Code Orange's Reba Meyers on going solo with 'Clouded World EP,' tour: 'It's very rewarding'
In some ways, Code Orange guitarist/vocalist Reba Meyers admits that her first solo tour is a bit premature.
“I was just like, I have to do this, I don’t know why. I thought about it for two seconds,” she said. “Sometimes I think, oh, maybe I should have waited, but no, there’s a reason why I need to do this right now — it doesn’t have to do with anyone else — it’s just about me and taking the next step, figuring out how my music needs to feel live, because that’s really important.”
With Pittsburgh’s Code Orange — the twice-Grammy nominated metalcore band — currently on hiatus, Meyers has turned her attention to her solo music. She’s released four songs so far, with her “Clouded World EP” coming Friday. Her tour kicks off Aug. 12 in Philadelphia, with an Aug. 15 stop at Preserving in New Kensington.
“I’ve written a lot of stuff on my own, writing in my home or writing wherever I am. That’s cool, but to find out really who you are and why you’re doing this as an artist and what your story is, what you’re trying to invoke, as I described, it’s like evoking other people’s emotions,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to figure that out if I didn’t do this, because there’s a different way that you have to be in, whatever you want to call, in your consciousness, to do that live and with people there. It’s a different experience. It’s performance art, as opposed to just writing songs. It’s a totally different side of the coin.”
The four songs Meyers released range from the trippy “Got Your Hold on Me” to the introspective yet rocking “Certain Uncertainty” to a stomper like “Clouded World,” which was recorded by noted engineer Steve Albini. Besides her solo material, Code Orange’s “Mirror” will be in the set as well as a song by Adventures, a rock band that featured three members of Code Orange and Meyers as the lead singer.
For this tour, she’ll be playing without a band, although she’ll have a guest join in on “Clouded World” at the first few shows, and she may have drummers popping in too. She’s been working with visual artist ProjectileObjects while she honed her set at Tech25 in Pittsburghs’ Mt. Oliver neighborhood.
“I’m reworking everything in a way that still has energy, because I’m the type of person who, if you’ve seen me perform, I have a lot of energy,” said Meyers, who also has been a touring guitarist with Marilyn Manson since last year. “So translating that energy in this way has been a challenge, but it has to come across. That’s really important to me that there’s an energy in the room because I really don’t like being bored myself, by my own material. So if I’m playing my set and I’m feeling like this is just getting boring, I’m like, this needs to change. So I’ve been figuring that out.”
In a July interview at a Regent Square coffee shop, Meyers discussed the challenges of going solo, finishing incomplete songs, the story behind “Clouded World,” the status of Code Orange and much more:
How’s life as a solo artist?
It’s new, newly solo, but it’s very rewarding. There’s something special about being in bands and collaborating with people. You learn a lot from other people, which is great, but I felt like when I started doing solo it was a conscious choice because I was like, I need to figure out what’s going on in here, in my gut. People talk about it, talk about learning about yourself. A lot is learning about your mind, but for me it’s been learning about following my gut. Amongst everything that comes with being a solo artist, the different kind of confidence it takes to do it alone and the different feeling of making music that you can just do everything that you want to do.
That’s cool, but the most challenging part has been decision making and following my gut, knowing what to do, whether that be musically or melodically or with just my actual path and my choices and my life balance. So it’s been really interesting.
Had you thought about doing this before?
Yeah, actually. Before I started doing it, a couple years ago I was looking at some New Year’s resolution list from when I was a kid, a teenager or something, and it was on the list: write more songs by yourself. I had always been thinking about it, but I never thought about it as serious. I more was just wanting to do it for myself. I didn’t expect to own it. The difference is now that I’m actually owning it, and that took a lot of courage, for me anyways. Some people I think are more driven in that way immediately to do something like that by themselves, but for me, getting even into this, whatever you want to call it, business, was just about my love for music initially. I didn’t really have the dream to be in a band or the dream to be on a stage. That was just the afterthought, which is weird. I don’t really know why that happened that way, but I just love music, I love playing music.
Eventually when I was writing more and more with the band, I also was writing on my own just a little bit, learning how to write songs and whatnot, but I wasn’t able to use them all, or put them all out, and I started to feel like, oh, I have all this material and I can’t use all of it, but I also wasn’t finishing all of it. I would take songs to a certain point and I wouldn’t finish them, probably because of some like, ‘Oh, I don’t think I can do it.’ I would finish them when I was working, collaborating with people around me. We would finish them together, and that was always a really good feeling, like OK, making the song with someone else collaborating, but I started to realize I was kind of holding myself back. I was like, I know I can do this myself. Why am I not allowing myself to do it?
Did you look at it as a someday later-type thing, with the resolution, like I’ll do that later, and, well, that time is now?
I think I didn’t have an exact time. I just knew I wanted to do it, but some things were holding me back. Probably just life stuff. Being in a band is very — the way that I was — it takes up your life. That can be a good thing, but it also makes it hard to do some of your personal goals that have nothing to do with the group. … You have to assume that position and the way that I live, I really try to lean into whatever I’m doing. It just happens, it’s almost like a hyper-focus thing but in a life sense. … Those kids that play drums or whatever and they’re in their math class tapping on the table, that was me with the band for a long time. I felt like I was a part of something, and I still do, but I just am directing that energy right now to my solo stuff, which has been very different. It’s really cool. I’m still learning about how it’s affecting me and how it changes the way that I’m operating in my days.
Have you played any solo shows yet?
Not officially, no. The Pittsburgh show will be my fourth or fifth show. A friend of mine a long time ago encouraged me to play a show by myself, because it wasn’t a real show — it was a house show. So technically, I played alone once, thanks to my friend, who’s an amazing, encouraging person. But yeah, that’s kind of a memory in my mind of like, oh, I did do this. I can do this. I remember how scared I was at the time to do it. And she was like, you should just play by yourself, because the band couldn’t do it or something. Because it wasn’t an official show, I was able to do it. I was like, yeah, sure, why not? But I remember being like, well, this is wild at the time. (laughs)
So I still feel that way. But I feel more ready now. I know what I need to do. I know what I’m trying to say. I have been through more things. So I feel like I have a reason to be up there. And I’m trying to create something, a feeling, and I’m trying to invoke feelings in others. I think that’s really important. I feel like that was always kind of my thing with music. Being able to invoke feelings in other people, it’s a superpower if you tap into it the right way because people have a lot of emotion. And it’s hard sometimes, especially when you’re not in a creative job, to be able to express all of that or acknowledge all of that. I don’t envy people who can’t do that for the job, because I would start to go crazy if I didn’t have enough time in the day.
With Adventures, I can’t tell if you did a lot of shows, but you have some experience as the frontperson…
Technically, I do, but at the time it didn’t feel like that was my role. I felt like it was really falling into other people around me. Yes, I was singing, and it was my job to be like ‘Hey, we’re Adventures.’ But I felt like as a good feeling, but I definitely use the people around me as a crutch in terms of like I’m gonna lean on these guys because I’m so not a people person. I didn’t feel like I was commanding at the time. I felt commanding when I was playing and singing, but in that time between I felt like I’m basically just a little kid up here. And being female has played its role in that, too. When you’re female amongst people that are all male, it’s a little difficult to be like ‘I’m the boss. I’m the head honcho’ off the bat when you’re young. I could do it now. I don’t care. It’s no different to me, but growing up that definitely affected me.
“Clouded World” goes hard with the band, so it’ll be interesting to see how that works solo.
Totally. It took me some time. I wasn’t sure at first, but once I started to expand a little bit. When I’m on tour and I’m really focused on doing something like playing shows, it’s hard for me to expand and think about the solo stuff and ruminate on how I’m going to do stuff. But then when I open my mind a little bit more and I have a little more free time, I’m able to just kind of play around with things, and once you start playing, it’s like oh, I can do it like this. It doesn’t need to be like that.
The recorded version is what it is, but that’s just one way. If your song has any strength to it, it’s got to hold up in different forms and you got to be able to get that across. I think that’s actually part of artistry that’s really important to me, being able to flow, being able to recontextualize things and take the soul of something and change the mood of it or change the experience because I’m not always in the same mood either. That’s part of the reason I want to play an old Adventures song, because it’s important to me to recontextualize that material for myself. I’m not trying to do it as a nostalgia trip. That element doesn’t matter to me, but Adventures is important. It’s an important part of my soul, and that’s why I want to bring back some material and just try to see how that fits into me now. It’s like more of a personal goal, but that’s the plan.
Do you mind sharing the story being one of the three songs?
I was thinking about “Clouded World” today. That song is pretty old, actually. It’s one of those I described, half-fleshed out, and I went back to it. My partner and I were actually listening to some random demos. I send him stuff just because it makes me happy. Sending stuff to people close to me makes me happy, and he was like, why didn’t you make that into a song? I was like, I don’t really know. I just didn’t get around to it. I was like, I gotta finish this, so I finally made it, and that one’s actually really important to me because that might have been the first one that I really finished. It was probably the first one that I finished so that’s valuable to me.
It’s about what I was going through right as I was starting to do solo music and just kind of an internal chaos and finding my voice. It can be difficult with everything in the world, modern world especially. It’s very chaotic, and for certain people, certain brain types, that can feel really like a lot sometimes, and it makes it hard to find your inner voice. I think a lot of people struggle with that. I struggled with that, especially growing up. You have a lot of people suggesting things: you can try this, you try this, you’re good at this, you’re good at that, you’re not good at this. Just all this stuff that gets you very confused, and it can take you down a path where you’re not sure where you are or who you are. You might be attached to negative things in your life or negative habits really, and eventually that voice starts to get louder, like who am I. I need help, a little voice inside of you. It’s about finding that, and it’s not really resolved yet. I think a lot of my stuff still kind of sounds unresolved, but that’s because I’m unresolved. It might sound like that for a minute.
But you’re working on it through these songs and what you’re doing now, you’re finding who you are.
Totally, and that was a big step for me. And similar with “Certain Uncertainty,” I think that’s why I put that one out first. It came a lot later. It actually came very recent to when it came out. I just wrote it real fast. And I was like, this actually really describes part of my journey. I think that’s important so I wanted to put that out first. It’s more personal. That song’s pretty personal. It’s kind of obvious I’m talking to my younger self, encouraging my younger self. I think that’s a journey that is common. It’s almost like a coming of age song. A little late because I’m a late bloomer.
But better late than never…
(laughs) Yeah, it is better late than never. I think people can have that transition, that coming of age at any age. People get judged for that, and it’s bull(crap). So don’t listen to them. Ever. To anyone. I see people who are 60 who are having a coming of age. Maybe they already had one. But this is another one. And it’s just as valuable and it’s really no different. We’re lucky as humans. We get to live so long now. I know cavemen didn’t live that long. They probably had one coming of age, if that. If you’re really living life, which I’m trying to live my life, you can have multiple chances. I’m trying to use this one and really grow.
I’m not ashamed to say that I am growing a lot right now and that I have a lot to learn still, and I had a lot to learn then. I think that’s a good thing to admit. I don’t ever want to catch myself being like, I know how this works. I know what it’s like to be human. I don’t know (crap). I’m 31. I’m lucky to have had the experiences that I had so far. But everyone has spent their time differently. I spent my time touring and playing shows and meeting new people and meeting people from across the world, and that’s taught me a lot.
What’s the status of Code Orange?
We’re just not playing shows right now, I think that’s the best way to put it. We’re not playing shows. We’re not writing. I’m doing this, they’re doing other stuff. I think everyone had other goals in their lives, and we just needed to do those for a second. Whether there’s a future soon or not, I really have no idea. So to tell people something, it’s kind of like, uh, unsure, or just to be continued, really. I’m sure an update will come.
I think people understand who have had experiences doing something when they were that young. I started doing that when I was like 11. I’ve known those guys my whole life and spent a lot of time together. So I don’t want to speak for anyone, because we’re all different, but I needed time. I think that’s the most important element is I needed time to work on other goals. That’s been really valuable for me as a person to grow. I needed to do that to grow. I absolutely love playing with Code Orange.
Just needed a break?
Yeah, just trying to live and grow up. I’ve been doing it since I was 11 again, 11 to 30, 31 really, so that’s a long frickin’ time. … Most people don’t hang with the same squad they’ve been hanging with. We used to roll around Pittsburgh, us, that band, since we were children, and I’m a grown woman. I needed to hang out with some other people (laughs), like some chicks, other people. Playing music with other people, it teaches you stuff. Everyone in that band is very talented, but when you’re playing with the same people, you stop kind of challenging yourself. It teaches me about myself to play with other people, too.
It’s challenging and it’s scary because it’s very intimate playing music with people. It’s good to shed some of that guard. That was very guarded during those years, like the last 10, 15 years of Code Orange. Super guarded. I mean, you can tell if you watch the way I am in interviews, you can tell the way I play on stage. Playing on stage really was the only place I maybe was less guarded, but you could still tell that I was holding a lot of this tension. And that starts to drive you frickin’ nuts. You get really stressed, you get tense, your body’s tense, you start to age faster when you’re stressed and angry. That was a big part of it, too, just needing to take a break because I needed to figure out where all this anger was coming from.
It’s interesting because I grew up expressing all my feelings through music, so I was running away from expressing my feelings verbally and in my mind logically, which is valuable because it’s like, OK, how do I become a better person? I need to understand what all this stuff is from, and everyone has their life and their things they grew up with that were hard. So I needed to be like, OK, I gotta take a second and figure this out, so I stopped projecting this upon other people. I was frickin’ angry, and I’m still angry, but I’m figuring out why, and that helps a lot.
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When you look at “The Above,” do you feel like that’s like a good punctuation mark? I talked to Jami (Morgan, Code Orange singer) before — I did a story with him for a preview of Code’s World fest and the album came out right around then. He talked about (paraphrasing) I feel like this is the end of a journey, and also the start of a new journey. Obviously looking back at it now, it’s like, well, that was the end of the journey, and the new journey, I don’t think that’s what he meant of everybody going their separate ways, but…
I think even if he didn’t know at the time how that was going to play out, that’s very accurate. I mean, he felt it. We didn’t know how that was going to go, and it was still kind of, it definitely shook everyone up, all that happening, but yeah, that’s really well said. I mean, I agree with that statement, end of the journey, start of a new one. I feel very similar.
Do you feel like that album, with the tour being canceled, do you feel that pulled the rug out from the momentum you guys had?
Yeah, that sucked. It definitely did. I think that album would have been better understood in a live context. Our live show is very important to our band. It was like pretty much everything about our band, to me. And yeah, I think having covid and then having that happen, of course it affected our momentum. It had to, and it affected our brains and our joy. I feel like we never really got to experience this ton of joy from that. We didn’t get the payoff, which is usually playing live.
Code’s World was the absolute best payoff, though, because that was really the only show aside from one show in London that we did on that album, other than some festivals, which festivals are not really the same. It was in its infancy as being played live, but Code’s World was really special. That’s part of why I’m doing the show at Preserving. It’s because Code’s World meant a lot to me, even though it was tumultuous a bit. But I know how I felt when I was up there playing it. I felt very emotional, like super emotional, more emotional than I ever felt playing anything on a show. It was one of those moments. I was like, oh, (crap), what’s going on? This is a weird transition. But that was a special show.
It’s a shame that that album didn’t get to live as much with the tour being pulled like that.
Yeah, it is what it is, but part of why I want to play “Mirror” on my tour is to credit that record. I’m not really doing it for me. It’s more for like, I care about at least giving some life to a song that for me meant a lot to write on that record.
Does it feel like “Mirror” is a nice step from where you were to where you are now?
Absolutely, yeah. From “Bleeding in the Blur” and “Sulfur Surrounding,” some of the other ones in that world, “Mirror” was like me being most myself within the band. That’s why it’s important to me. It was really hard for me to do that because I wanted to blend with everybody, but eventually that holds you back. It was holding me back, not allowing myself to be my full self within the group. It’s more of a statement on the idea of collaboration and the idea of working in a group. It really can apply to anything in life. Just learning to be an individual within a group.
It’s really difficult sometimes, being part of a team but staying an individual. Sports is a really good analogy for me. I’ve been watching more sports than ever because I grew up playing sports, played Dynamo Soccer in Pittsburgh for a really long time, but it’s really not that different playing music. Trying to be an individual and trying to be strong and trying to prove that you got these skills and use them. But you also got to work with the frickin’ team and you got to have their trust, and at the time I did not know how to get that trust. I was like, I’m a girl and everyone’s a guy. It was like the girls team got swallowed up, and the remaining girls that wanted to continue got put on the boys team. I remember feeling like, I’m a girl and all these guys, like I don’t know how to get them to want to pass to me. They probably would have just done it, but at the time, I’m overthinking, like how do I get these people’s trust but also still be strong on my own.
… My response was always to be defensive, so I was better when I was playing defense or goalie, but I was always , why can’t I play midfield? Why can’t I play offense? I want to do that stuff, but then when I would do it, I would turtle a little bit, because I was too scared to just take the ball and charge, because I was around people that I felt like they were going to judge me for that, which they wouldn’t have most likely in any way that mattered, but yeah, I’ve been kind of playing defense my whole damn life, so finally I’m like, all right, I’m playing offense now.
Mike Palm is a TribLive digital producer who also writes music reviews and features. A Westmoreland County native, he joined the Trib in 2001, where he spent years on the sports copy desk, including serving as night sports editor. He has been with the multimedia staff since 2013. He can be reached at mpalm@triblive.com.
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