International Orange makes room for super talents
by Paige M. Travis
Django Haskins grudgingly gives in to the term "supergroup" to describe International Orange, his band with fellow songwriting veterans Robert Sledge and Snuzz (plus Chris Stephenson on drums). But if that term had never been invented, the Chapel Hill-based band would just be three talented songwriters coming together to write and perform smart, catchy songs. Early in their stint as a band, IO hopes to escape the shadow of groups where the hype rarely pans out. Instead of, say, Power Station, the band's model is the Beatles.
"No one called the Beatles a supergroup," Haskins says, because Lennon and McCartney found fame as bandmates. The Beatles brought their considerable individual talents as songwriters and musicians to create a unified sound while providing the occasional venue for one player's solo performance.
So, with this supergroup, some introductions are required. Haskins fronted his occasional band The Regulars in New York and tours solo consistently (although somehow he's never played in Knoxville). Snuzz led Bus Stop and was in Pots and Pans with Ben Folds. Sledge was the bassist in Ben Folds Five and songwriter for Warner Chapel.
Haskins moved to Chapel Hill a few years ago from New York City where he was doing the solo thing and fronting The Regulars. While NYC is a great place to be a musician and play with other great musicians, it's not a great place to put together a band.
"I had an amazing musical community in New York," Haskins says. "But what I found was, in New York, it's very difficult to have a band in the kind of jump-in-the-van variety. It's easy to have a group of musicians that play together. But it's harder to find players with an over-the-top commitment to one band. If someone is good, like a bass player or drummer, they're in a million things." Haskins' former bass player, Byron Issacs, is playing with Nick Cave and Joan Baez.
Haskins moved to Chapel Hill to enter a new musical community with a solid reputation and put together a serious band. Which he found, and then some.
"I'm elated that I actually have been lucky enough to find people of this caliber. They're all great musicians." Plus, they're older, established and willing to commit—the stuff of a serious songwriter's (and girlfriend's) dreams.
With three songwriters in the band, the questions of control and authorship arise. Haskins is confident about their abilities to share songwriting duties and perform each other's creations.
"We have a surprisingly democratic process within the band," Haskins says. All three had been used to being at the songwriting helm in their solo projects and bands. "It's been a huge learning process for all of us. We do respect each other's abilities and recognize that the combo is a really unique thing and strong one."
Not even six months old, IO is still stretching its legs and gaining speed, and they're something of a mystery to folks outside North Carolina. Their only recorded songs are three studio tracks available on www.intlorange.com: "Prince Charming" by Sledge, "Afraid of Love" by Haskins and "Worst in You" by Snuzz. The tunes are all clean, pop gems with smart lyrics. They switch off vocal duties within the songs, and because their voices complement each other in that endearing underdog, geek-rock way, the transition is smooth. Their harmonies are sweet, but not ironic. (Irony is so '90s, after all.)
"Usually the person who writes the song will take lead, and someone else will sing a verse or a bridge. We're always switching. I think that could be disorienting, but in this band it works pretty well to bring it together."
Sledge's and Snuzz's affiliations to Ben Folds make comparisons inevitable but too easy. Clearly, the band will earn fans from each player's solo histories, but you hate to think that the initial connections will hang over IO for the duration of their career. IO is playing off some familiar sounds while working into its own niche.
"We all had a lot of songs that we brought to the group," Haskins says. "Initially we took songs we already had and we worked out arrangements for. We tried to bring the band's personality to the songs."
More than playing on someone's song, singing to match another writer's intention is a challenge, says Haskins.
"Singing is a more personal expression than playing someone else's song. You have to make them your own. You have to internalize the voice.
"But that makes us more connected," Haskins says. "Luckily we're all fairly clear in our writing. I think if we didn't understand where the other person is coming from, we'd ask. That's why we're in a band together."
The songwriter trio is less of a case of too many cooks in the kitchen as a writer's night where everyone must wait his turn. Haskins says he writes a lot of songs, but within International Orange, he must pace himself as they take turns working on each other's contributions. It's a change from performing solo.
November 6, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 45
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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