Just a week before the city of Wrocław will become the Capital of Rock, with RED pasteries on my face, I was able to reach and talk to the Randy Armstrong from Christian band RED, who is going to support the Rammstein on the upcoming concert on the Wrocław Stadium. During the quick phone call the RED multi-instrumentalist talked about his favourite bass player, what are the differences between US and European fans and what RED hits we can expect to hear on August 27, concert. Enjoy!
Hell-o this is Mateusz 'Mate’ Sendecki from DeathMagnetic.pl and we have a pleasure of talking with the Randy Armstrong from the American band RED. First of all thanks for your precious time Randy!
No problem, sir!
So Randy, tomorrow you are about to start your almost month-lenght european tour begining with the Austrian St Polten. Are you excited about it?
Oh, absolutely! It will be our third tour here and it is awsome to come back to places that we’ve already been, but also to play in totally new diffrent territories. So we are looking forward to it!
…and we just can not wait to hear you here in Polish Wrocław, it will be a great gig! We are also curious about one thing: do you feel that European audience somehow differs from your US fans?
I would say that Europe is diffrent in the fact that people are more passionate about the bands here comparing to South and North America. I mean there is hundreds of thousands bands in America and once they are able to go on tour to the Europe, it’s hard to gain so passionate and loyal fanbase as the local bands. Especially going to some territories for the first time, when you see all that excited faces of other bands fans and you want to have the same relationship with them. Thankfully, we started to see that happened on our concerts too, because it is already third tour in here. Obviously, other touring activities like new places, new sights and meeting new people are also sort of being different here.
Yeah, conquering new metal-lands in not always that easy, especially if those are on the different continents. In Wrocław you will be sharing the scene with Rammstein and Limp Bizkit and my question is do you know any famous polish bands?
Oh, I really can’t name one. Definately we know the Rammstein and Limp Bizkit, ’cause we are big fans of it and we grow up listening to Bizkits. But we are really looking forward to share the scene with your local OCN band.
I hope you will like our rockers from Wrocław then and I highly recommend you metallers from Behemoth or Vader. I must admit that I’m expremely excited that I’m speaking with you Randy, because if it comes to instruments you are jack-of-all-trades! Bass guitar, keyboards, piano… So the question is which one of them was actually your first insrument of choice?
(laugh) Oh well in high school I’ve been truphet player. Piano and guitar passed my mind just because the very nature of those instruments and the things you can do with them. I’m actually self-taught on the piano. But when the band moved to Nashville from the small town in Pennsylvania, we were short of bass player and from the necessity, I ended up dealing with the bass. Once we’ve started recording music as a Red, someone also had to deal with piano on which I was also working earlier. So it’s real fun playing multi-instruments and doing everything you can to make your band sound even better.
I’m really surprised by your bass guitar origin story! I thought you were playing on it long time before founding the RED! But do you think that your self-taught skills on piano and your truphet experiance somehow helped you with creating bass lines?
(laugh) I would say: no! (laugh)
(laugh) Really?!
You know learning the piano and basics of music would be helpful, but while playing the truphet for 14 years, I had no semblance of reality what playing bass would be like. So starting my journey with bass guitar was a real challenge, but I must say a little 'thanks’ to piano of course.
Your first answer was unexpected, because all musicians around the world are always underlying “Yes! Of course my first instrument TOTALLY helped me!” so I love what you’ve said! (laugh) And my last question about the bass – do you have any favourite bassist?
Yeah I like Mike Dirnt from Green Day. I love the way how straightforward he is. He’s creating solid bass lines without overcomplicating it with all those different pedals that other artists use. I just like Mike for being able to handle with what is the most fundamental in music. Of course I’m not saying that using bass effects is something wrong, but the Mike is playing great lines and it is fun to watch him doing his stuff.
Again you caught me off my guard with your answer and your choice of fav bassist! That’s pretty interesting and I really should go deeper into Mike’s bass lines. Now it is my time to shock you with totally different question: are you playing video games?
Oh yeah, I love it! Mostly, I like action games from such series as Call of Duty or Assasin’s Creed, but my favourite ones are those with post-apocalyptic climate just like Fallout.
It’s great to hear that you are game addict too! (laugh) I love post-apocalyptic themes also and , obviously, I’m Fallout die-hard fan! And what about the soundtrack to the game you were talkig about in the last year interviews? You’ve said that one of the video game company asked you guys yo cover 'Stand by Me’ by Ben E. King. Was it also post-apocalyptic game? What happened to that idea?
I don’t know what kind of game it was, neither I don’t remember the name of the studio, but yes, we started recording that track. We prepaRED RED-version of that song, but the concept of the game gone into the different direction and they didn’t actually used that song. We were also thinking about keeping that track, because really cool things started to going on with that recording. We had lot of fun playing that song and it would be great to put it on some B-side of the album. Anyway, it was really exciting opportunity, the great song was chosen for the remake, but sometimes it happens that the company is deciding to go into totally different direction. Actually we never had the chance to present this song and they didn’t had a chance to hear what we were doing.
I pity that company them, because 'Stand by RED’ must be really something and I can’t wait to hear your interpretation of this hit on the upcoming releases! And speaking of albums… When you will go back from Old Continent to USA, you are going to begin the 'End of Silence 10th Anniversary Tour’. So do you think that playing the old grammy nominated songs will somehow affect or inspire your next album?
You know, it’s really good question and I would say 'yes’. We already started talking about new projects. 'End of Silence’ is probably our most popular album and when you are not a headliner and you are just opening the venues, sometimes you have only 15 to 20 minutes to actually play your songs. Now after 10 years we will have the opportunity to play that entire record so we are quite excited about it! But back to your question – I think that all bands that lasts long are those, who remember where they started out. Those bands just don’t depart too far away from the formula that made them popular at the first place. That’s something we are talking about constantly, because from one hand we want to explore the new terrirories, but we don’t want to sound like just another band. I think during those tours we are going to start writing for our new album. So to sum up – playing the “End of Silence” songs and then trying new material in a makeshift bus studio will create really creative atmposphere.
…and that is what I and other RED fans wanted to hear! Just before I will give you the mic to tell a thing or two to DeathMagnetic.pl readers – can you unveil the mystery of European setlists?
I can tell you all that we are going to play longer setlists and we hope we will be able to satisfy most of fans and their various song requests. We are gonna be close to almost 2 hour on stage every night. The set list will for sure include tracks from our new album “Of Beauty and Rage” as well as the essentials from first releases.
Almost two hours on scene, that sounds vicious! Ok, so it is your turn to talk Randy to the RED-heads and DM.pl fans!
First of all I must thanks DeathMagnetic.pl for opportunity to talk a little about our Red band! As for our fans, despite of that gig Wrocław, we really want to go back here to see you again and we are really excited to play with some awesome bands in front of awesome people like you!
Thank you Randy for your precious time and stimulating interview and send my regards and best withes to your just married brother Anthony and his wife Tierni!
Oh, thank you very much! I will let him know you’ve said that!
See you on the concert!
See you, man!
