Red Interview (by Spoken's Jeff Cunningham)
Give me a brief history of RED.
Anthony: Randy, Mike, and I grew up together in Pennsylvania, and we really loved Creation Festival and stuff like that we were just kind of festival junkies. And we were really inspired by all of the Christian artists. We sort of kind of went our separate ways during College but still staying in touch with each other, and we kind of sort of started a band when we were 18 years old, we started playing guitars, just picking stuff up. We’re writing songs, doing this and that and when we get back together in the summertime we would actually try and put on some shows and just write, write, write, and just do some more stuff.
We really wanted to get hooked up with a producer, and get things rolling with our music. So we finally found somebody online a guy named Barry Blair who was actually the original guitar player for Audio Adrenaline. And he had us come to Tennessee the week after Sept. 11th, and we recorded our first 4 songs, just a short EP. And figured that since we had a hook up here in Nashville that we would move here where the Christian Music Industry is and try and get ourselves plugged in and really start “living the dream” sort of thing.
And once we moved here, we were all working part time jobs around town and that’s actually how we met the other two guys in the band Andrew and Jasen. Our original drummer Andrew was from Nebraska, but he was working part time jobs here in Nashville, and Jasen who isn’t originally from here, he’s from Chicago was here working in retail. We hooked up through some mutual friends around town and met these guys. We really didn’t start anything right away, didn’t start writing together or anything, we kind of hinted around that we wanted to maybe put a band together and finish out the line up. So we started writing in January of the following year, and putting things together. And Jasen had actually been working with a producer here in Nashville, a guy by the name of Rob Graves and we thought that it would be a good idea to take some of the stuff that we had written to him in a recorded form to see if he would like it, and see if he would give us some feedback, just to see if we were going in the right direction. Took it in to him, we played it for him he actually really liked it said “man this is pretty cool stuff, why don’t you guys write some more and see what you come up with”, so we did, we wrote some more songs and really started progressing as far as what the sound of RED would be.
After we took the rest of the stuff back to him he said let’s start recording this stuff, get it down, we’ll really start working on this. A couple of months later we signed a developmental publishing deal with Rob, we went ahead and recorded an EP, that summer we put our own tour together started getting label interest at Provident-Integrity and Sony BMG who we ultimately signed with. Finished the full length, picked up a new drummer Hayden, did some tours in January and March and right now we are out with Day of Fire, which brings us up to the present.
The title of the record is End of Silence, where did that title come from?
Anthony: The title of the record was coined by our guitar player Jasen, End of Silence meaning, it’s been 3 years in the making with the record, and it was the end of silence for RED. Also meaning it’s not wrong as a Christian to speak about the things that you struggle with in your life and just kind of being vocal about them, so it’s the end of silence for you as well.
What is the overall meaning behind the songs on End of Silence?
Mike: The songs are basically about how everybody goes through dark times in their lives whether it is sadness or anger, all the things that every human faces. But generally all of the songs just come back to the redemption of Christ.
How important is it to have a “meaning” to the things you do outside of your lyrics?
Anthony: It is very important to be a role model regardless if we’re on or off stage. We don’t really over spiritualize what we do onstage, but being off stage is our chance to be the vessel and minister to the kids. I think that if you keep things simple and to the point the kids really start to understand and start focusing in on what your message really is.
Who would you say are your influences and what/who would you say you sound like?
Randy: We get a variety of comparisons. The bands we’ve heard the most are Linkin Park and Chevelle, I think mainly because of the programming and the arrangements that are on the record. We would say that those guys are an influence, we have some of the elements that they have, but we by don’t have any the rap-core or scratching that they use. We are also influenced classically by composers like Ravel and Pagnini.
If I were an outsider how would you, as a band member convince me to give your band a shot?
Anthony: Pitching our band would be if you liked hard rock, an energetic live show, great lyrics, great songs, good melodies, just an overall epic production of music, you’ll like the record.
Mike: What I would say is just come to our show, if you don’t like it can kick me in the face.
Being based out of Nashville, TN which is basically the Christian Music Industry’s “Ground Zero” how (if any at all) has it shaped your sound and ultimately your approach to music in general?
Randy: I would say that living here in Nashville has had an influence on some of the things we’ve done. As far as music and what we’re interested in, I don’t think that being in Nashville really affects bands as far as the kind of music they want to record.
Describe the process in which RED writes a song.
Anthony: The basic process is we come up with some cool ideas, kind of get some pre-production happening and record some stuff down. The songs on our record changed about 12 times we rewrote them, played them, rewrote them, over and over again until we were satisfied and thought that they were the best that they could be. After the music was done on this record, that’s when we really started the lyrical process. We had other people in the production for the string and piano arrangements come in after that and do their magic, and then just pull everything together one song at a time and make it what it is now.
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