I had the opportunity to sit down with the founder of Orange Amps, Cliff Cooper. We talked about building his store, his studio (Orange Studios), Joe Meek, working with many famous artists, and of course Orange Amplification!

Cliff founded Orange in 1968 and opened premises at 3 New Compton Street in London’s West End. During their 50 years of Orange amps, orange has also been Orange Studios, Orange Hire, Orange Management, Orange Records, Orange Publishing, and Orange Agency.

As I mentioned above, Cliff and I talked about the insanely influential Joe Meek. For those of you who don’t know, Joe assisted the development of recording practices like overdubbing, sampling and reverb. He is considered one of the most influential engineers of all time, being one of the first to exploit the use of recording studios as instruments, and one of the first producers to assert an individual identity as an artist.

After Meek’s death, the thousands of recordings he hid at his studio remained unreleased and preserved by Cliff Cooper. These recordings were called the “Tea Chest Tapes” among fans, as they were stored in a tea chest when Cooper took them out of his flat.

It was an absolute pleasure getting to chat with Cliff! I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did!