\n
Code Orange was the biggest band in Pittsburgh \u2014 until they weren\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2023, the Grammy-nominated hardcore band made an alt-rocky record, The Above<\/em>, that they hoped would launch them out of the hardcore underground and into the heavy mainstream. That didn\u2019t happen. Instead, The Above <\/em>bombed commercially, the band fell apart internally, and their 2024 touring plans were scrapped entirely, landing Code Orange on an ongoing indefinite hiatus. The project that singer-songwriter Jami Morgan had been all-in on since he was a teenager was no longer viable, and the fallout was emotionally crushing for Code Orange\u2019s boisterous bandleader.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWhat I don\u2019t like about myself is how sensitive I am and how much things affect me,\u201d Morgan tells Pittsburgh City Paper <\/em>during a frank conversation at his house in Squirrel Hill. \u201cAnd what I do like about myself is that I can push through it and not give up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nHis persistence has been tested over the last year. In the aftermath of his band\u2019s dissolution, Morgan and Code Orange synthesist\/programmer Eric \u201cShade\u201d Balderose decided to start from square one and launch a brand-new, totally different project called NOWHERE2RUN. This is not a rock band, but a dark, cinematic hybrid of dance, industrial, and rap music \u2014 what Morgan would loosely classify as \u201ctechno noir.\u201d<\/p>\nNOWHERE2RUN Credit:<\/span> Courtesy of NOWHERE2RUN<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNOWHERE2RUN\u2019s first performance was supposed to go down at Pittsburgh\u2019s Spirit venue on Halloween 2024, but the boys couldn\u2019t catch a break. Thirty seconds into their first live appearance post-Code, their equipment glitched out and the set abruptly ended. Morgan remembers the entire crowd walking miserably out of the venue \u2014 \u201clike a movie.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI seriously felt so fucking low,\u201d Morgan recalls. \u201cMy band\u2019s broken up, I don\u2019t have a job, I\u2019m fuckin\u2019 30 years old, I can\u2019t even play a show at the fucking local venue anymore.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nThe Halloween disaster was intended to be a preview for Bloodrave, a new dance event that Morgan and Balderose were set to debut at Spirit in December of 2024. After their ill-fated NOWHERE2RUN premiere, the guys were ready to cancel the Bloodrave outright. However, that very same Halloween night, Morgan was woken up at 5 a.m. with news that his wife\u2019s dad was dealing with a medical emergency. Luckily, the health scare was resolved, but his loved one\u2019s brush with mortality jolted Morgan out of his depressed slump and refueled his bloodlust.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018grow up,\u2019\u201d he recalls, thinking about how juvenile his creative woes were compared to a medical crisis. \u201cWe\u2019re doing this fuckin\u2019 Bloodrave. Fuck it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since then, Morgan and Balderose\u2019s vampiric hunger hasn\u2019t been sated. Bloodrave 1 was a rousing success, and throughout 2025, they\u2019ve taken the event \u2014 a goth-tinged, metal-inspired, hard techno dance night where no blood, real or fake, is actually spilled \u2014 on the road across the U.S., playing for hundreds in Nashville, Brooklyn, and Las Vegas. The biggest, baddest Bloodrave yet will go down in Pittsburgh this Halloween at Spirit, where NOWHERE2RUN will redeem themselves from last year\u2019s tragedy with a banger lineup and the most elaborate world-building they can pull off.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\n\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be the sickest one by far,\u201d Morgan gushes. \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be fucking insane.\u201d<\/p>\n\nCourtesy of NOWHERE2RUN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\nThe Bloodrave spectacular will double as a release show for NOWHERE2RUN\u2019s debut EP, What Did You Do?<\/em>, a 20-minute tour through Morgan and Balderose\u2019s metallurgic latticework of menacing techno and snarling industrial rap. The EP arrives on Halloween via their own NOWHERE Recordings, an imprint of the metal powerhouses Rise Records and Pale Chord Music that Morgan and Balderose have been building out in tandem with their other endeavors: throwing Bloodraves, writing music, and scoring movies. Their debut film soundtrack, for an indie horror-thriller called Violence<\/em>, debuted at this month\u2019s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.\u00a0<\/p>\nAll of these ventures are technically separate from one another, but they all fall under Morgan\u2019s cinematic conceptual vision for NOWHERE2RUN. \u201cOne of our [producer] tags is \u2018what is NOWHERE2RUN?,\u2019\u201d Morgan explains. \u201cBecause it\u2019s literally like, \u2018what is it?\u2019 It\u2019s not a band, it\u2019s not just producers, it\u2019s not just filmmakers \u2014 it\u2019s an entity. Which I think can be cool and modern.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In order to unleash this entity upon the world, Morgan and Balderose knew they needed to give NOWHERE2RUN its own \u201cuniverse to live in.\u201d Bloodrave is that very domain: a bass-heavy, leather-clad, sci-fi horror dance party directly inspired by the iconic rave scenes in action flicks such as Blade <\/em>and The Matrix Reloaded<\/em>. The production, entirely designed by Morgan and Balderose, includes gothic go-go dancers in cages, mesmerizing visuals projected behind the DJs, and a labyrinth of ceiling-to-floor sheets cordoning off the dancefloor to encase the audience in NOWHERE2RUN\u2019s neo-noir chamber of reverie.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWe want it to feel like you\u2019re in a movie,\u201d Morgan enthuses.<\/p>\nScenes from one of NOWHERE2RUN\u2019s recent run of Bloodraves \/ Credit: Courtesy of NOWHERE2RUN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEach Bloodrave boasts a mix of DJs that range from local party people to celebrity metal artists. Members of Kittie, HEALTH, and 3Teeth have performed at previous editions, and Shaun Lopez of Crosses (the darkwave band fronted by Deftones singer Chino Moreno) will be headlining this Halloween\u2019s shindig in Pittsburgh. NOWHERE2RUN themselves perform at every Bloodrave, reconfiguring from two-man studio hermits into a mutant band \u2014 Balderose on the decks, Morgan on the mic, and Code Orange guitarist Domenic Landolina wielding his axe \u2014 that resembles a Frankenstein\u2019s monster of Nine Inch Nails, The Prodigy, and JPEGMAFIA.<\/p>\n
\u201cBloodrave is marketed and packaged as this goth industrial night, but really what I want it to be is like a new hybrid, where we kind of get some of the rap kids, some of the metal kids, and try to blend that a little.\u201d Morgan says.<\/p>\n