There wasn’t much fun to be had last year, watching shiny people bragging on social media that they’d already built a garden shed and earned themselves a PhD in Astrophysics by the first Thursday of lockdown, especially as you’d been mostly sat in your sweatpants eating Monster Munch sandwiches.
For Alex Paterson however, there was still plenty of motivation to continue pushing the envelope of what audiences could expect to see and hear of his work.
Busier than ever, the former Killing Joke roadie, original acid-house maverick and full-time member of The Orb since 1990 filled what might otherwise have been a blank schedule with a myriad of projects.
In the last eighteen months he’s launched his own new label Orbscure Records – modelled on Roger Eno’s Editions EG – performed two groundbreaking online holographic shows and, to cap it all, released his biography Babble On An’ Ting, written in collaboration with Kris Needs.
Now venues have thankfully re-opened, Paterson is reviving a scaled back version of The Orb’s live experience for a tour which will also feature a question-and-answer session before each gig, as ‘Dr Alex’ looks back over his career, using his biography as the reference work, before then delivering a set of classics and rarities from the band.
Live4ever caught up with him to talk – amongst other things – books, punk and fake DJs.
So, you’re due to go out on tour from the end of the month as Le Petit Orb. We caught one of the scaled down shows in 2019 in Leeds, but without the Q&A session. How did the idea for that come about?
It comes from releasing the book. We (Alex and Kris Needs) started working together on it before the pandemic, and we spent time together in person and separately putting it together. We wanted to play live again and that was a good reason.
There must be so much material. How did you pull everything together?
It was as much about the stuff we couldn’t put in as the things we could, but it’s also a book about myself, and how The Orb became The Orb. And lots of other things.
Which bits should we be diving in to first?
Well, I wrote it so you could pick it up at any point and hopefully find something interesting. I really wanted to get the Killing Joke era right in my own mind though.
I was talking recently to someone who was doing a ‘Day In The Life’ feature; when I used to work with the band, I used to sing during the soundchecks and I was told that there’s a recording of Rapper’s Delight – the only person who ever sung that was me! I did that several times with them. I never knew a version of it existed until that conversation. But, just as importantly, we’re all still friends, brothers.
One for the rarities album! Back to the idea of having a Q&A, how will that work?
I’ve got different people turning up at each of the venues – at Frome for example it’s my old mate from primary school who also features quite a lot in the book. They’re going to ask the questions and I’ll talk about my life.
As well as the tour and the book you’re also launching a record label. What was the thinking behind that?
Basically it was to give an outlet to the side projects I’d been doing over the years. It’s also going to be a vehicle for instance to release material that’s been put together by some of my mates’ kids, a circle of really talented people who’re making some great music.
We noticed that some of the stop-offs you’re making aren’t quite on the traditional gig circuit.
I think people have been starved of live music over the last 18 months, and The Orb has always been to places where others might not have gone. We were one of the bands who regularly played in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. We were part of a scene that began in ’88, where ecstasy changed people’s attitudes completely.
Do you think with the government trying to control people’s lives so much that the situation is similar now to the illegal rave era? Can music be a catalyst for change?
I think that’s the right idea, but the wrong decade. It was punk in the 1970s that was the original angst music against the establishment; that sort of thing’s what might happen again in the future.
Changing the subject, there’s been a big debate recently about DJ’s – we use the term loosely – who ‘perform’ pre-recorded sets. How do you feel about that?
It’s an absolute no, and it’s a chicken’s way out. It’s bollocks. It’s not showing you an art, is it? It’s not exploring what people like. You should, if you’ve got your ears, know what people want on next. It’s as simple as that.
The ‘proper’ Orb are going out on tour in 2022. Can we also get excited about a new album?
We’re going to be trying out some new material over the next few weeks ahead of a new Orb album which will probably be out in very early 2023.
The Le Petit Orb tour begins in Aberdeen on the 28th of October.
