INTERVIEW: Jami Morgan – Code Orange

Pittsburgh has delivered one of the most crushing bands in recent years in the form of CODE ORANGE. With the release of Forever, the band have taken the world by storm. Dominating Album of the Years, performing at a WWE NXT event and being nominated for a Grammy, they’re an unstoppable force. Securing a main support slot with TRIVIUM on their UK run, we got to chat with drummer and vocalist Jami Morgan about their style, their achievements and more.

You’re close to closing this tour with TRIVIUM. How has it been for you?

Jami: Great, we’ve only been on it for like a week, but it’s been good so far. It’s been awesome.

This tour has been recognised positively for supporting more upcoming bands in the past few years. Do you feel like it has helped?

Jami: I think it helps us anytime we open up for somebody who has a lot of fans because we take some of those fans for ourselves. I feel TRIVIUM are super nice and they’ve been really helpful to us and cool. I think it’s helpful.

Do you feel like you’ve gained more fans and people are starting to understand CODE ORANGE more?

Jami: I don’t know, we’re doing pretty well but I think there are definitely some people who come and like it and some people who come and don’t like it.

Forever has earned you a lot of recognition. You’ve had an album of the years, performed at WWE NXT Takeover and been nominated for a Grammy. Did that come of a surprise to you?

Jami: The Grammy thing was kind of surprise because you never know what’s going to happen with that. I always have high expectations and hopes and shit. I was happy with it for sure.

What was it like being nominated for a Grammy? Did you feel like it was opening the awards to broader styles in metal that were previously overlooked?

Jami: That’s my hope, I think if we would have won then definitely, but hopefully they saw the reaction, so I hope so yeah.

You step outside the box with hardcore. You want to push boundaries. Can it become a tedious task at times and make you feel like reigning it in sometimes?

Jami: Nah, we don’t give a fuck. Not really, if we reigned it in, what would be the point? We’re not really good at doing that. I don’t think we’d be that great if it’s like a straight up hardcore band or whatever, it’s not really our skillset. There’s already enough of that.

Can it be tedious knowing you want to do more with the genre though?

Jami: Oh yeah, that’s very stressful. Figuring out how to do that in new ways and trying to push it as much as we can within our skills, it’s good though because it’s what we want to do. It keeps us going, I think if it was the same shit, make another record, we’ll definitely never be like that. If we stop getting inspired like that, we’ll 100% quit.

You’ve pretty much grown together, playing since you were in high school. Do you think that and getting to experience listening to music together helped shape your style?

Jami: Yeah for sure, we’ve all learned together and grown together and discovered all this shit together. We’ve done these tours together and seen the world together so, yeah 100% for sure. I think so.

Understandably you want to control every aspect of CODE ORANGE. It’s your band. Can it be hard when you have to think about things like online presence, label contracts, fans, earning a living etc?

Jami: Yeah, I think it’s hard to keep the reigns on everything. I feel like you have too in modern times, I feel like you have to do everything. I feel like before people could just make music and a lot of people would do the rest for you but it’s not like that anymore and we have to work a lot harder. That’s how it is. I love it, I enjoy doing the art and doing every aspect of the band, we like that a lot.

Do you see it more as art at times than music?

Jami: It’s everything. CODE ORANGE is like a whole conceptual sort of idea. The visuals are part of that idea, the songs are part of that idea, the moves we make, and the business moves we make are part of that idea, it all relates.

Do you think that control with the band helps with your personal lives as well?

Jami: Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hurts. When it’s the main priority in your life, it’s hard to have a personal life in a lot of ways. I think about 70-80% of our personal lives are based around this. It’s tough, three of us live together on top of being on tour, we’re all just struggling in trying to make it and make something out of what we love. If it keeps working out great, if not it is what it is. We’re gonna make art what we want to make, try to leave an impact.

You’ve previously said that you were writing songs about your depression, but it didn’t help. Instead you done a 360 and made it about feeling good about yourself. That’s where the heavy come from. How difficult was it for you to make that switch?

Jami: I think everyone deals with all those kinds of things so it’s not such a hard thing. I still go through things, I still write about shit I go through. I think we try to put it through the lens of not necessarily positive but more reinforcing the belief in yourself. People take it the wrong way a lot, we get a lot of flak for it, but we don’t really care. We all believe in each other, we believe in ourselves, we believe in our music, not trying to tear anybody else down at all. We just believe in ourselves 100%. I think when you believe in yourself people show how they feel about themselves and how they react to you, I feel it like it exposes a lot of people, they don’t just feel that way about themselves, they wanna bash that as much as possible.

Have you noticed live or had fans message you saying they’ve been able to have a more positive outlook because of your music?

Jami: We get some of that, we get a lot of different things. I think when people talk about positive outlook I think we’re taking a very different angle on it than “Oh you can do anything”. It’s that but I think it’s more just looking inside and accepting who you are and whether that’s bad or good, make something out of it. I think we have our own angle on it but hopefully it helps some people but it’s really, I just write what I’m thinking about and what I feel.

Apart from dominating the music scene as one of the hottest breakthrough bands lately, what is next for CODE ORANGE?

Jami: We’re just gonna keep trying to push the limit with our presentation, our music, our visuals, everything we do, every tour we do, we want it to feel special and cool and like a big deal. We’re gonna keep trying to do that, keep it up. We’re working on all kinds of stuff right now.

Nothing is going to be the same for you.

Jami: Definitely not, you got to evolve every time. You stop evolving, people except something out of you, it makes it impossible to make anything good. People want what they already got, and I don’t think what people want is the same, they want us to keep growing. We just do our thing, fuck it.

Forever is out now via Roadrunner Records.

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