The Obelisk Questionnaire: Christopher Turner of Orange Goblin
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Christopher Turner of Orange Goblin
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Simply, I play drums for Orange Goblin but after 26 or so years it’s way more than that. I’m part of this family, almost like a sports club that extends beyond the four ‘musicians’ that occasionally get to travel far and wide, play some shows, see some shit, get some free drinks. I’m a small part of this bigger thing but I like to think I can see my fingerprints on it. It’s been a lifelong hobby really.
I ended up here kind of by accident; it was the early-mid ’90s, the band I was in had split up and I was left looking for something to do. A mutual friend told me his mates in a Sabbath-esque band were looking for a drummer so I contacted them and arranged a rehearsal. I didn’t show up. I did however show up a week later (I was used to bands rehearsing on particular days; it’s what we did back then) where, by chance they were there waiting for another drummer who didn’t show up and I’ve kind of been here ever since.
Describe your first musical memory.
I’d have been maybe three, we used to have this little ornamental ukulele thing that was propped up against the fireplace at home and I can remember picking it up and plonking away on the strings, a couple of years later (when it only had 2 strings) I figured out how to play ‘Good King Wenceslas’ on one of those strings, that’s when I realised where music came from.
That aside, I’ve a brother who’s eight years older than me and I can remember him coming home with the latest Sabbath, Led Zep, Deep Purple, UFO, Rainbow, Stranglers (who would be the first band I saw play live) and playing them on the family turntable. I ignored most of that stuff through my teens when I was into punk and hardcore but when things came back to them realised I knew all the songs pretty much off by heart.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
I used to run a skateboard shop in central London, one day after work I was headed into Soho to grab a coffee and bumped into a mate who was on his way to a little gig and asked If I wanted to tag along. Went with him to a little venue to see what turned out to be Kyuss in front of maybe 40 people. I think that was my biggest ‘holy fuck’ moment.
Years later we were playing Soundwave Festival in Australia, I was stood side stage watching Kyuss Lives play (as were a bunch of other people) – they started playing ‘Thumb’ and all the hairs raised on my arms – I pointed this out to the dude standing next to me who also got goosebumps and we fistbumped; was only James Hetfield wasn’t it…
London in the ’90s and early ‘00s was nuts, so many good shows, so many bands who would later go on to be huge playing tiny venues, met so many awesome people.
On a personal level, we’ve played international festivals where I look out across a sea of tens of thousands of people, arms in the air, jumping up and down in unison to the drum intro to ‘Blue Snow’ or some such and I’m thinking ‘I’m doing that!’ – that’s pretty fucking special.
Best sort of music related memory is getting to hang out with Tony Iommi for the day. The music college I work for was opening a campus in Birmingham and he’d agreed to come and do the official opening honours. I got a phone call from the boss who said, ‘You like Black Sabbath don’t you, how do you fancy going there and interviewing him?’ now I’ve never interviewed anyone but said yes immediately because, well just because… So anyway I found myself hanging out with him for the day, chatting, talking crap, having a laugh and we did this little interview thing. In a break between questions while they shuffled cameras round or something we were chatting about the Laney LA100BL Supergroup reissue I’d managed to get for the Brighton college and which I’d bought along as a stage prop. ‘I know what your settings are’ I told him and he looked me in the eyes with a cheeky-childlike grin on his face and said ‘Everything up full’ and we shared this little moment that no-one else was part of and that meant something special.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
‘Belief is a poor substitute for thought’ I’m at a stage now when I’m happy with my own shit. People will disagree with me; I don’t care. People may criticize me; again, I don’t care. I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong. I know people will think differently to me and are motivated by different things with different aims and goals but so long as I’m happy with what I’m doing and how I act then I’m good.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Progression is such a weird word to use when related to art. Progression how? ‘Getting better at doing it’? – by whose standards and who’s judging?
Creating art via any medium is an often cathartic exercise in self expression, if you continue to do it it means you think you’ve still got something to say/express. I don’t think there’s any artist in history who’s reached a point when they step back, admire their work with a wry smile and a nod and think ‘That’s it right there, that’s all I’ve got to say.’
How do you define success?
When you set out to achieve something, a specific goal and you attain it. It doesn’t have to be anything big, sometimes getting dressed and making it out the front door is a success.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I was making a delivery to a surgeon in a hospital and was guided through a security door and down a long corridor. Either side of the corridor were glass windows the other side of which were operating theatres. All theatres were empty except one. On the table in that one room was a human, split open from sternum to navel, surrounded by gowned figures one of whom was literally elbow deep, coated in blood and body fluids, rummaging round this person’s chest cavity.
It’s not that the image was gruesome as such, although it was, but more that it hammered home the vulnerability of the meat covered skeleton that we each pilot.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
The inside of my head is like a badly tuned radio flicking in between stations continuously. Occasionally I’ll kind of half hear a tune and if I tweak the radio a bit it makes a bit more sense and might actually materialize into a riff or some such – I’ve found myself humming tunes before and I don’t know where they’ve come from. Anyhow, if I concentrate on the white noise in my head I get the sense of something there behind all the static hiding, it’s been there a while but I can’t make any sense out of it. Whether it’s a tangible thing or just an idea I don’t know but I’d like to get it out as I think it’ll close a chapter or mark a change or some such; it’s just waiting for its time to come out.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
You know the feeling you get when you’ve eaten or drunk too much and you know you have to get it out of you to start feeling normal again? That’s art to me, you’ve got something inside you that bugs you and you need to get it out of you to start feeling regular again. To me art is a completely selfish, personal thing; you make art for yourself. If you make art for the consumer of that art you’re a salesman not an artist.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Tomorrow, I’m always a little surprised (and pleased) when I wake up in the morning and realise I’ve survived another day.
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