Duane’s World Issue 11: Ben Ward of Orange Goblin

Posted on April 1, 2024 by duanejames

“People get stoned listening to every kind of music”

It’s been over a decade since Orange Goblin graced our fine shores and in a few weeks these British metal giants are gearing up for their long awaited return for their first headlining tour down under

Joining them for the Australian east coast slog are the mighty Simpsons-themed doom traders Dr. Colossus and Sydney’s Sabbath-worshipping cosmic alchemists Astrodeath to add weight to this already heavy tour. But Orange Goblin aren’t coming empty handed. One check of their website and you’ll see that they’re armed to the teeth with an album’s worth of as yet unreleased new music. Wall Of Sound’s Duane James, alongside Paulie Surridge from Higher Ground Tattoos and Records in Kurrajong, NSW sat down via zoom with vocalist Ben Ward to suss out what to expect on their upcoming tour, the grace and glory of Black Sabbath and the status of the upcoming 10th Orange Goblin opus.

“I had a meeting with the record label yesterday and we’d sort of devised the timeline for everything to drop. We’re just working on finalising the artwork, and the layout and all that sort of thing. But the music is all done. It’s all been mixed. It’s all mastered and approved. We’ve just delivered the final files to the record label. It’s all very exciting. Obviously, it’s the first album with our new bass player, Harry (Armstrong).

It’s our first album for the new label Peaceville, which is exciting for us because, as kids growing up, we were big big fans of everything that that label put out. The likes of Paradise Lost and Darkthrone and Autopsy and things like that. So to be a part of that worldwide established English label, it’s a big honour for us.”

A bit has happened since the last Orange Goblin album, the 2018 monster The Wolf Bites Back.

“The world is a different place now. Obviously COVID happened and Martin (Millard) our bass player left, so the band is rejuvenated again. Coming down to Australia and New Zealand, we’re keen for people to hear this new material. Obviously we’ve been there before, the only time was 2013 when we came out and it was part of the Soundwave festival. Being part of that, it’s great because you’re getting on flights and Tom Araya from Slayer sat there, and Scott Ian from Anthrax sat there, and you’re like, What am I doing here.”

No biggie. Just sitting on a plane with two of the founding fathers of the big 4 of Thrash metal. But that’s not the end of it.

“After that, we went to the US and we did a tour with Down and an Aussie band called King Parrot. We became really good friends with the guys in King Parrot. They were saying, you need to come down to Australia and experience the smaller club shows, where you’re up close and personal with the crowds. It’s been a long time since we’ve had the opportunity to do that, and then finally we’re doing it. The good people of Soundworks Direct have soughed it out for us and we can’t wait to get down there.”

Along for the ride are two of Australia’s finest purveyors of the down-tuned guitar riff, Dr. Colossus and Astrodeath, two bands that have garnered huge reputations for their brilliant performances and immense live sound. With the recent resurgence of heavy riff-based music in recent years, not just in Australia, but all over the world, it may be fair to point the finger at the likes of Orange Goblin, Acid King and High On Fire as inspirations to the new generation of Riff Lords making their charge.

“Not so much inspiration. I mean bands like Acid King and High On Fire, they’ve been doing this as long as we have. And the reason we all do it is because we love it. It’s in us and it’s our creative outlet. As artists, I think everybody needs to have that. That release valve. Because for a day job, I work as a booking agent. I sit in front of a computer screen booking shows and organising tours, sort of five, six days a week, and I need to have Orange Goblin to express myself artistically.

It’s still as exciting now as it was when we started thirty years ago.There’s nothing better than getting together with like minded people in a room and creating music that you love. That’s why we started Orange Goblin in the first place. We wanted to put together all the best elements of all of our favourite bands and that’s what we’ve always tried to do, which is why it’s such a mishmash. You’ve got Chris, comes from a real sort of hardcore and punk background. Got Joe who’s really rooted in the blues and 70s Rock. Then myself. I bring more of a kind of heavy metal bounce to it and it all goes into the Orange Goblin mixing pot.

We do still pay attention to what’s going on around us. And as you say, there’s been a resurgence in heavy music and riff based music and this is great to see. Especially in this country, we’ve got bands like Green Lung that are going on a trajectory that’s out of this world and fair play to them. They’re a great band and really humble down to earth guys and things are all moving in the right direction for ‘em so I wish ‘em nothing but success.”

What of their own influences? Have they changed over the years?

“I think we’ve always just done what we’ve wanted really. The prime inspiration has always been there. It’s always been Black Sabbath and Motörhead. Those are the two key ingredients in any Orange Goblin album. They’re still there, they’re still as prevailing as ever. But we always like to do something different because we have to keep it interesting for us as well. I think when we came out in the mid 90s, there was this kind of explosion of what people deemed stoner rock or whatever that meant. A lot of that was very US based with the kind of desert scene going on, with Kyuss, Fu Manchu and Monster Magnet with the psychedelic element and everything.

At the time, people were surprised to find out that Orange Goblin were in fact from England.

I think, in them early days because of the whole stoner rock thing and just the categorization ‘stoner rock’, they didn’t really have any definition. I mean, how do you define stoner rock? It could be anything from listening to the Pink Floyd or King Crimson to, you know, Electric Wizard or Black Sabbath. People get stoned listening to every kind of music. We’ve wanted to distance ourselves from that a little bit and I think that’s when kind of more of the Motörhead and as you say, the punk sort of influence came into it

We were listening to bands like Black Flag and Misfits and stuff like that, as well as the likes of Sabbath and Grand Funk Railroad and Buffalo and all those great 70s heavy rock bands. Even with this new material, people might be surprised that there’s a lot more keyboards on there. It’s almost progressive in certain places. We’ve been listening to King Crimson and Rush and stuff like that. I think that comes across but essentially it’s an Orange Goblin album.

We’ve worked with a brilliant producer, who came with a lot of pedigree having worked with a Heaven and Hell and Tony Iommi and Black Sabbath and he’s done a great job for us. So we’re really excited by it.”

Speaking of, 30 years into their career, they’ve crossed paths with Black Sabbath, Ozzy and Tony Iommi. Even after spending so long in the music world, it’d be worth finding out if they still fanboy out a bit when meeting these legends.

“Ah absolutely. I mean, to give you an example recently, because we’ve been going through the mixing process of this album, we worked with Mike Exeter, who is like Tony Iommi’s guy. He worked with Tony during the ballet thing and he’s doing all the Black Sabbath reissues. And just talking to Mike the other day, he said to me, ‘Oh yeah, I spoke to Ralph Baker, Tony’s manager the other day, and he was asking me how the Orange Goblin albums going’. I’m like, Ralph Baker knows about us? And Tony’s asked about us. And our drummer Chris, who worked at a music College in Brighton a few years ago, he got asked to do a meet and greet Q&A session with Tony Iommi, as the host. So it was him sitting here with Tony Iommi and he got his photo taken with him. Again, we’re still all fanboys. These are the guys that created everything that we do. It never sort of becomes blasé. We wanted to try and get Tony to play a solo on this album, but unfortunately, it never materialised.”

In another encounter with Black Sabbath, Ben was tasked with asking Ozzy Osbourne a question in an interview for Metal Hammer magazine and it’d only be fair if we asked him the same question. So who’s the craziest rockstar you have ever come across and what’s the funniest story you can tell about them?

“I’ve come across quite a few. I mean, it’s not always the most famous people or the people you’d expect. Brent (Hinds) from Mastodon springs to mind. You see him on stage with a crazy hair and the face tattoos and everything. We was doing a festival at Knebworth. There’s this huge manor house at Knebworth. There was this festival called Sonisphere. And he’d got off the bus and he was all battered and bruised where he’d fallen down the stairs the night before. We were just looking at the manor house and he was like, I wonder who lives there? And I was, I don’t know, I think he’s some sort of nobility, some distant relation of the royal family, somewhere along those lines. He’s like, I reckon we should just go and knock on the door and when they ask what we want, we just asked them how much milk they’ve got.”

Given our mutual love for Black Sabbath, we thought we’d ask Ben a question that gets thrown about Higher Ground quite a bit.

So the world is on fire, we’ve all got to get on a big spaceship. But you’re only allowed to take one Black Sabbath album with you? Which one is it and why?

“I would say Sabotage, it’s always been a favourite album. I mean that one-two at the start, ‘Hole in the Sky’ and ‘Symptom of the Universe’. But it’s also got the diverse side of Sabbath as well, which is almost progressive. And that was kind of one of the albums that we had in mind when we created this. When we first started talking about it, we said to Mike, we want this album to be like a cross between Sabotage by Sabbath. The first Motörhead album, Hawkwind: Space Ritual and Monster Magnet: Dopes To Infinity. I think he sort of got that for us. So yeah, we’re really happy with it.”

Well we’re looking forward to listening to it, and the Aussie/NZ tour that starts next week. With Dr. Colossus and Astrodeath in tow this is a tour that we’ll be talking about forever. Hook in.

Orange Goblin Australian Tour Kicks off April 9th via Soundworks Direct