Orson

How do you guys feel performing in front of such an intimate crowd?

Well we love it. We spent 5 years as a band playing in front of intimate crowds before we moved over here; it's only been recently over the past year and a half that the capacity has increased. Although with the first album we played in front of huge crowds at the V festival and opening for people like Duran Duran and Robbie Williams.

What do you prefer about the smaller crowds, is it the personal reaction you get?

Swapping the sweat is kinda cool. There's a different energy in the air at one of those gigs it can be pretty exciting.

Do you look forward to exchanging sweat. Is that one of the turn-ons for you guys?

We will take all the sweat we can get.

You guys have your new single Aint No Party' is out on the 15th October. For anybody who hasn't heard your new single can you describe it for us?

Well it's a mad rush of pure disco fun and rocking pandemonium. It's essentially a shout out to people thinking they are having a great party, but they haven't seen a party until they've seen our party. It's a three and a half minute paradigm.

If you guys were to host your own party what would it look like?

There is a lot of 80s retro vibe going on in culture, bands and fashion. As a band we are trying to bring back something that has been left out which we feel is a bit of a crime, a phenomenon known as mud wrestling. If you are familiar with the movie staring Bill Murray called Stripes there is a part in that where John Candy does some mud wrestling with some female mud wrestlers. There would be a little ankle deep pool of very nice textured mud and they would go at it just like a regular wrestling match, but in mud. It was quite sexy. So if there was an Orson party there would definitely have to be mud wrestling involved.

Are we going to see any mud wrestling activity on stage at Up Close?

Well mud wrestling is more of a private affair it's for the VIPs back at the after parties. It's a bit too wild for the actual concert itself I think.

So what are we going to see on stage - one big party?

Well yeah, you know, we like to get people to participate in the Orson party vibe while we are playing the music. We are mostly about the music.

Where does the name of the new album Culture Vultures' come from? Is it a run on from the whole party theme? Tell us a bit about it.

Culture Vultures definitely rhymes. Most bands draw the line just rhyming in their lyrics and we wanted to do something different this time and make the title album rhyme as well. We had a bunch of ideas but nothing actually stuck until we were in the studio. One of the engineers had all of our tracks running through a device called the Culture Vulture. It's a distortion unit which gave the entire album its special sound. It was getting down to the last day and the record company was breathing down our necks. This piece of gear was sitting on the side and Jason turned around to get something off the desk and he tripped over it, cursing the Culture Vulture. Everyone in unison shouted Culture Vulture that's the magic rhyme, therefore the name was born.

Tell us are you guys excited about getting back on the road to start showing off some of your new material?

For sure, we are biting our nails off with excitement! We're looking forward to performing Up Close and to touring the new album.