Orthodox on the Faulconer Dragon Ball Z Soundtrack and Anime's Love of Guitar Music

Image by Ryan Johnson Nashville’s Orthodox are making some of the craziest metalcore you’ll ever hear. 2025’s A Door Left Open showcases the band at their best: breakdown after breakdown, insane guitar noises, and a general sense of danger that is enhanced in a live setting. Guitarist Austin Evans pulls a lot of inspiration from his anime background when approaching the band, whether the end result is obvious or not. I spoke with Evans about the band’s latest offering, making the craziest music possible, and the shared love of guitar music between the metalcore and anime communities. So you just finished the headlining tour and you’re out now with Dying Wish. How has the new record been received live? Austin Evans : It was super cool. I wasn't anticipating as many people to show up! The shows were amazing. People loved the new songs in a live setting. That was the goal, writing new material that would cater to a live setting. So it was cool to be able to bring forth those ideas and have those crowd moments. Even when there were some songs where people might have not listened to them as much as others, they still had fun whenever we played the new stuff, which is always nice. It's scary playing new music live, because there's a chance that they don't know it as much as the old stuff, and then you have to cater your approach around that to see if there's a way that they can mesh well with it. And thankfully they did, so that was a lot of fun. I'm glad that they received it the way that they did. The new songs are definitely my favorite songs to play. I mean, I could be jaded to that just because I've played the old songs for so long. But playing the new songs feels amazing. It's sick. I'm kind of blown away because I have never really played shows where it felt like people were there for us. We have almost been trying to win crowds over most of the time, I would say, my entire life. That's how I've approached playing songs and music and live shows. So being able to go into these shows and feel the crowds cheering for us when we walk on stage feels like we've entered a new chapter of what music is for us now. The old music is so great, but I mean A Door Left Open is on another level. Y’all really went Super Saiyan on these tracks. Was there anything that you did differently to approach the writing and recording process of that album? Evans : Not too much. I really just wanted to… exactly how you put it. I tried to make things way crazier, somehow. Not that I thought that we weren't already doing that. Learning to Dissolve was my first record writing wise for the band, and also my first LP I've ever written in general. Moving on to this record, you get to see how the last record gets reciprocated, like how people receive it, how people move with it live, things that you thought would work that didn't work, and then things that you didn't think would work that did work. It gave me a vision and gave me a better understanding of what I think would do really well and helped me shape the kind of songs that I wanted to write. I say I a lot, but I mean it is we as a collective as well, because whenever I bring stuff to the table, if they don't like it, we don't use it. There's a lot of stuff that didn't get used that I ended up bringing that not everybody messed with completely, and then there was stuff that I thought would get scrapped that ended up staying, and that sh*t's cool, too. But a lot of it, I just don't stress myself out with writing. I try not to. I feel like I have pigeonholed myself before with time crunch and feeling like I need to get things done right now. With this record, I just took my time and spread my writing process throughout a pretty extended period of time. That allows for new ideas to flourish where you don’t sit in a pocket that feels like you're just writing the same thing over and over again. To be able to write a song or two, sit back, not even visit those songs again, put them on the back burner, and then come back to them with completely new ideas and then start doing those. I would say anytime that we've ever been in the studio, we look at songs and go, “How are these going to blend with each other at all?” Then we put it all together, and then we're like, “Oh, god like this is actually just sick.” Image by Darius Fitzgerald At the end of the day, it should be fun to make music, and you should be bringing in all the new stuff you're hearing or new things you're getting into over time while writing it. Evans : Yeah, exactly. It's like, I wanna be able to be happy with what I create. I feel like anytime I'm crunched and I don't have the space to allow my ideas to flourish, I’m never happy with what I come up with. It doesn't matter if it's sick, or whatever the case is, I don't like it. I don't like being forced to do anything, so I only really approach it whenever I feel like it's the right time to do it, which is better for me at least. Was anime something that you talked about with the tour packages? I know there's some anime fan bands that were on both bills. Evans : Yeah, I honestly am surprised that I didn't speak to most of them more about it. I mean, they love anime 1,000 percent like they were commenting on my Neon Genesis Evangelion poster in the corner of my room, just from selfies in my Instagram. And they're like, we know that you love this sh*t, and that's awesome like I wish I got to deep dive with them and I’m going to try to do that more on this Dying Wish tour. What's awesome about the bands on the tour like Fromjoy and Omerta is that they really want to get to know you. So they just ask you a lot of questions. And I was super down with that, and I wanted to get to know them as well. Every day is a gamble, they come up to you and they're just like so like, “What's your favorite riff of all time?” What? How did we get here? But we never talked about anime. I'm surprised, I don't know why we didn't really get to that point. It would have been sick if the whole squad rolled up. I mean everybody in Omerta, for sure, like those guys can't believe anime. They put it in their songs, and it's sick. That's why I love that band. They just write like a lot of the old school crazy stuff. I remember when they dropped “Charade.” There's a song off of Dance Dance Revolution , I don't remember what it was that reminded me so much of it, and I sent it to Gus, and I was like, your music just reminds me of this. And it's just this really slow, moving Japanese song that I used to play on DDR . And when I hear that influence in their music I get so stoked to watch them every single day because they're just crazy. I think Orthodox has anime opening energy, but in a different way. Evans : That's kind of how I approach music. There's so much music in the world, especially like in the States, that teeters along the line of what you would call anime music. In my brain at least, Counterparts is like a shining example of it. They have just music where, whenever I hear it, I'm like, “OK this is going over the front of some shonen,” like there's people flying around and doing their superpowers and sh*t. It's like there's so much of that in the States that I feel like they just don't even realize that they do it. I definitely put that into Orthodox music in its own way. Because I really like writing music like that. I've even written a song where I just played a bit on just writing an anime opening song and put like piano on it and crazy guitar solos and it's been sitting in my Dropbox for like six years. I made a video for it and then the footage got corrupted and I was like, “I'm not doing this anymore because it pissed me off so bad.” But it was sick, I'm not gonna lie. It was awesome. I'll send it to you straight up. It's so hilarious. Yes, please do! I think AMV culture needs to come back. So many of us are where we are today because we saw one that changed our lives. Evans : I used to do that sh*t so much. Whenever I was a kid, I would go on YouTube, look up AMVs of series that I liked. But I didn't care for the songs, I just liked the footage of it. So then, in a separate tab, I would put a song that I do like over the original AMV. I would like mute the first one and I would put my own songs over it and just sit there and watch and just be like man, this is so awesome. It was always an interesting mix of songs. Like equal parts Linkin Park, Slipknot, and Papa Roach. Evans : Yes, it was always like “Headstrong” and “Down With the Sickness.” I remember there was an AMV that somebody made of the Broly movie, like the old Broly movie. Dude. I would mute it and I would put “God Hates Us” by Avenged Sevenfold over it and just watch it and just be like dude, this is so awesome. I don't know what this original song is, but bye, just breakdowns. This is what breakdowns were really meant for. Evans : It was. You look back at like all the old Dragon Ball Z movies and they had like Drowning Pool and Deftones and like all those bands, and all the metal bands that I remember just watching in the Cooler movie and being like d*mn! I can't believe how well this meshes with what's happening. Which is why I like the movie so much. I grew up on the Bruce Faulconer Dragon Ball Z score and the Toonami style mini-movies. I remember just like whenever I found out about the original score that was in the series before, I kind of didn't like it because I was so used to like the early 2000s guitar style Bruce Faulconer score. So whenever I'd go and I'd watch the old Dragon Ball Z movies and then it would also just have riffs playing behind like fights… I was just like this is so sick, so like. That's the kind of Dragon Ball Z that I like. I just like the old school guitar riff fights. It's sick. The Bruce Faulconer score is actually the first album I ever bought on iTunes, so I feel you. Evans : Oh, yeah. It’s just so good. I know that there's controversy with that. I looked into it eventually. But I mean, that's the Dragon Ball Z that I know. It's an insane solo over this opening and you're six years old acting like “What the hell's going on?” Evans : Exactly. You understand. So is that where it all started for you, watching Dragon Ball Z ? Evans : I think Dragon Ball Z was the first time I ever saw anime. This is so specific, and I don't know how I remember this. I was at a Pizza Hut. It was like a Pizza Hut buffet, and I was with my grandparents. They had a TV in the corner and it was on Cartoon Network and it was Super Trunks versus Perfect Cell. And you know how old Dragon Ball was, where everything took an eternity to happen. I just remember watching them talk the entire time and not fight. They're just like “you suck, I am better than you.” I was probably like five years old. And I was like, I don't know what this is but like they look cool with the hair and the giant muscles. I'm with this. I think the first true introduction for me was either Budokai 3 on the Playstation 2 or Budokai Tenkaichi . I played the sh*t out of those games. And then Naruto came around eventually. I was the very stereotypical Dragon Ball Z and Naruto head. I didn't really watch anything else when I was super young because I didn't have streaming or anything. It was whatever I could get on TV. Naruto was the first one I really actively followed and got into all of the lore. It was probably the first arc that got me. I ended up loving that so much, too. And then I got Ultimate Ninja on Playstation 2. It wasn't until we got streaming that I really started to dive into more anime. I remember getting into Blue Exorcist pretty early on, and ERASED . I didn't know that anime could transition into something that wasn't just like superpower sh*t. It being a real life thing and there actually being a story being told outside of just fighting blew my mind. Like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood destroyed me. It’s a pretty crazy way to be introduced to the darker themes of art, via animation placed alongside Looney Tunes and Dexter’s Lab and the like. Evans : It was crazy, man. I mean, that was like the big thing for me was that it just looked so much cooler than like your typical cartoon. There being any story behind it at all was probably the key to pulling me in, because television at that point was just whatever funny episode of Spongebob was on TV. Anything that involves a story I was either getting out of playing video games or watching movies. So seeing it in “cartoon” form pulled me in real close. As you were discovering heavier anime, was that about the time you were getting into heavier music as well? Evans : It was maybe a little before it or around the same time I got a Dragon Ball Z DVD. It was Super Saiyan 3 Goku versus Fat Buu. I got it either like a Hollywood Video or a Blockbuster or something. And then around that time was whenever I was also starting to move into CDs and music because my mom's boyfriend at the time had a huge CD collection and he was into thrash and old eighties hair metal, but he also had a lot of newer things. I don't think he liked it, but I think he just picked it up for the sake of having it. Like he had Ashes of the Wake by Lamb of God. He had a few Slipknot CDs. But he didn't like any of that “screaming sh*t” which is weird because he did actually have CDs of it. Around that time was whenever he was like, here's a walkman, or like a CD player, and you can just go and pick out whatever you want. I would sit in the corner of my room and turn the lights off, put on a CD and listen. It's so funny to think that that was something that I would do back then. But it's so cool and really expanded my tastes. At the same time, we live in an age where there's so much happening, where you can put your focus in so many places, especially with having a cell phone, but like back then I would just sit down, put on a record, sit there and really listen to it. Same with Dragon Ball Z and other anime, I just wanted to take all of it in. That was like all I cared about. It was like anime, skateboarding, video games and metal music. Once you started getting more into music, and you're unpacking these albums you were listening to, did that affect how you watched anime? Is that when you really started noticing the Faulconer soundtrack and being aware that that was like there was a soundtrack to it at all? Evans : Kinda yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't really until Dragon Ball Z Kai started rolling out that I noticed it as music. Because my brain was like, “What the hell is up with the music? This sucks.” It's not old music! With the metal stuff and the Faulconer stuff and all of those early Dragon Ball Z and Naruto video games that had crazy soundtracks like Budokai Tenkaichi , 2 and 3 having some of, still to this day, my favorite soundtracks I've ever heard in a video game like, I go back and I just watch all of those like YouTube videos that have the soundtracks as one long track. I will go back and I'll listen to it while I'm playing Tony Hawk to this day. Anime games were definitely a push forward for me as far as what I like in music, and especially heavy music, because the guitar work was just sick. Everything was sick, like the electronic layers happening and everything. Maybe that's why I incorporate a lot of that stuff into my new music. Any of the old 2000s era PS2core stuff is so big for me. I listen to breakcore and break beats all day. I love reminiscing about the 2002 to 2006 pocket so much. It's awesome. Or even take playing something like Tony Hawk's Underground , and switching the disc and the music is not that different. You’re skating to Black Flag behind it and then you’re fighting as Gotenks with something just as guitar driven playing. They really aren't that different, are they? Evans : Yeah, it was just so huge back then, and it still is conceptually. But it definitely had so much of an impact on me growing up in that it definitely shaped me to be the way I am right now, for sure. On that note, there’s such an overlap between these two communities. I mean even just the bands that you just toured with and are on tour with now like Dying Wish and Static Dress. There's a crossover between anime fans and heavy music. I’m wondering why you think those two scenes specifically go so well together or why those things hit you so hard at the same time? Evans : I'm sure it has a lot to do with what I said earlier, just with how they meshed at least in the early days, because I feel like even still anime in general tries to get even crazier with how they incorporate music into the medium. Guitar music is such a part of the fabric of both communities. There's an artist from Japan. Their name is Sokoninaru. They are the embodiment of anime music in peak, ADHD super fast mode, where everything's cut super fast and the guitars, the drums, the bass, it’s all insane. Every time I listen to it, I just envision anime openings. I see newer anime and they just have breakdowns in the music. It's honestly heavier now than it was back then, which is kind of nuts. We're definitely in an era of breakdowns breaking into the mainstream. It’s amazing how many people come to heavy music shows wearing anime stuff. Anime is an alternative in its own world, especially in the Western world, because it's really popular here and people like it a lot more than you would expect. It made me love Japanese culture and like looking into Japan as a whole and how it can be a source for so many incredible stories. It made me feel like I was branching out in a very specific way, and especially because back whenever I got into anime, there was no way I could ever tell anyone that I liked it. I couldn't go to school and talk about anime to a lot of elementary school kids. They didn't know what that was. And whenever I would find friends that were into that stuff like that felt like my own underground alternative area because I felt like I was different for that. If you liked anime and even metal in school, you were probably getting made fun of. So when you have like that underground scene conceptually, you start to mold other parts of your life around that. You found that thing that separates yourself from others. That applies to heavy music as well, because it is not commercially accepted in a lot of ways, or not everybody listens to it like pop, country music, etc. Whenever you find it, and you really like it, of course, you want to make that a huge part of yourself. For our demographic, Hot Topic was the meeting place for both scenes in a way too. Evans : Yes, I'm going to Hot Topic. I'm going to FYE. I'm even going to Spencer's and having a little fun for at least a second and just taking it in, even though I know I'm not supposed to be in here. Is there anything on your watchlist that you’re trying to catch up on? Evans : It's so crazy to even say this, because I feel like the average anime consumer has already been caught up with this. I have not started JUJUTSU KAISEN at all. I’ve had a million people tell me about how awesome it is and I definitely need to get onto it. I haven't watched a new anime in quite some time. The last thing I watched was Chainsaw Man . Chainsaw Man 's great. It took forever for the movie to come out and I do not want to go read it if I can. Just wait, because I love taking in the anime form versus the manga. I don't feel as much of the payoff of getting to that specific thing if I go and read it. I almost like the anticipation of ending a season and being like, “OK, now I have to wait for the next thing right?” Wait, no. Chainsaw Man wasn't the last thing I watched. I definitely got to the end of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba , and I still need to go see the movie. That was another one where I did not go and read the manga at all. I've just been surprised every single time they drop it, which is sick. I feel like Demon Slayer being dropped at perfect intervals. I remember whenever Attack on Titan was rolling out at first, and they got to Season 2 and it was only 12 episodes versus the first season of 25 and not knowing when that third season was coming out. I was like bro, I cannot keep doing this. That was the only time I went and read the manga because the gap between Season 1 and Season 2 was so long I didn’t know if it was ever coming back. Newer anime, though, to be real, I watch a lot of really chill shows. I’ve been going through Kaguya-sama: Love is War . It’s so dumb but in the best way. Sometimes it gets emotional or cute but then also it doesn’t require too much brain power or focus. I’m just now starting Season 2. The concept of it had me thinking there's no way this lasts longer than one season, for sure, I'm just gonna watch it because it's funny. And then there’s so much more. I love slice-of-life anime. Whenever I want to literally just chill on my couch and do nothing I just put it on. This just makes me think of how much I love being in Japan. It’s the coolest place I've ever experienced. It's so cool. If you go, go for at least two weeks. I'm telling you. If you go there for five or six days you're gonna feel like you've done nothing. I'm not even kidding. Don't do that. When I got there I was originally only supposed to be there for five days. I went with Inclination. I was playing guitar and they were going to leave and I straight up rescheduled my flight and I stayed by myself. At that point I was like, “I can't go.” So then I stayed, I think, for like 10 or 11 days. I slept in a capsule hotel by myself and had the best time. So I always ask this question, but if there was a character from any anime that you've watched that could join Orthodox who would it be and what would they do? Evans : Oh, my god, OK. Tough question. Immediately off the rip. I just thought of the Wind Hashira from Demon Slayer . Sanemi Shinazugawa. He is someone where I'm like, if you join my band number one, you're scary as sh*t. He would mess some people up in the pit. I don't know if I love his attitude, but I love his entire aesthetic. I think he looks so cool. He's a monster. He would probably write some lunatic music. Not only that, but you would just completely scare everyone. The whole point of Orthodox is straight up just scaring people. His *ss would freak everybody out. He's making you stage dive. He's picking you up and he's throwing you. My last question is what would you say to Crunchyroll readers who haven't listened to Orthodox before? Evans : If you like crazy guitar stuff, you should check out the band. If you like horror anime, you should check out the band. If you like music that has many peaks and valleys, you should check out the band. A lot of influence that I received over the years through anime definitely reflects in the music that we write. I would implore you to check it out just to see if you can find those details in the music while you're listening to it.