One Year Later… March 14, 2020: Code Orange Turns Canceled Tour Kickoff Gig Into Streaming Success

“When we get back out there on stage and festivals and stuff it’s going to change it up for us,” says the leader of the Pittsburgh-based metal band, which is nominated for a Grammy for its 2020 release Underneath. “It’s going to be game over. People are going to see a whole new monster they haven’t experienced yet.”

That confidence may come from having been dealt  – and overcoming – one of the worst lemons of 2020. The band’s sold-out album release party in its hometown of Pittsburgh came one day after the COVID nationwide shutdown, forcing the band to improvise on the fly.

“The main goal at first became OK, we have all this stuff rented and the new show, and we don’t want it to go to waste,” Morgan said shortly after the March 14 livestream gig from the Roxian Theatre, which took place with full production but no crowd and was livestreamed via Twitch. “But then it quickly became an opportunity. OK, now we have to make this as high quality as possible, because it’s very possible this is all that’s going to be live of us for a while.”

The band was set to do its biggest tour yet, with Ground Control Touring agent Merrick Jarmulowicz saying the mostly 1,000-cap-per-night tour planned for the spring was on track to sell out close to every show, and was tied to a high-profile Coachella slot as well. Later in the year, the band was to join Slipknot for a major amphitheatre run. 

While touring wasn’t possible, the band remained busy in 2020, doing more livestreams, live Twitch content as well as a ticketed show on Halloween titled “Back Inside The Glass,” which Morgan says was a lot of work but paid off.

“That was one of the most difficult things we’ve ever done,” Morgan says. “Every inch of that is DIY – not necessarily the way we want to do it – but literally we’re building the stage, painting the stage, making all the visuals, going to get sheets from Lowe’s,” Morgan says, sharing some of the on-the-fly scramble despite an event that seemed to go off without a hitch to viewers. “The week leading up to it, no one was sleeping. (Keyboardist/visual artist) Shade was so tired he slept through the actual airing of it, he had been awake so many days in a row. It was a challenge, man. That thing pushed us to the limit.”

Morgan says ticket sales were better than expected and that the band broke even financially, which was the only real goal, after all the hard work of not only producing the show itself but even designing and coding their website for the merch drop. The band’s meticulous work ethic can be noticed in its tight, nearly mechanical performances and consistent aesthetic, which often means DIY with sweat equity. 

“I’m not at all complaining, but I want people to get an idea what this shit is really like If you really want to make something like this happen – and you’re not the biggest band in the world, even if you think you should be but you ain’t,” Morgan says of the hands-on approach. 

“Nobody called us and said you guys should do these streams. It’s not a pat on the back, but you have to be self-motivated. Three months from now, no one’s going to care. This is the world we live in. It’s fast. We have to keep planning and coming up with the ideas.”

 The band’s Underneath, a jarring, often uncomfortable-sounding metal opus featuring pummeling arrangements and a high-energy, otherworldly mood, found itself on many best-of year-end lists from music critics and metal heads alike, leading to the Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance.

While those things help keep up the momentum, it’s just one piece of the puzzle, as the band is ready to fully unleash its new show, its first tour with Morgan stepping into the role as on-stage frontman rather than percussionist/vocalist. 

“There are 100% two things this band needs,” Morgan says. “One, we need to be in front of people, because, stack us up against anyone else and it’s a different ball game. And No. 2, we need to get a song out there, via radio or some means not our own, pushing to more people that have not heard us in the internet world that is so crowded. A lot of bands in our bubble only reach a certain ceiling, and we’re getting close to reaching that and I know that’s what we need to achieve that next level.” 

Getting to that level will take the touring world to open back up again, which Morgan says he’s only recently felt could happen sooner than later. 

“Just based on interactions with people close to me getting vaccinated and such, I feel it’s not too far around the corner, and I’ve only really started thinking that the past couple weeks,” Morgan says. “In terms of us doing the headlining tour, we’ll do it bigger and better, 100%. As far as other bands bringing us out, it’s up to them. If they don’t want to bring us out, they’re fucking dumb, that’s all it comes down to.”