Sauce

After they released their latest EP Up All Night a few months back, two things happened for Hobart three-piece Red Rival. Firstly, they were called “communist spies” in our magazine in a joke people took way too seriously, and they toured their arses off on both sides of Bass Strait. Brad Nowland laid down his bass for a moment to speak with Carole Whitehead ahead of some shows later this month.

What have you been up to of late – yourself, and as a band?
Well Carole, I’ve been busy doing a bit of traveling. Red Rival had been playing a lot following the launch of the Up All Night EP, and so we decided to take a few weeks off before we get stuck into it again for the summer.

Your video seems to have disappeared from your Myspace page. What happened to it? What did it originally show?
Carole, I hate computers. It’s supposed to be a clip of us tearing the place apart at the Rocket Room in Perth, but due to my technological ineptitude I can’t work out how to get the clip to work.

In one of your blogs you have a notice that says not to take slippers on tour, as it’s a $250 fine. What happened?
Inexplicably, our guitarist/singer/angel of death Mike took a pair of slippers on tour. I guess the man just likes to feel comfortable. Sadly, during the post-gig chaos in the hotel room, someone threw up into the slippers. We’re not sure if the person who threw up in them was trying to make a statement, or was just particularly bad at choosing the direction of his spray. Either way, the slippers didn’t last 24 hours on tour. The $250 fine is a reference to the amount of money per indiscretion the hotel proprietors threatened to fine us for our rock ‘n’ ways.

I noticed that you have a few upcoming shows in Melbourne, but they are as yet not announced where they’ll be. Can you give us a preview of where you hope to be playing?
The Slaughterhouse 5 from Perth are touring in November, and we’re joining them for the Melbourne gigs. Early next year, we’ll be doing a few gigs with The 45s, who incidentally are also from Perth. I put the TBA next to all the dates on the MySpace as a bit of a reminder to myself to book the venues.

And how do the Tasmanian audiences react to your shows? When has a crowd got into your music the most?
Well Carole, the Tasmanian crowds react with a great deal of pride at the whole Tasmanian-ness of it all. At the EP launch in June, there were a few people in the front row that I’d never seen before who seemed to know the words to a few of the songs. The EP launch in general was a pretty good gig. Everything sounded great, I remembered how the songs went for once, and everyone there was really into it.

How was the whole ‘Falls’ experience for you personally? Were you really nervous beforehand? How challenging was it?
Falls was a bit stressful for me. I was nursing a broken jaw, which meant I was a bit useless. The gig itself went really well though. The atmosphere was really enjoyable. Just being able to play at a gig like that is pretty special. The challenge with gigs like that is getting the gig in the first place, and then taking care of logistics. Once I’m on stage, I can relax, and it’s a lot of fun.

How far have you come musically since your very first gig, and how did your first gig go?
I’d say that right now, musically, we’re infinitely better than we were in April last year when we started. The first gig had a lot of enthusiasm, but we were still coming to grips with what we wanted to sound like, and what sort of songs we were going to focus on.

I’ve been listening to your EP of late and I can pick a few likenesses to a couple of bands – namely Dallas Crane, You Am I, and much of the Melbourne Rock scene. Who would you say your biggest influences are? Much of the Melbourne music scene?
That’s a bit broad, don’t you think? It’s funny how different people get different things out of the EP. I’d say that Dallas Crane and You Am I and the whole Melbourne “scene” was about as far from our minds with those songs as possible. The title track Up All Night is a bit of a nod – stylistically – to a German-based band, The Split Lips. Having said that though, I don’t think we have any real influences. We like to listen to music and I guess the music we listen to can creep into our thinking at times, but that’s about as far as it goes.

How do you like the finished product of the EP? TSOMM have remixed your song Up All Night. How much do you like the remix?
The EP was something we had to do. We needed to get something out there so that we could move on and focus on touring and just playing and writing. I’m glad we did the EP, though, and I think that Linc le Fevre did a bang-up job recording, producing and mixing the thing. The TSOMM remix is a ripper. I hope we get a chance to have more of our songs remixed. Maybe on the next album.

Red Rival play Launceston’s Saloon on the 15th of September, and Hobart’s Brisbane Hotel on the 21st.