There’s a twinkle in Jay Gordon’s eye as he listens to his own lyrics being read back to him. The lanky vocalist has just heard a line from the song ‘Fetisha’- ‘Turn down the voluptuous.’

Gordon stands in the bathroom aboard his band’s tour bus, a white cloud of shaving foam covering the lower portion of his face. He pauses for a moment, and turns back to the mirror to resume the job of making his cheeks as smooth as a new-born baby’s arse.

“That’s what I felt that day,” he says carefully guiding the razor downward. “I was sick of the whole big-tittied stripper vibe. I hate those big huge basketballs! I like a nice C-cup, right around that size. The double-Ds are a little too much!”

As he talks, the rest of Orgy burst into laughter. The fivesome have been on tour with goth trail-blazers Love and Rockets for a few weeks now, and he expedition has finally arrived in Orgy’s home town of Los Angeles. Naturally, spirits are high.

“Um,” begins cheerful drummer Bobby Hewitt. “Can I just say that I’ve never been know to turn down the voluptuous?”

“Oh, I haven’t either,” laughs Jay. “It was just a thought when I wrote that song!”

Orgy’s debut album, ‘Candyass,’ is a descent into the minds of five musicians caught up in the glamour and excess of pre-Y2K Hollywood. Equally influenced by early ‘80s British synth-pop and the roar of the later ‘90s new metal underground, Orgy look to become a major force with the dawning of the next century. Judging by the current success of their hard-driving version of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’- not to mention the throng of fans gathered around their bus- some think that they already are.

But while the fivesome are undoubtedly part of the same LA scene that spawned Coal Chamber and System Of A Down, they make no secret of their distaste for the bandwagon-jumping that takes place in their home town, choosing instead to hang out at Hollywood’s most notorious strip joints.

“Crazy Girls was the most happening club when we were writing our record,” says blond guitarist Ryan Shuck. Shuck grew up in Bakersfield with KoRn’s Jonathan Davis, who would later sign Orgy to KoRn’s Elementree label.

Delicate-boned keyboardist Amir Derakh nods in agreement. “It became ‘our’ bar, our ‘Cheers’.”

In addition to playing what he calls ‘G-synth’ for Orgy, Derakh is considered the technical wizard of the band, having co-produced both Coal Chamber and Spineshank’s debut albums.

“I’ve seen strippers dance to our music in clubs all over the country, though,” he continues. “Mostly the remixes of ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Stitches’.”

“I heard that when we were on (late-night chat show) ‘Conan O’Brien’, all our friends at Crazy Girls turned up the TV to watch us, and stopped dancing while we were on!” exclaims Hewitt.

The recording of ‘Candyass’ in seclude Lake Tahoe, California, found the band indulging in men-behaving-badly manner. “Some bands like to be alone when they record, but we like to have as many people as we can, just to fuck things up as much as possible,” admits Shuck.

“Personally, I did speed off the control board a couple hundred times! I accidentally spilled some on one of the knobs, so I had to snot it all up. But that’s normal, isn’t it?”

Orgy claim that both men and women have approached them after shows, looking for more then a simple autograph.

“We probably get more ‘guy’ groupies than a lot of other bands,” ponders Shuck.

“It’s kind of cool, actually, because you get guys with style,” says Derakh. “we get all kinds. Since we’re playing LA tonight, the crowd will be a little snobby; but normally the front row is all screaming girls, and then there’ll be a mosh-pit going on at the back of them. It’s weird.”

“People are people, man. If they're into us, we’re into them,” comments bassist Paige Haley.

“It helps if they want to sleep with us!” laughs Shuck. “We get messages like, ‘I’m a guy and I want to sleep with you, if that’s cool’ on our website all the time.”

The type of fan Orgy tend to attract is usually one of the black vinyl-clad legions, many of them replete with piercings and complementary fetish gear. Surprisingly, Orgy say this look doesn’t really appeal to them, despite the tantalisingly dark moods created by such songs as ‘Fetisha’ and the band’s own glam image.

“We like fashion,” states Shuck, “but we’re not interested in the fetish scene. I don’t even have any earrings! I just want to hang out and fucking drink! I’m not into, ‘I want to wrap you up in plastic and fuck you’. I just want to fuck you!”

Jay emerges from the WC, toweling off his face. He’s heard every word. “I don’t need a foot up my ass or a spike in my back, you know? I don’t wear any stupid Rob-Halford-from-Judas-Priest type leather wristbands. People think that we’re into that kind of twisted shit, and we’re really not.”

“Orgy have always been interested in the ‘look’ of a band, and how it influences the way you play and your whole vibe,” continues Shuck. “It’s more art-related than sex-related.”

Be that as it may, Orgy’s less-than-macho ‘look’ has seen them endure their share of redneck comments in their journeys across the US on this current trek and on KoRn’s ‘Family Values’ tour.

“Last night was the most recent one,” says Amir Derakh with a wry smile. “This guy right next to me was talking mad shit. I didn’t even notice that he was talking about me until he mentioned my nail polish. I turned around and said, ‘Oh you like it? It’s pretty cool, huh?’.”

Sixty minutes later, as the ornately decorated Mayan Theatre begins to swell with people for tonight’s show, Orgy stand at the side of the stage, waiting to go on. Jay and Ryan pump their legs nervously. Ryan admits that this is the first show that he’s played sober in quite some time.

They needn’t have worried. Charging into ‘Social Enemies’, the band have the screaming crowd in their palms within minutes. Soon, everyone is leaping in time to Derakh’s laser-cold riffs and Hewitt’s pummeling electronic drums. Under the stage lights, the tall, thin Gordon’s skin is sickly blue, and his voce a dry, low moan.

Earlier, on the bus, the singer confused that Orgy hate playing to withdrawn home-town crowds.

“LA is a place where people get so jaded. And I feel like I’ve become jaded at times too, because I used to think too much about what people around me said.

“This town is famous for people talking shit about other people. But a lot of the lyrics aren’t as negative as you might think. Downers aren’t a part of this band,” he grins. “Uppers are more our style. Fuck being depressed, you know?”

- Joshua Sindell