THE KNOWLEDGE ORANGE GOBLIN

Thirty years, 10 albums, a reservoir of booze – Orange Goblin are linchpins of the British metal scene. But these hairy warhorses are about to call time on their career

WORDS: DAVE EVERLEY

PRESS/TINA KORHONEN

Orange Goblin singer Ben Ward was off his nut on pills when he pierced a hole in his own arsecheek with a mic stand. Or it might have been LSD. For obvious reasons, he can’t quite remember.

What is certain is that it happened during Orange Goblin’s set at a German festival called South Of The Mainstream in 2007. Beyond that, specific details are hazy. Ben recalls partaking in the pills – or whatever it was – earlier that afternoon. Predictably, things started to kick in halfway through the band’s set.

At some point during the gig he tripped over and fell into the crowd, nine foot of hair and gristle plunging earthwards. And that was the point when one of Ben Ward’s mudflaps met the business end of his mic stand.

“I thought someone had stabbed me,” he recalls, not a little ruefully. “I was like, ‘Stop the show! I’ve been stabbed!’ Everyone else was like, ‘No you haven’t, you’ve fallen on your arse again.’ Our bassist’s poor, unfortunate wife had to nurse this wound at the top of my bum.”

Inadvertently spearing yourself in the backside while flying on drugs and booze is the most Orange Goblin thing imaginable. For 30-plus years, these steel-plated warhorses have flown the flag for gnarly British heavy metal in its most joyously uninhibited form. Their music is as heavy as a mammoth in a fatsuit and rougher than a badger’s arse. Their shows are drunken communions. And if there’s no party to be had, Orange Goblin start the party themselves.

Except that’s not quite the full picture. For sure, the band spent years living up to their reputation as heavy metal berserkers on a cartoon pirate ride. But that overlooks the 10 mostly excellent if frequently under-appreciated albums they’ve made. And it certainly ignores the tenacity that pushed Orange Goblin onwards when it sometimes looked like the rest of the world didn’t give a shit.

But now the cartoon pirate ride is coming to an end. In December 2025, this unlikely British institution are calling time on their career with a short run of UK dates. There have been bigger farewells recently, and certainly more poignant ones. But Orange Goblin will still leave a big, lumbering hole in the metal scene.