Clattermouuuth’s Music of The Week: Q&A with The Orangtangs (Part 1)

By Andrew Kohler

Welcome back to Clattermouuuth’s Music of the Week, curating Rockaway’s music taste one week at a time. Today, I thought I’d share with you all my first interview ever with the indie, folk rock band, The Orangtangs. It is a little long, so we are going to break it into two parts. Be sure to check in next week for the rest of the interview.

Q: Describe The Orangtangs’ music for those who are unfamiliar.​​​

​Sam: Lo-fi indie garbage with some heart and love put into it.

Branden: For those who are unfamiliar, I would say our music is more lo-fi indie. Our music sounds homemade, I guess you can say, but I think that’s a good thing because I think it adds to the feel of our songs.​

Q: How were The Orangtangs founded, and how did you two meet?

Sam: We met in elementary school a long, long time ago, but didn’t actually become friends till high school. Fortunately, the stars aligned just right cause that’s when we also heavily got into music. There was this girl at our school who wanted to start a band, Branden and I were really into it, but everyone else dropped out of it before we even played together. Us two still wanted to write and play together and lived happily ever after.

Branden: I’ve known Sam since first grade if not kindergarten, but we didn’t really talk much until around 6th grade when I just got a phone for my birthday and I thought I was supposed to ask everyone for their number and one day I sat next to Sam when we were waiting to get on the bus and I asked him for his number, I don’t think we texted much, but we really started to become friends in 7th grade when we both joined band and chose to play saxophone. The Orangtangs was founded when a mutual friend decided her New Year’s resolution was to make a band where we all learn instruments together. I wanted to learn guitar, and Sam wanted to learn keyboard. Then she dropped out, and we decided to keep going.

Q: Describe your creative process.

Sam: Writing usually starts with one of us writing lyrics and the other going, “I LIKE IT!” After that, we try coming up with a chord progression we haven’t used before and putting the words to a melody and adding some more words after that to make it a full song. Most of the time, it’s Branden on words, and me on chords, but we go back and forth a good bit. Recording-wise, we record the song, each section at a time, one instrument at a time. Recording is also usually when the song changes completely and becomes something new.

Branden: I wouldn’t say I really have a creative process, but I write most of my lyrics on late night drives, usually from work or when I’m about to go to sleep, I’m usually not saying anything just thinking, I’ll have the radio or TV on and I’ll hear something that makes me think of some lyrics and I’ll write them down, if I’m in the car I’ll keep it going and probably send a voice text to Sam or wait until I get home to write them down, but usually I forget them by the time I get home.