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Katya Horner
Orange Is In weaves together threads of rock, pop and roots music.
Chris Rogers -- guitar
George Kovacik -- guitar, vocals
Jeff Balke -- bass, vocals
Steve Salazar -- drums
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Run Towards the Warmth of the Sun
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Dividing All We Are
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Fathers Day
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Track 8
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Track #1
Snacks EP, 2004
Another Lame Semi-Tragedy, 2006
Come and Take It EP, 2007
The day after George Kovacik saw Bruce Springsteen in concert, "I saw him and I thought, ‘I want to be that guy'," Kovacik says.
More than 20 years later, Kovacik fronts Orange Is In, and you can hear every bit of Springsteen’s gravel-throated influence. Kovacik and longtime collaborator Jeff Balke are the heart of the band, which weaves together threads of rock, pop and roots music.
"We’re a combination of three different things: straight-up rock bands like Led Zeppelin, pop bands like the Beatles and then rootsy stuff like John Mellencamp. We all grew up in the ’80s, so there’s a little bit of that, too," Balke says.
Kovacik and Balke met in 1994 and wrote songs together for a number of years, performing as an acoustic duo in coffeehouses. A couple of years ago they decided to form a band and added violinist Amy Price, guitarist Chris Rogers and drummer Leesa Harrington-Squyres."
"George and I came into this band with a lot of material, so the tendency was for the two of us to drive everything," Balke says. "As others have started to contribute, it has become more of a collective effort."
Kovacik writes the lyrics, then collaborates with Balke to put the song together. Balke points out that Kovacik carries a recorder with him around the office (he works in TV production at the Baylor College of Medicine) and sings quietly into it so he won’t forget ideas.
"You always remember the best songs when you don’t have a tape recorder with you," Kovacik says. "So I’ll be singing it for an hour or two or three until I get to the recorder. Sometimes it will be on a Friday night when my tape recorder is still at work, so I’ll sing it all weekend."
One of the band’s strongest songs is Father’s Day, a lush rock ballad that uses Price’s folksy violin to expressive effect. Though Kovacik is a quiet conversationalist, his zeal and strong vocals shine on this song. Almost two years after the band formed, Orange Is In is on the verge of releasing its
first full-length album, Another Lame Semi-Tragedy. The title reflects a phrase in one of thesongs, but also, Balke says, the haphazard life of a musician.
"Like when your car breaks down on the way to a show in Huntsville. Or like in Spinal Tap when they’re wandering around behind the stage and can't findit, that's another lame semi-tragedy," he says.
The irony is many of the songs were inspired by the death of Kovacik’s father and Balke’s divorce, which are subjects not touched upon by many of the younger rock bands in town. Balke laments that rock scenes are driven by "college-age white kids," and Orange Is In, though by no means elderly, is one of Houston’s better non-college-age bands.
"Now that we’re older, none of us take our talents for granted like we used to," Balke says.
Orange Is In had hoped to release its CD this month, but scheduling problems stalled the project. "We got to a point where we said, ‘Do we release a CD that’s not as good as it could be just to meet a deadline or do we push the deadline and finish it the way we want it?’ " Balke says.
The band expects the CD to be completed before Christmas and will release it early next year.
"The fact that we’re able to make a CD at all is an accomplishment," Kovacik says.
"The goal is to not have any left."
-- Sara Cress | November 10, 2005
