Progressive, literate, and brutal, Massachusetts’ Orchid are easily one of the most important bands in punk-rock today. Believers in a staunch do-it-yourself aesthetic, these four kids can make anyone believe that independent music actually matters in a world of burnt-out-at-17 pop stars on 12-foot stages. The following interview was conducted via e-mail with band-member Jayson Green and painstakingly edited by yours truly. (Says Jayson: "Also edit me, please, I am an atrocious speller and my grammar is sucksville.")

ThePriceOfCoffinsIsGonnaRise: I often run into people who are passionate about orchids. Can you explain the significance of this flower? Why is it your band name?

I wish we had a great reason for naming the band Orchid, but it actually came out of necessity. We had a show and no name, we had a terrible time trying to come up with one. We were going to call the band Ornette, after the jazz musician Ornette Coleman, but Will didn’t like it. He did like the sound of it, so to the dictionary we went and came up with Orchid. After naming the band we did come across a lot of people who are obsessed with orchids. I mainly associate them with sex, thanks to Georgia O’Keefe, but they are apparently also an important part of a macrobiotic diet. I was told that by a pretty unreliable source, but I think it’s something to that effect.

TPOCIGR: "DIY" is the rallying cry of countless underground artists throughout the US. How much can we really do-it-ourselves before we start running into limits? Where is the appropriate line between DIY and working in conjunction with outside power structures?

DIY is a pretty vague term to begin with, but I think its intention is to create a community, independent and separate from "outside power structures" (in this case the music industry) and develop it to the point of actually creating a real alternative to that in an ethical sense. I certainly think that there is a point when you can’t literally "do it yourself" and have to work with other people (i.e. labels, printers, pressing plants, etc.) and hopefully the DIY community can extend to those areas and transcend the individual and build the community. It does get to the point where you have to deal with people that aren’t part of this DIY community, but having a DIY mindset will always influence these interactions. It’s the same as anything else. I’m not a capitalist, but I exist within a capitalist economic structure so I am a part of it whether I like it or not, and I can exist within it and still recognize what is wrong with capitalism and critique it from within. I don’t have to embrace it. DIY is the same situation. So it’s hard to say where the appropriate lines are between the DIY community and the powers that be.

Courtesy of Orchid A confusing marriage of Foucault and jumping. And a bass.

TPOCIGR. In reading your liner notes, it’s clear that you’ve done some reading of Foucault. Would you agree or disagree that Foucault would say that DIY hardcore (and independent art, in general) is operating within the same discourse of music production as major labels? That is, where are the fundamental differences in independent art and mainstream art, or are the two fundamentally the same?

Although it is hard to say, mainly because I’ve always viewed Foucault as contradicting himself constantly, I do agree that he would say the DIY community operates within the same discourse as major labels. Although its goals may be slightly different (or so I’d like to think) I believe its means are basically the same. Art can exist without an audience, but we are talking about commerce here. We in the music community are entertainers, there is no getting around that. If you sell one demo tape you are working within the same discourse of a major record company. The main issue is who is in control of how your "art" is marketed to the community at large. I feel like the independent community is certainly willing to take more chances with things and allow more artistic control. I don’t want you to think I live in a dream world, though. I know that most indie labels are almost identical to major labels these days. There is certainly a push for "legitimacy" on the business end of independent art.

So what it comes down to is while independent art fits under the same umbrella as "mainstream" art, and independent is often used as a marketing strategy, I feel like there is a distinct difference between the two and I am much more comfortable working within the independent art community (not that I have a choice, but...).

TPOCIGR. Agreed that the art is fundamentally produced and marketed in the same manner. But, I would say that the motivations behind a label like Ebullition, allowing people to hear music that will positively affect their lives) are entirely different from the motivations of Warner Brothers (or Victory, for that matter), to make money. Does the goal (fundamentally different) behind the actions (fundamentally similar) not make the music fundamentally different? Can you actually view the production of the art without considering the motives behind the art? Does this even make sense?

For sure there is a difference between Ebullition and Warner Brothers and why they put out records. And like you said, I think there is a definite difference between the motivation of Ebullition and a lot of other indie labels, but at the same time, what it comes down to is how it is perceived and processed buy the consumer. What stores things end up in, where they are advertised, etc., etc. It all adds to how the record and music are received and perceived. I clearly recognize the different ethics between our label and even Sub Pop, or Kill Rock Stars, but the goal is the same: to sell records. And whether the music is life-enriching or not is up to the listener, and I personally have a lot of major label records that have influenced me greatly.

This being said, we are on Ebullition for a reason and it is because we feel like our politics are in line with theirs and we feel very comfortable letting them handle the "business" end of it all. So we do see a huge difference between how indie labels and major labels work. But we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought Kent didn’t want to sell records and that his label wasn’t working within a larger discourse of the marketing of music.

TPOCIGR. What’s more important to Orchid: poetry or politics?

Depends on which member you ask, but I think we all agree that in Orchid the poetry is political.

TPOCIGR. Inside of your newest 10" you have a quote about how the world can only be understood by listening to it. Please tell me more about this idea.

Yeah, that’s from Jaques Attali’s book Noise. I think, very basically, what that means is that music is a reflection of the society that it exists within. The noises we hear are just as valid, when it comes to theory, as what we read, or what we see. Orchid used this quote to just sort of flesh out our want to fuse music and theory together. So we use the quote in a very literal sense and probably not in with the same intentions that Attali wrote it. For us it is more sort of a call to repoliticize punk and independent music in general.

For more information and a discography, go to hamp.hampshire.edu/~brw97/Orchid.html.