Packing loud-and-proud vocals and wholesome, simple noise rock, Red Ink are Australia’s latest four-piece export. Hailing from near Melbourne, the band is made up of vocalist John J, drummer Aaron S, guitarist Brendan J and James M on the bass, and their performance at Above Audio on the first day of The Great Escape marked their first show on UK soil, and one of their very first endeavours outside of their native antipodean territory.
On stage, Red Ink are a quality sight to behold. It’s fair to say that John is slightly eccentric on stage, high-kicking and crawling on any nearby objects – amps, mic stands, ledges, the floor – and generally putting on a show as his bandmates knock out quality fuzz. The four dressed in noisy shirts, contrasting the grey skies of Brighton with both their dress sense and their loud, yet intricate indie rock stylings.
Playing tracks from both past releases and brand new EP The Colour Age, Red Ink received an appropriately warm reception from the fresh-faced Great Escape audience, yet to be overcome with festival fatigue and with a hearty appetite for new sounds yet to be satisfied. While their earlier EP was altogether a slightly rougher affair, The Colour Age boasts spacier, more airy inspiration in line with more modern indie artists. Between both spectrums, the band packed admirable energy into each toe-tappingly catchy bassline and drumbeat, forming a bust to the chops which punches above anything they have put to tape.
After the show, we caught up with the band to talk about Brighton, the new EP and the diverse inspiration for their music.
You guys play wholesome, no-nonsense good-time rock. Does that seem fairly accurate?
John: It varies depending on the venue. Usually we try and be pretty upstanding, and we write kinda pop songs and love making music we enjoy, and usually it isn’t too aggressive or anything like that.
James: Used to be a lot more aggressive than it is now.
We’re not talking like, death metal vocals?
Group: No! [laughs]
Brendan: More like…’what the fuck is that?’
John: We used to try and offend people but then we had too many people throwing bottles at shows and that was really quickly an idea that was scrapped.
Brendan: We pushed it a little too far.
You have a new EP out.
John: We have not released that, there’s probably a handful of people around the globe who have actually heard that. We’re really excited about it, it’s our best work to date we believe and we’re really excited to not only unleash it on our local Australian market but also to see if we can drum up some friends over here and see if they can enjoy it as well.
Aaron: It’s why we came over here!
What is The Color Age about?
James: We did a very retro look at music, we had a look at a lot of older references and did a lot of, I don’t know, old school rock kind of stuff?
John: I think any band you’ll speak to will go through a bit of a journey, y’know? They pick up their instruments, they learn how to play, they write songs – and The Color Age kind of refers to where we’re at now, writing songs that just come from the heart with a bit of colour and a bit of flavour that’s not us trying to be something we’re not.
Where are your influences rooted?
John: We’ve got such an eclectic mix. Brendan grew up with bands like Blink 182 and The Offspring, am I right?
Brendan: Blink 182 for sure. [laughs]
John: Maybe not the Offspring…and Aaron, what did you get into?
Aaron: I was really into Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa as a teenager.
James: I pretty much listened to anything that scared people. I liked a lot of heavier music: Rage Against the Machine and basically anything with a really good heavy groove to it.
John: And then I grew up listening to pop music. We’ve all come from different walks of life, we’re not the kind of band who grew up together. We met in high school – we kinda did grow up together I suppose – but we had to choose a direction, really, because we had such a broad spectrum of influence. Bands we listen to, a lot of stuff out of the UK…things like the first Bloc Party record is an inspirational record and even current releases like the Vaccines and old school like The Cure – The Cure are always a favourite and New Order.
Aaron: New Order was a really big influence.
James: We sort of discovered really happy, uplifting stuff and we thought ‘that sounds pretty cool’.
John: We try not to have too much of a box but if you’re too broad you can confuse people.
It’s all about having a sort of fixed focus.
Group: Yeah!
John: Put it somewhere in there and that’s the The Colour Age.
This is your first time outside of Australia, hitting up Singapore, Finland, the UK, and so on. How have you found it?
James: It’s different in all sorts of ways. Completely different culture, weather’s completely different…
John: It’s our first show, so it’s hard to gauge.
Aaron: We had no idea what to expect.
Monocoles, tea?
John: I thought people would be watching football in the background and ignoring us, so it was a relief.
There are a lot of pubs, and there is a big music scene in Brighton. Good to see people bopping along and dancing?
John: They were a great audience. Back at home we’re very lucky to have an audience that, you tell them to jump they’ll jump, you tell them to scream they’ll scream. I didn’t want to push them hard.
A live show and recording an album are two totally different things. How do you bring the energy of a live show to a record?
Brendan: I guess we just like to visually express how the music sounds; none of us have learned how to do dance moves…[music]…so you don’t just stand still, you get into the music and enjoy it.
You just go with it?
Brendan: Yeah.
James: Nobody wants to see four guys standing still playing music.
Brendan: John’s in the vocal booth getting all sweaty and shit, and messy.
So what we see on stage is what happens in the recording studio?
John: In the studio we find we have to play well – we have to play well live anyway. The studio has to be a coloruful experience because I feel like you can feel that on the record.
So if you don’t have fun, there’s no fun?
John: I reckon you can feel that. Aaron is a perfect example of that. When he’s feeling great he’s one of the most phenomenal drummers I know whereas when he’s not feeling great it sounds like less than what he’s capable of. You’ve got to feel it in the studio and we love to go to exotic places – in Australia, we can be in the mountains or on the coast, somewhere that stimulate us.
So when’s the EP out?
John: In Australia it’s going to be out in about a month, but we’re actually discussing with a few different people a format on which we can put it out here it in the UK so it should be available soon. We’re going to hit it up on iTunes within the next month – last time we did a release on iTunes they didn’t put it out in the UK so we’re trying to push for that now.
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