Red Ink has had a busy 12 months. They went into hiding, refining their writing down at a beach house in Phillip Island. They came out of that with their new EP, The Colour Age which sounds nothing like anything they have previously released. It’s a step in a new direction for the band, one that has already started to pay serious dividends for them. After recording the EP, the first man to hear it asked them to play two massive industry festivals over in the UK. Since their return, people have been vibing hard on the release of The Colour Age.
You played your shows over in the UK back in May, tell us how they came about and where you played?
That whole trip occurred after we played this sweet festival in Adelaide called ‘Fuse Fest’. It was basically a mini BigSound. The main guest speaker at the festival was this guy Chris Waring who runs The Great Escape festival over in England. He came out to see us play one night, and he really vibed on what we did. He was supposed to only select a South Australian band to head over, but he got us to come as well. The 2 festivals we played over in the UK were amazing! We played at Liverpool’s SoundCity as well as The Great Escape, Europe’s two big tastemaker festivals. It was rad times. The shows went really well, there was a lot of people there and a fair bit of industry too. It was pretty successful trip.
Your new EP The Colour Age is out now, tell us a bit about the recording process for this EP and who you worked with.
We were really meticulous throughout our recording process. We wanted to make an EP that was quite intricate, yet fundamentally pop. We spent aaaaages demo-ing in our little ghetto studio, working on the tracks. We tried to do as much pre-production as we could before we went in there. We really wanted to explore the tracks and see what we could find in them. When it came time to actually lay them down in a proper studio, not just on our laptops, HotHouse in St Kilda was our first choice. There are such good vibes in that studio. Craig and Jez are genius’ to work with. They knew exactly what sounds we wanted and how to get them straight away. They’re pretty much the bees knees at recording.
Was it a collective effort as a band to come up with the creative idea for your music video ‘Euphoria’?
In the past, we’ve always come up with the ideas and concepts for our video clips, but this time we were actually away in England so we didn’t have time to do that. The guys that made the video pitched the idea of this girl dancing to us and we all vibed on it, so it kinda went from there.
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Do you prefer the studio or the stage? Which and why?
We’d probably have to say the stage. We do love the recording process and that experience, but the stage is just a whole other ball game. There is so much adrenalin whilst on stage. You have a crowd there before you, going nuts and screaming profanities at you. It can be a bit more spontaneous as well with the interaction between the crowd and us. It’s all about the visual performance live; it creates a whole different challenge that isn’t in the studio. You don’t have to look good whilst tracking, but you have to be able to move and go nuts whilst still playing the parts perfectly. Brendan also likes to feel sweat on his brow. He froths on live for that reason.
How do you find new music?
New music is sweet. I think you would go nuts if you weren’t discovering new sounds for your ears. The eardrums need to hear new music to keep them sane and moist.
Do you have a musical influence we might not expect?
Hmmmmm….Munnzy loves Rage Against the Machine. I don’t know if you can tell, but they’re a pretty big influence on his bass lines.
How do you like your music? On digital, CD, or vinyl (maybe even cassette)?
We like our own music on the radio. That’s always a good place to hear your own music. In terms of other people’s music, we all tend to go digital with everything. The age of having iPhone’s makes it so easy to get music on the go. The sound quality may not be as fantastic, but at the end of the day, none of us have fully-sick subwoofers or nothing in our cars. We just got standard musician cars…shit with average speakers. So getting back to the point, we just get digital music cos it’s easy.
If you could curate your own festival what would your line up be and where would it take place?
It would be every single one-hit wonder in history, playing a set consisting of their one massive song. They only get 4 mins on stage, after that they would get cut. Just like radio. Nova ain’t gonna play stuff that’s over 4 mins. The same applies for our festival. It would take place on Miami Beach. It’d be like spring break.
What else have you got coming up in the next 12 months?
Well…we’ve just released this EP, so we’re going to be touring that and releasing another single off it too. Then we’ll head back into the studio and record another EP/potential album hopefully. After that we’re looking at heading back to Europe to tour and the like. So the next 12 months should be sweet sticks!
Catch Red Ink live at the following tour dates:
Friday 17 August
Ding Dong Lounge
Melbourne
Thursday 6th September
Cobra Kai @ Oh hello
Brisbane
Saturday 8 September
Upstairs Beresford Hotel
Sydney
