Nashville metallic hardcore rising stars ORTHODOX will be hitting the road this summer! Their headlining “Fortune Favors The Cold Tour” will kick off on July 6th in Greensboro, NC at Rockhouse and wrap on August 13th in their hometown of Nashville, TN at Basement East.
The tour will feature support from special guests CHAMBER, MOMENTUM, 156/SILENCE and CELL. Tickets go on sale Thursday May 11th at 1PM EST/ 10AM PST and are available HERE.
“Though we’ve been on the road consistently over the years, Orthodox hasn’t hit the road as a headliner since 2018!” states vocalist Adam Easterling. “That alone has us excited just to get out and get playing. The hardest part of it is following what we see to be a truly special, heavyweight undercard. There is not a single set in this lineup that lacks impact, and we think this summer will be memorable for a lot of people, ourselves included.”
ORTHODOX is touring in support of their most recent release, Learning To Dissolve. Learning to Dissolve was released to critical acclaim on August 19th via Century Media Records. Recently, the band shared video footage of their album release show held at The End in Nashville on August 28th, 2022. For a taste of their electrifying live performance, the video can be viewed HERE.
“Fortune Favors The Cold Tour” full dates:
July 06 – Greensboro, NC – Rockhouse*
July 07 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade (Purgatory)*
July 08 – Columbia, SC – New Brookland Tavern*
July 09 – Hollywood, FL – American Legion 92*
July 10 – Tampa, FL – Crowbar”
July 11 – Pensacola, FL – Handlebar*
July 12 – Houston, TX – Secret Group*
July 13 – Corpus Christi, TX – Boozerz*
July 14 – Austin, TX – The Ballroom*
July 15 – Dallas, TX – Three Links*
July 16 – Lubbock, TX – Jake’s Backroom
July 18 – Phoenix, AZ – Nile Underground
July 19 – Las Vegas, NV – Eagle Aerie
July 20 – San Diego, CA – Soda Bar
July 21 – Anaheim, CA – Chain Reaction%
July 22 – Santa Cruz, CA – Vets Hall%
July 23 – Sacramento, CA – Old Ironsides%
July 25 – Denver, CO – Marquis Theater%
July 28 – Oklahoma City, OK – 89th Street Collective%
July 29 – Kansas City, MO – The Rino%
July 30 – Omaha, NE – Reverb%
July 31 – Milwaukee, WI – X-Ray Arcade%
August 01 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street (First Avenue)%
August 02 – Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen%
August 03 – Pittsburg, PA – Preserving Underground%
August 04 – Philadelphia, PA – This Is Hardcore#
August 05 – Hartford, CT – Webster Underground
August 06 – Boston, MA – Middle East Upstairs
August 08 – Brooklyn, NY – St. Vitus%
August 09 – Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery%
August 10 – Columbus, OH – Ace of Cups%
August 11 – Louisville, KY – Portal%
August 12 – Detroit, MI – Sanctuary%
August 13 – Nashville, TN – Basement East%
% w/ Momentum
* w/ 156/Silence
# Orthodox & Momentum Only
The sound of ORTHODOX is the opposite of what most associate with the laid-back energy and country-fied twang of their native Nashville, Tennessee. ORTHODOX’s distinct, nu-metal-tinged brand of metallic hardcore has carved its own lane with their Century Media debut, Learning to Dissolve. “I think Nashville is really no different here than in any other city,” says frontman Adam Easterling, whose family background is rooted in the city’s country music industry. “There’s no major city where hardcore is at the forefront of the music business. But the musicians here are of a higher caliber because it is so competitive. If anything, it sets the bar a little higher.”
Learning To Dissolve is the punctuation on a journey that began with 2017’s Sounds of Loss. From the inception, ORTHODOX were nothing short of a standout, blending together riffs that wouldn’t be out of place on a SLIPKNOT record coupled with Easterling’s blunt, Jonathan Davis-esque howls. But, like their sonic brethren in KNOCKED LOOSE or VEIN.FM, while the influence of the 90’s/00’s is there, ORTHODOX doesn’t merely pay homage to their influences, it exceeds them. “From the beginning, we went in our own direction regardless of what anybody thought,” states Adam. “We didn’t grow up listening to hardcore. We grew up on bands like Linkin Park and System of a Down.” With Learning to Dissolve, those influences have refined themselves into a sound that is urgent and unforgettable from the album’s opening track, “Feel It Linger” to the personal and aural meltdown of closer, “Voice in The Choir”.
Written during the global pandemic and world shutdown of 2020, Learning to Dissolve was born of frustration. That is, until Easterling and guitarist Austin Evans began to really dig in. “I was in a weird place and felt creatively shut-down in the first few months of Covid,” says Adam “I really reflected on what I was going to do if things never came back. Austin and I started putting songs together, and Mike [White-Drums] and Shiloh {Krebs-Bass] came down and the album started to come together.” Recording in the dead heat of Summer with producer and mixer Randy Lebooeuf (THY ART IS MURDER, KUBLAI KHAN) at Graphic Nature Audio in Belleville, New Jersey, found the band in creative overdrive, ripping their songs apart. The experience was both grueling and intensely creative – until near-disaster struck the very last day.
“We had the van packed up, ready to drive back to Nashville and beat Hurricane Ida,” Adam recounts. “We are literally walking out the door. It’s already raining pretty hard. Austin turns around and goes, ‘What the fuck!’. Randy has already left and water is pouring out of the ceiling in the control room. At that point everyone runs in and starts grabbing all of his gear. Then it was like, oh shit! Right under one of the spots where water was pouring out is our hard drive. Randy’s computer was getting soaked. Luckily, we got all of the gear out before the hard drive was ruined!”
While 2019’s Let It Take Its Course focused on the duality of love and anger, Learning to Dissolve is born of intense self-reflection. It digs deeper than most metal or hardcore records. “The whole record Is about growing up and realizing that the things you wanted or the people that you loved when you were young don’t always align with your moral compass as you get older,” says Adam. “Learning to dissolve is about finding your own way. It’s about coming into your own as a person and deciding what’s right for you. Basically, living in your own solidarity or dissolving in complacency.” Not surprisingly, that ethos has echoed throughout ORTHODOX’s existence as a band, whose members past and present come from backgrounds rooted in straight-edge hardcore.
Easterling chocks it up to growing up in a family that had its share of addiction issues. “We’ve always been a straight-edge band – but we certainly don’t sound like one,” states Adam. “It’s not ‘if you’re not straight-edge, fuck you’ but we all come from that background. For me, it was about recognizing that addiction is a genetic trait and my personality as addictive so I want to stay away from habits that can hurt me.”
The hardcore-borne energy translates to ORTHODOX onstage. Ask anyone who’s seen ORTHODOX over the years giving from basements and DIY venues to giving the likes of THE ACACIA STRAIN, KUBLAI KHAN and SPITE a run for their collective money. No member stays in place as instruments flail, drumsticks shatter and Easterling channels personal demons leaving the audience nothing short of transfixed. “Live it all comes together.” says Adam. “There’s no do-overs or corrections. It’s as real and honest as it gets.”
Learning to Dissolve channels that sense of personal ennui in the most ferocious way. “Head On a Spike”, the first single and video from Learning to Dissolve is nothing short of a personal call-to-arm and statement of intent. “It’s a fuck you to everyone who said we’d never become anything as a band. You’re not enough to pull me away from this or make me give up.”
