“When the Apple Juice Orchestra started,”
says The Apple Juice Kid, the Chapel Hill-based drummer and producer
who brought the group together in late 2000, “we were really
focused on being a dope live act, on injecting real musicianship into
the DJ-dominated field of electronica. We were all working musicians
with our own projects, and the Orchestra grew out of a common vision
and a desire to work with each other. People in North Carolina have
started calling us a supergroup, but the way we came together was
totally organic.”
Juice, the
funky drummer whose live hip hop band, Sankofa, has toured and recorded
nationally and whose debut solo album, Plus+, has been receiving accolades
since its September 2003 release, first conceived of the Orchestra
after sitting in with drum-and-bass DJs, including AJO’s Blake
Burney, on trap kit and African hand percussion. “People bugged
out,” he recalls. “Seeing a live drummer play those types
of rhythms was totally new at the time. Right then, I knew a live
electronica act would be off the hook.”
Juice quickly
recruited Burney, who has spun for years as a resident DJ at Raleigh
nightspots, and as a hip hop and dance producer in his own right --
and Sankofa’s guitarist, Dana Chell, a fixture on the local
jazz scene whose versatility made him a perfect fit for a band bent
on playing everything from two-step to lounge to trip-hop. “Dana
can just do so much,” says Juice, “On guitar, on synth
board, on his laptop. He’s one of the most creative musicians
I’ve ever met. He gets amazing sounds, and he’s completely
allergic to gimmicks.”
Bobby Patterson,
AJO’s bassist, brings years of touring experience and studio
expertise to the band. A former bassist/singer of DAG, which released
two albums with Sony in the late nineties, he “anchors the rhythm
section like a ten-ton weight,” according to Juice. “Given
the diversity of the music we play,” the drummer continues,
“it’s crucial to have a bass player with the kind of taste
and funkiness that Bobby has. Everyone in the band was a huge fan
of his before we got together, and we still are now. Plus, he’s
ridiculous live.
Jana Privette,
AJO’s lead singer, has drawn comparisons to everyone from Eartha
Kitt to that Bjork. Her vocals – smoky and sultry one minute,
ferocious the next – together with her lyrical contributions
and her dynamic presence on stage, define the Orchestra’s sound
and style. “Jana is the perfect front woman for this band,”
says Juice. “Both on stage and on record, she’s just captivating.”
The combination
of a live rhythm section, a DJ and a female vocalist struck a chord
with audiences right away, as did the chance to see five of the area’s
most talented musicians share a stage. Apple Juice Orchestra quickly
began to play sold-out shows in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, and were
soon approached by the respected local indie label Pigeon English,
which pressed the group’s first 7” single. The three-song
release received heavy play on local college and independent radio,
as well as garnering critical praise; Splendidzine said “there's
no doubt that the band can wrangle its disparate influences into wildly
infectious tunes that take their cues from past and future alike.
It's all thumbs up for this unusually tempered release,” and
the Independent Weekly raved “listening to the group is not
just refreshing; it's an encouraging reminder to their audiences that
something is happening in music today.”
Soon after,
The Spectator, Raleigh’s local weekly, named AJO the area’s
best new band of the year. With praise flowing and ecstatic full houses
rocking to the group’s live shows, Apple Juice Orchestra continues
to write and record new music, with a full-length CD and a more extensive
tour in the works. For the innovative North Carolina supergroup, national
exposure would seem to be the next logical step. “We’d
love to take it to that level,” acknowledges Juice, “and
the five of us have had blast together so far – writing, recording,
playing shows. As long as we can look out into a crowd and see people
dancing and having fun, it’s all good.
