Orianthi: the Beatweek interview

Orianthi is currently existing in two worlds simultaneously. To the pop music world she’s known as the rising vocalist who scored a hit single with “According To You” from her album Believe late last year and is re-releasing the album today with new songs tacked on. But within the world of professional musicians, Orianthi is one of the most sought-after lead guitarists in the industry and she’s played on new releases from artists ranging from Adam Lambert to Mary J Blige in the past year alone, while being tapped for live television guitar duties by Alice Cooper, Carrie Underwood and others along the way. It’s a puzzle, then, how some of Orianthi’s newfound pop fans have yet to even figure out that she’s responsible for the guitar work on her own pop songs, let alone manage to connect the dots and realize that she’s the blonde guitarist from Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” movie. And you thought your days were busy.

“I love coffee,” Orianthi tells me as we speak now about the new release of Believe (II), while she sips her fourth coffee of the day and it’s not yet lunchtime. The first time we spoke, eight months ago when the original iteration of Believe was released, she was only on her second coffee of that particular morning. She’s speaking faster these days, but it’s with good reason: she’s doing promo for Believe (II) at the same time she’s kicking off the Glam Nation tour with Lambert and Allison Iraheta (she also plays the guitar on Iraheta’s new single, also being released today). For all the guitar related honorifics which have already been laid at her feet by guitar gods like Carlos Santana and Steve Vai (the latter of whom she’s collaborated with in the studio twice in the past year), Orianthi is now working on earning a title of a different kind: prolific pop singer who can’t seem to stop writing new tunes and recording them as voice memos on her iPhone as she goes.

Having covered her early days with me last time around (she first picked up a guitar when she was six) and her move from her native Australia to Los Angeles a few years back (documented in the song Feels Like Home), this time Orianthi and I skip to the four new songs on Believe (II), along with what inspired her to start laying down new material so quick after pushing the last album out the door.

Of her new single Shut Up & Kiss Me, she says its “a good followup to According To You. There’s a happy vibe to the song and it’s a lot of fun. So I decided to get back into the studio and record that song.” Her lyrics in the song, for the first time, reference the fact that she’s a guitar player, and it’s no accident. She says some newfound fans heard According To You and assumed the soaring guitar work was that was that of a session player, “and so I thought by referencing a guitar riff in the lyrics in Shut Up & Kiss Me, people would realize I’m actually playing the guitar.”

Before we even get to the other three new songs, she makes it clear that her mind is on the future: “there should be a third record out real soon too.” I ask if she’s going to stick with the Led Zeppelin naming conventions and call it Believe III. She has a joke at the ready. “I might change the name of the third one to We Believe Again, or Please Believe Me.” At least I think it was a joke.

One of the four “new” songs is actually older than she is, as it’s a cover of John Waite’s 1984 classic “Missing You” which was at the height of its commercial popularity right around the time she was born. “I heard it a lot when I was younger and I loved the track, and of course I’m a big fan of the eighties. I was thinking of songs to cover and I was playing that song and I love the lyrics, it’s a cool vibe, it’s really different. So we decided to put it on the record and we play it live too.” It’s not the only cover song currently in her concert repertoire, as she debuted her live take of Prince’s “Lets Go Crazy” on the first night of Glam Nation over the weekend. And yes, she’s already collaborated with Prince in the studio as well.

But it’s the mid tempo “Courage” which just might end up being her biggest hit to date, and the song’s uplifting message is to her own liking. “Hopefully when people hear it, it helps them through things,” she tells me. “Just to move on with life and everything you need, and to have courage every day with what you do. I just think the lyrics are really strong, and every time I sing it, it makes me feel really good.”

I mention that seemingly half the new albums that the labels send me these day feature her on some kind of guitar part, and I ask her how she manages to find the time to pull off all that studio session work while pursuing her own pop career, coffee notwithstanding. “I love doing both. I love just being the guitar player, getting up and collaborating with different artists. That’s a lot of fun. And I love playing in my band and singing and playing my songs, I love doing that too. Being able to do both is really awesome, and I hope I can continue to. There’s never a dull moment. I’m always doing something to keep my brain occupied, cause I get bored easily too, so it’s always great to be playing different things. When I’m asked to guest on someone’s record it’s really cool. I actually just collaborated with a German violin player called David Garrett. We played Walk This Way, we just recorded it. I’m going to Berlin in a couple days to perform it with him in Germany, and I’ll come back here and do the tour. While my band are driving in the tour bus, I’ll be flying off to Berlin. So it’s pretty crazy but it’s awesome at the same time.”

Speaking of the Glam Nation tour, it’s Adam Lambert’s baby, and he told me back in April that the tour is going to be all about atmosphere and interactivity for him. So what does Ori have planned for her tour set? “Nothing too extravagant. Didn’t bring elephants or pyro. We’re gonna put on a rock show. We’ve got lights going on, we’ve got some colors going on, extended guitar solos. We just have fun on the stage, and I think that’s the most important thing. ”

Her fourth new song, by the way, is a collaboration with producer RedOne, probably best known at this point for his work with Lady GaGa, a fact that Orianthi brings up before I can. The song is an electronic track she made without her band, and its “Addicted To Love” title left some of her band members wondering, as I initially had, whether it might be a cover of the Robert Palmer song. Instead it’s nothing of the sort, a metallic electronic haze which pushes boundaries. “It was a really different sort of musical style. So going in there and coming up with that song, it’s really different from the rest of the stuff that’s on the record, but I’m always up for trying different things and experimenting. I mean, that’s what music’s about, just creating and collaborating with different artists from different musical worlds. Getting in there and recording with him, he’s more of the electronic world, and I kind of come from the world of going in the studio with a live band.” She’s also quick to point out that the re-did the vocals on some of the Believe songs that carried over to Believe (II), after solidifying the songs while on the road.

There’s a grass roots campaign playing out on Twitter right now to try to get Orianthi on Saturday Night Live as a musical guest in the fall, and because she somehow manages to find time to hang out on Twitter, she’s seen it. “It’s really cool of the person who started it,” she says. Her secret to carving out time for her Twitter escapades? Airplane wifi. “I’ll Twitter multiple times on the plane, especially from LA to New York. When they’ve got wifi on the plane, then I’m on the internet the entire time.” In the time it’s taken me to write this article she’s tweeted nine times from Germany. Scratch that. Ten.

What’s perhaps most remarkable about her Twitter experiences is that so many of the people around the world replying back to her tweets are sporting a profile picture of themselves with Orianthi’s arm around them. Of the extraordinary amount of time seemingly involved in agreeing to pose for that many photo requests from that many fans in that many cities, she says it’s just part of the job. “It’s really great meeting everybody, and they’re all really sweet. We play shows and they come out to it and they’re singing along and they’re really happy, that’s what it’s all about. Music’s all about bringing people together and making people happy, and I think that’s my job as a musician to basically help people. Listening to your song helps them through situations, or coming to the show takes them away from reality for a bit, and makes them happy, and that’s what it’s all about. So meeting people and signing things, it’s part of your duty as a musician to do that. I feel it, anyway. If they’re gonna support you, come to your show, your records, that keeps you going, and I love it.”

I invite Orianthi back for another interview whenever she gets around to releasing her next album, which I refer to again as Believe (III).

“Believe Again, yes, Believe (III),” she jokes.

Believe Yourself, I offer.

“Definitely one of those.”

Believe (III), or whatever she ends up calling it, will have to wait for another release date to come along. But Believe (II) hits streets today.

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