ORGY Frontman Says He Terminated Partnership For 'Legal Reasons'

Vocalist Jay Gordon of ORGY, the "death pop" band from Bakersfield, California, has issued a statement denying his former bandmates' assertion that they have been fired from the group. He says, "This has NOT been about breaking up the original band ORGY.

"I owned the name ORGY and licensed it to the band at the beginning.

"Although Ryan [Shuck, guitar], Amir [Derakh, guitar], and I had been talking about ORGY touring this summer (which now has come and gone),it didn't feel to me that was going to happen. JULIEN-K [which features Ryan and Amir] had decided to go on tour to Europe instead.

"Now that everyone is working on different projects (some have SEVERAL),I needed to be able to move forward to revive the ORGY brand. In order to make that happen, for legal reasons, I had to send them a letter to inform them that as of October 26, 2010 the partnership would be terminated. In the letter I stated that if we were to tour, that everyone would still be paid equally, with no changes. So honestly, I can't see how they would arrive at what they wrote.

"Everyone has been so busy with their different projects I figured this was the only way for me to continue on with the name. I started this band, and I don't want to let it fall to the wayside completely.

"They mentioned being my brothers, so I am a little confused on why they did not call me about the situation before putting out a press release, implying things based on speculation that simply aren't true."

In response to Jay's latest comments, Derakh has released the following statement:

"Last time I spoke to Jay Gordon on the phone (before he sent us papers ending the ORGY partnership) he was working on a 'Blue Monday' cover with other musicians. In his words, 'it was already done' and he asked only me to play on it.

"This was a deal I brought to the band a year earlier and we all turned it down because we thought it was lame idea redoing a cover again. He was now doing it without us...

"I was not interested in working on this especially if none of the other band members were involved.

"Yes, Jay Gordon owns the name, but ORGY has and always will be the sum of all of its parts and I will never be a side artist in ANY band. Period.

"Also, on that same phone call Jay told me he intended on releasing music under the name ORGY that he was already working on. After that, we received his letters terminating the ORGY partnership with all the original members.

"These are the facts. Read them how you will."

ORGY was shot out of the hard-rock cannon in 1998 with the band's platinum album, "Candyass". Its ear-candy hooks, crushing riffs and razor-edge electronic sonics laid the scorched-earth groundwork for 2000's gold "Vapor Transmission" and 2004's "Punk Statik Paranoia". The videos for "Blue Monday", "Stitches" and "Fiction (Dreams in Digital)", meanwhile, created an indelible visual impression of post-punk artifice; the hair, the makeup, the costumes — all conspired to shroud the band in a cloak of dark menace.

After the release of 2000's "Vapor Transmission", ORGY left Reprise Records and had already severed ties with KORN's Elementree Records, which issued ORGY's first two albums. Gordon then started his own independent record label, D1 Music, which released the band's third album, "Punk Statik Paranoia", in 2004.