ORIANTHI: Candy Store Rock (2022)

By BRIAN GIFFIN

ADELAIDE-born guitar-slinger Orianthi is grabbing coffee at one of LA’s many Starbucks when the call goes through.

“I’m getting caffeinated,” she says with a light laugh, her Australian accent lightly peppered with American tones.

The 37-year old has been in singer-songwriter mode with her latest album, a collection of bright, pop-laced rock tunes created and recorded in less than two weeks earlier this year. Her only collaborator on Rock Candy was good friend and producer Jacob Bunton.

“We made this record in 13 days, with Jacob Bunton, who’s a film producer and he’s a guitar player and he’s been my friend for seven or eight years,” she says. “With this album Rock Candy, I went in with Jacob and said, ‘Let’s just write a song a day, and record a song a day’. So everything was made in the moment, depending on how I was feeling, and it was definitely a challenge I wanted to put on myself, and we had fun making it. One of the things about making a record with a friend is that you don’t feel guarded. You’re very at peace with expressing yourself and focusing on the music. We had a good time and I hope people enjoy it.”

Her idea for the project hinged on immediacy and being able to initiate, complete and record a song in a single day. It was an exercise that Orianthi found to be well within her capacities.

“For some reason, I didn’t have any creative block,” she says pleasantly. “I got in there and had an idea a day, and I had a riff and we just finished the song. It was really easy for me to finish a lyric, because I had a lot to write about. A lot of heartbreak and situations that I wanted to talk about. There wasn’t any blockages creatively for me at all, and I just wanted to make the record. I work better under pressure, I find, and when you get thrown into an angry ocean, you’ve just got to swim. There’s certain times in my life, when I look back, when I’m under pressure, that’s when I have to step it up because I have no other choice. It just works for me.”

Orianthi’s list of credits and collaborators is an exhaustive and impressive one that extends across almost all fields of contemporary music. As a recording artist she has worked with Michael Jackson, Mary J Blige, Adam Lambert, Dave Stewart, Don Felder, Michael Bolton and more, was part of the house band for a season of American Idol, toured as Alice Cooper’s guitarist for almost three years and was of course famously linked both romantically and professionally with Richie Sambora. When it comes to working on solo material, however, Orianthi prefers to work on her own or with people she knows closely.

“When we jam or play onstage together, there’s so many instances where I just meet somebody and we play a show or jam. But when you’re writing a record,” she explains, “it’s better to work with a producer you’re friends with. It was so much easier with a friend to just come in with a song and not feel judged. It’s just shitty for someone to say, ‘Oh that’s terrible!’ and I’ll say [puts on a small voice] ‘OK, I’ll come up with something else’.” She laughs . “With different writers and producers that I’ve just met coming into the room, you feel a little awkward. Especially with songs that are so personal, you’re sharing a part of your life with these people. I prefer working with friends.”

The song-a-day process was a new way of making a record for Orianthi. There was “no messing around” she says, with most tracks done in eight hours or so. It was probably the fastest turn around on an album she’s worked on, but she works differently on everything.

“I’ve made records in all different ways. I’ve made a record that took five years, I made a record that took three years. I made a record that took a couple of weeks… three weeks with Dave Stewart, a couple of months with Marti Frederiksen, back and forth to Nashville, and then I self-produced a record in Australia that took about six months. It’s always different. It’s always going to be different.”

Orianthi has already begun her next album, a project she is currently just beginning to mould, as she puts it. From what she reveals about it so far, it will be much different from Rock Candy.

“The next record I’m making is a blues record that’s live with guests on it. That record’s going to be different. I just started it. So I’m always looking to the future. It’s always different. It’s always a different chapter. You don’t want to write the same book every time. You’d get bored. I’d get bored!”

Boredom was a problem Orianthi faced during the two years she couldn’t perform live. As a lifelong entertainer, it was a difficult period and she wasn’t creative musically. Instead, she turned her attention to cooking and painting, the second of which, she admits, she isn’t good at.

“I actually started painting on my balcony. They’re not great – my sister is the talented artist in the family, clearly! I gave them away to my friends… they were terrible paintings! I started cooking more, because I love cooking. I wasn’t that creative during the pandemic because there wasn’t that much to write about during that time. We were all isolated and annoyed and paranoid! Annoyed, paranoid and isolated! And scrubbing vegetables and floors and essentially pouring cleaning fluid over ourselves all the time. It wasn’t really conducive to writing a heartfelt album.”

Preceded by a live recording that was released in July, Rock Candy is part of a burst of post-lockdown activity from Orianthi that will, she promises, see her back in Australia early next year. She continues to record with other artists, has a meditation record called Healing Frequencies on the way and is now also involved in a cooking show. She’s a creative who likes to keep busy and show more sides to herself. Most famous as a singer and guitarist, she’s hoping to spread her talent to producing in the future.

“I started on piano,” she says “and I play drums and bass. I produce as well – I learned how to engineer when I was 13 or 14. I studied that at a studio with an engineer. I love all aspects of creating and later on I’d love to produce other artists, for sure!”