Code Orange: “Listen to what we do, look at what we do – we don’t fit in anywhere”

Speaking to K! when Underneath was announced in January 2020, Jami explained that the record was “about duality” and “having to face yourself and having to face ourselves as a society in this super overcrowded, overexposed, totally all-consuming digital-based world that we live in”. Now revisiting it after a more than three-year absence, making music in a society somehow even more divided and dangerous than before, has the original meaning changed?

“That record is this tense, claustrophobic, techno hell – that was the core of what we wanted to represent,” he says. “It was a lot about self-reflection through a certain lens, almost through a borderline lens of self-hatred, that is something that has shifted in what we’re doing now, or is something my eyes have opened up to a little bit. There are different layers of reflection and that is something we’ll expand on further in the future.”

Not being drawn into specifics, Jami goes on to reveal that before making Underneath in 2019, he had “a 25-page manifesto of ideas” of what each song is about in a narrative sense, plotting like a maniacal Kevin Feige.

“A lot of music, I feel like there is no narrative foundation, no conceptual foundation, it’s kind of like a couple of loose ideas with a lot of gaps filled in. I can see that and I can smell that, but I want to have my story straight and my world singed up, whether people are aware of it or not.

“I try to lead this thing by doing what I love and am obsessive about,” Jami continues. “This was an itch that needed to be scratched and will hopefully make its way to people who would usually only put on track one of our record and be done. I find that an exciting prospect. This project could find some different ears who wouldn’t usually get past the barrier to entry on previous albums.”

What Is Really Underneath? is very much a different beast to its parent record. While the white-hot core remains the same, each track has been disassembled and rebuilt in a new image, one you’re more likely to see in The Matrix than New Cross Inn. As a huge Nine Inch Nails fan, the influence of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross looms large, with Jami and his co-conspirators leaning harder into their brooding industrial side, while elements of synthwave and techno add shimmering layers of menace.

“There are a couple of songs on here I think are just awesome songs,” he says. “So Below, Drowning In It and Club.Cold.Metal are hooky and could exist in different environments than we would normally be allowed to exist in. It’s immersive in the sense that we approach things song by song, but I’m always thinking about the album. It’s very intentional in things like the order, the way things connect, and I think people will be able to see that.

“At the same time, we don’t expect people’s full attention span for anything, but we do things purely based on what the void is for things that we like,” he continues. "We take elements of things that we like, and we try to put them together in a way that if we were outside of ourselves would think were really cool. We really think about every element and when we pump this thing up in the next week or so, people will see that. Being able to paint on that canvas and put a little bit more of that Underneath world out there, you know? That record is all over the place purposefully for the whole time, and this record builds a cityscape around it. I’m sure nobody will give a fuck but it’s fun for me!”

Years ago, a certain level of mystique used to surround artists, but in today’s tragic always-on mentality, such secrecy and excitement has been eroded in favour of perpetual engagement. Defying convention at every opportunity, however, Code Orange have shunned the trappings of social media and escaped the hamster wheel of #content. You won’t see what Jami had for breakfast on Instagram.

“It’s a dangerous line to walk because in an ideal world I’d like to do nothing,” he grins, while acknowledging that it’s not possible, adding, “In this world if you don’t exist then you disappear.

“It’s very hard, especially when you’re not at a certain level of popularity, which we are not,” Jami adds. “I think if you see us ascend to a higher level of popularity then you’ll get even less from us because we won’t need to do it! We can just focus on what’s important.”

By way of compromise, and to add yet another layer to the band’s multiverse of madness, they are rebooting their Mud TV skits, parodying MTV breaking news bulletins with the silvery mud man sat behind a desk with a knife and a gun, providing updates on what’s happening in Code Orange’s world. Two days before this cover story, the shiny reporter shared news of a mysterious phone number that fans should call. Upon doing so, you’re met with a period of silence, then an eerie message of someone thinking they’re being spied on before a series of loud bangs and beeps. It’s certainly more interesting than a TikTok dance routine.

“You can go into this 3D animated world, this mud world… it’s the core and there are different branches if you want, or you can just watch this shit and think it looks cool and that’s it, and I’m cool with that too,” Jami laughs.

“But at the same time, I do love interacting with people,” he says. “As you can see talking to me, I do love to talk, but I really only love to talk when I have something to say. You can’t be everywhere all the time, because people don’t give a fuck. And I understand why they don’t give a fuck, because I don’t either. We’ve been in our foxhole building something that’s going to come and it’s really special, really different, but yet the same in keeping things that we love about this.

"It’s there if you want it, if not, you can come see us onstage and we’ll destroy everything. That’s what we do. I don’t want to go into it, but there’s people in our band who are hurt right now. We’ll give our bodies, our heads and our minds until we can’t any more.”

Although Jami is swift to point out that he was born and raised within hardcore culture, he admits he’s not an oracle of what’s good right now, but did recently see Regulate supporting vein.fm, which he describes as “one of the best bands I’ve ever seen”, and is going to see All Out War in a couple of days.

It’s surprising to hear that a man in one of the most cutting-edge heavy bands isn’t as connected on a grassroots level as he used to be, but what’s perhaps more stunning is hearing Jami’s humility when it comes to Code Orange’s own stature in the scene. Anyone who’s read an interview with the motormouth frontman will know his penchant for criticising other artists and firmly, consistently pinpointing his band as leaders of the pack and thinners of the herd. And while this might still be true for how they compare to the ‘mainstream’, his opinion on their role in hardcore has changed dramatically.

“One thing I do see when I do look at it is that we’re not needed. We’re not needed and we don’t fit into it at all at this point. That’s not to say that musically we won’t still do the bits that we love, or even that we won’t bring bands from that world – we definitely will – but in terms of us being a part of the culture at this moment, playing that stuff, it doesn’t want us to do it, it doesn’t need us to do it. I can see that very clearly.

“I’m still part of it but I don’t know if our band is part of it at this moment, in a direct sense. I’m still going to support hardcore ’til I die. When Bob from [Florida hardcore weekender] FYA Fest asked us to be on it last time, we played and it did not go well. It was over by then and that was years ago! The tide has changed.”

So where do Code Orange fit in?

“That is our culture, no question about it, but musically we never fit in there,” Jami answers, casting his mind back to the band’s early Deathwish days, and how they were perhaps too “art-minded” for some.

“There was a lot of, ‘We’re down with it but we don’t like it’, that was always the vibe. There was a brief moment about 10 years ago where it felt like everybody liked it, and that was over extremely fast. It is my culture and I love my culture, but we never fit in like a fucking glove, ever – just ask anybody who was actually there. It was always by the skin of our teeth. In time, maybe we’ll fit like a glove again, but listen to what we do, look at what we do, look at what we’re putting out there. We don’t fit in anywhere. There are elements of things we definitely fit in with, and I love that we have the cultural backbone that is hardcore that many artists don’t have. But do we fit in? I don’t care. Not in a confrontational sense, but we are what we are and that’s all we can be.”

The scene may have moved on, or perhaps Code Orange weren’t meant to be there in the first place. But what about the wider public? It’s been three years since the band’s last full-length, and now with more music being released than ever, and attention spans spiralling towards nanoseconds, there could be a very real possibility that bands like theirs get left behind.

“I promise you this one thing, with what we’re going to do next, I can’t tell you whether people are going to like or dislike it, but they’re gonna notice it,” Jami says, already looking past What Is Really Underneath?. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. We’ve built things for years for a reason. We’re checking every box and looking in every corner and building a whole thing. We’re not coming out with some songs, we’re coming with a whole thing, and it will be seen. Will it be liked? I have no idea at this point what anyone likes. I know it’s fucking awesome and I couldn’t be prouder of anything I’ve done in my life.

“I have to follow my heart and believe in myself – and I do. I know when it’s time to move and when it’s time to not, and things happen the way they are. There hasn’t been a day in the past three years that I haven’t been working; I haven’t gone on vacation, I’ve barely lived a life – I live this, I breathe this. It cannot be a house of cards; it has to be built right. It’s going to be the most noticeable thing we’ve ever done.”

He pauses. Smiling.

“We’ll see if anyone else can step up to it.”

What Is Really Underneath is released on February 17. Code Orange play Outbreak Fest in June.

Read this next:

• Code Orange's track by track guide to Underneath
• Code Orange are on a mission to change heavy music for good
• Terror’s Scott Vogel: “I was pissed off and a little bit lost, and when I found hardcore it gave me a place to belong”