Black Magic Woman

A conversation with ORIANTHI: Her new album, “the biggest guitar gig in the world,” trading licks with ROBBY KRIEGER, marvelling at JEFF BECK — and, oh yeah, gear galore!

- By Amit Sharma

“WE MADE THE record in about 28 days,” says Australian guitar queen Orianthi, whose new album, O, arrives some seven-plus years after its predecessor, 2013’s Heaven in This Hell. The 10 tracks were produced by Marti Frederiksen, with his 21-year-old son, Evan, contributing bass and drums. “It took a long time to get ’round to it because I was busy with different collaborative creative efforts. And I’m really proud of all the things I’ve done in the time since my last record. There was the RSO stuff [with Richie Sambora] plus writing and touring with all these other artists. But it felt like it was time to make my next solo album.”

The new music weaves through all kinds of guitar tones, from more metallic affairs to country and pop sounds — every bit as diverse as you’d expect from someone who has played for artists as varied as Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper and Michael Bolton. She’s composed for Bollywood soundtracks and can be heard on tracks by Anastacia, Adam Lambert and 50 Cent.

“I listen to a lot of different music, so it is pretty diverse,” Orianthi says. “I was listening to a lot of INXS, Jimi Hendrix and Nineties stuff like Nine Inch Nails, as well as bands like Muse — whose synthy tones probably inspired the heavy octave fuzz on ‘Sinners Hymn.’ I was also listening to a lot of Buddy Guy at the time, like [2001’s] Sweet Tea, so the lyrics were originally written as a poem about a blues band, like a Robert Johnson kinda thing about going into every town, ripping it up and then heading off... a very classic blues story.”