner Bros. brought us to New York to introduce us to the company staff. They had a video presentation to show off their new bands for the coming year and "Blue Monday" was a part of it. The song just sounded so good. That's when I realized that we were going to make it a single.
GW It is disappointing that, out of all the original songs on the record, the cover became the hit?
SHUCK It's fine. Not only do we respect that song but we made it our own. It's like we adopted it; it's someone else's kid, but we're raising it. I mean, if we played our show and no one cared about the songs until "Blue Monday," I would be worried. But the kids are singing along to all our songs -- not just "Blue Monday." And there's definitely about six songs in the set where it's just a panic. It looks like people are going to kill each other. [laughs] So that's good!
GW Why did you call your album Candyass?
DERAKH It's actually the name of a drag queen our singer [Jay Gordon] met at a party in L.A. We just thought it would be a funny title for our record. And we thought it was cool, because it was like we were making fun of ourselves.
SHUCK It's kind of a play on us and the way people look at us like, 'Ah, ya bunch of faggots." I think the word does suit our image. It's not that far off.
GW In June, Orgy is going to be featured in a new Calvin Klein as campaign. Considering all the backlash you've received for wearing makeup and girls clothing, isn't posing for Calvin Klein just asking for trouble?
DERAKH No, because from the very beginning we told everybody that we were fashion whores. We like clothes and we like to wear expensive makeup.
SHUCK And it's working for us. A lot of bands do get fucked with for trying a lot of different stuff, but obviously we're getting a lot of support from our fans for what we're doing.
GW So you think the time is right for it?
SHUCK I think the time is so right for it. I see less of a definable trend in music. The only thing popping right now are bands in the style of New Kids on the Block.
GW You mean like the Backstreet Boys?
SHUCK [laughs] Yeah! [coughs] And, you know...that's cool too.