The Real Press Junket

The Real Press Junket:

The Red Eyes. The band’s very name conjures up images of late nights, long flights, or perhaps even illicit substances. It is also, incidentally, the name of a band. Local music aficionado Ramon Hernandez sums up the band’s impact: “Did you say Red Ice?” Having departed from the bands Dead West and Dean is Dead in mid 2005, guitarist Colin Johnson, vocalist Marc Shaw, and multi-instrumentalist Jason Farman pooled their collective futility into a new project: The Red Eyes. “I don’t know what we were thinking at the time,” says Farman, “maybe we just had too much time on our hands.” In any event, the members soon hired snobbish drummer Jaime Pitts with his unfortunate surname and slightly better than mediocre bassist but all around good guy Eric “Roshi” Mulligan and began reworking their mid-tempo, folk-rock sound into a more trendy Brit Pop, given the recent actual success of bands such as The Killers, Bloc Party, Kasabian, and others. No matter the songwriting quality, the band always had an ace up their sleeve: “If you could make the vocals sound more like Dave Gahan, I think it would really work for this song,” became a kind of battle cry, a mantra around which the band rallied. With the production prowess and marketing ideas of chronic stoner Billy Baker, the band’s first album “Up All Night” was underway. With at least two memorable tracks and some filler, this album hit the market with aplomb. After their self-financed CD release party in the same rehearsal studio where the successful band Keane had actually just practiced, the band had the momentum to hit the LA club circuit, playing at least nine shows in a year and a half. Due to this blistering pace and blitzkrieg marketing, the instant classic “Up All Night” flew off the racks at the breakneck rate of just under three units per show. After months of knocking on the door, the band finally played the world renowned Spaceland venue in the Silverlake district of Los Angeles. After the previous band’s fans trickled out during the show, die hard fan Rob Strong remained, leaning against a post, soaking it all in. “Oh, my God, they were just so on tonight. Great energy. A really voluptuous sound. Did you get that down? I rarely use that word in a sentence. It just sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Vol-up-tu-ous. That’s awesome.” With the extra money they made from selling chocolate Easter bunnies door to door, the band reentered the studio after months of shows. Says Johnson, “We had a few new ideas, and the Easter bunny thing went really well, and we figured, hey, we’re in a band, we know this producer guy, why not record some more songs?” The boys did just that. Boasting at least one memorable track, the aptly named “Let it Die,” look for their new EP flying out of trunks everywhere from Pasadena to South Pasadena in Summer 2007.