A few hours before their show with Hawthorne Heights, Ronnie invits us in La Boule Noire’s dressing room. We’ll quickly come back on their career but we’ll also have more details regarding their new album “Am I The Enemy” and their tour.
Hi Ronnie, could you introduce yourself to start with please?
Ronnie (vocals) : What’s up ? I’m Ronnie, I sing for a band called the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
Your new record “Am I The Enemy” is just out. You changed label for that one right?
R : Yes, actually, if you look on the back of the CD, we co-own our own label with our management compagny. Then half of our label is Collective Sounds, the other half is Lonely Road Records, which is my record label. So basically, we’ve put the record out with them independly ourselves. It’s kind of a dual partnership with Collective Sounds and Lonely Road Records which is our compagny.
And what did change for you to change label?
R : For one thing, it gives us just a lot more freedom. I think we’ve never even released either of our two records on UK’s iTunes but we already put this one on UK’s iTunes, last week. So we’re able to put our music on more different places that we were previously. Also, there is more creativ control, no one’s there to tell you what to do so it’s nice. It’s definitely what we always wanted and we finally got it, what can we say? Can’t complain.
Just before “Am I The Enemy”, you released an EP called “The Hell Or High Water” and done an UK tour and then went to Irak. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
R : We really appreciate all people who defend our country and all the other countries. We also played in Cuba, Guantanamo Bay, we played six shows in Irak, one in Koweit for all the troups and all. I also wear a bracelet that’s kind of a salute, not only to US troups but all over the world people that sacrifies themselves for the right things. Without somebody looking over a country you’re going to run over after bullets then I think it’s important. We definitely support anybody who get concerned in it, we think it’s important.
How special are those shows?
R : They are very specials. Totally different than regular concerts and they really appreciate it. Not to say that regular people aren’t but they just even more appreciate it because, for at least one day, they’re going to hang out and watch music and not think about guns or bombs, worring about what’s goning to happen. They just want to relax and be at a rock show. They really appreciate it and we are too so, everybody’s happy! They’re happy to be there, we’re happy to be there, everybody’s happy to be there, it’s a good time.
You talked about Cuba, Koweit too. When did you start to do those sort of tour?
R : We’ve always done it. It goes back quiet a few years. When we started to have the opportunity.
Coming back to your new album, just after recording it, the line up changed a bit didn’t it?
R : Yes. Everytime I’ve released a record I changed the line up. It’s a fact. On the first record, a lot of people thought it was the original line up, it’s not. I’ve already changed it four times before “Don’t You Fake It”. So a lot of people just don’t know that. So, whatever? People just come and go. I think we had fourteen different band members, there is no many and not including myself. It’s not like “those five guys done “Don’t You Fake It”. We’re not the five original guys. I think there was only two original people left so. It doesn’t really matter to me, I wrote other songs, I was well so, people come and go. Some of them been fired, some of them have quit for their own reasons and each different person got a totally different story. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t really matter to me and it doesn’t matter for our fans then, whatever, next.
We didn’t really want to come back on bad stories but we are interested in the new line up. Your brother’s in the band now, right?
R : Don’t worry, it’s cool! Yes, my brother has always been behind the scenes. Anybody who’s a hardcore Red Jumpsuit fan already knew him because he built our redjumpsuit.com website for us a long time ago. He did street team stuff, he also did a lot of the strings and digital drums on our first record “Don’t You Fake It”. So he’s actually on the record, people just don’t know that. And he almost joined the band back then. The time wasn’t just right yet. For me it’s cool, he always been in the Jumpsuit’s family anyway and now he’s officially playing guitar. He’s an awesome musican, a good guitar player and a good writer so every things make us just better, a better band. And we had a band before Red Jumpsuit where we were in together called The Sonus. After Red Jumpsuit started and he went in a different band, we’re now back together, it’s a pretty cool story actually.
And about the current tour, you’re co-headlining with Hawthorne Heights. How did that happen?
R : We’ve been friends for a long time. We were on the very last tour with Casey (ndlr: Casey Calvert, Hawthorne Height’s previous screamer/guitarist who died in 2007) so that was rough. We’re just friends. We know each others, we all hang out, we like each other’s music. We’ve done a show together in the States and we started to have the idea to come in the UK and Europe together. It’s one of those tour where it haven’t been set up by labels, by management. It’s just two bands that talk to each others like : “Hey, how do you do? Let’s tour together” which almost never happens, it’s extremely rare now. It usually talks about money and connections, who’s going to pay who, what. This tour didn’t happen like that, this tour is just us hanging out with them saying : “Hey, it’s been a while. How you guys been? Do you guys want to go to UK and Europe? Yes, sure, let’s do that!”. So it been kind of summercamp.
You’re just coming back from Germany right?
R : Yes, we had three shows in Germany. Now we’re doing Paris tonight which is going to be pretty awesome. We actually played there once a long time ago. I remembered as soon as I came back here. I think there was about ten kids here but, we had a good time. No one really knew who we were but those ten kids had a good show. We’ll maybe have twenty tonight, and after forty and we’ll keep going up because it’s not going to go down! But we came back for those ten!
And after that, you’re going to start the UK Tour. You’re talking about ten kids over ours, how special is it for you to come in play in venues like that whereas you’re pretty famous in USA and UK for example where most of your dates are sold out?
R : It really depends on the show. You know, we never properly released an album in the UK until last week. HMV carry imports where they order from the states but we never actually released a record that was distributed from over here so I wouldn’t say we are “famous” but I would say that the cool kids know who we are. We should be good, last time we played in the UK it was packed every night. That was really an awesome tour, that’s why we decided to come back. Because we didn’t come a lot those three or four last years, that’s why we had to come twice in a year to show our fans we do care, when we come over here, we know who they are.
When you look Warped Tour videos, there is a huge crowd in front of you for example, how different is it for you to play against so many people?
R : That’s just Warped Tour in general. They’re not necessarily all of our fans. It looks like that but it’s not. Thirty or fourty bands are playing so that’s why the crowd’s so big. We would never be able to do that big crowd concretly on our own. Paramore were playing the stage next of us, Bad Religion were playing the stage next to us. All those great bands were playing. It’s not like all those fans are Red Jumpsuit’s fans, quiet a few were, but definitly not all and I wouldn’t even say half of the one you saw on those videos. Are they rocking and having a good time? Yes, because we’re a good band and they are just enjoying the music but that don’t necessarily meen they knew who we were. We were maybe just lucky they were in front of our stage. It does appear like they are all our fans but honestly they aren’t, they are everybody’s fan. Everybody went on Warped Tour because everybody share their fans. We usually do stuff like tonight, you know, we always been that type of band so that’s the way it is.
By the way, have you got anything planned for what’s coming next? Any stuff for summer?
R : I don’t know. I don’t know if we’re going to get Warped Tour or not. It’s really tricky to try to get on that tour. I hope will get it but it’s not really up to us. Maybe Warped Tour maybe not. Anyway, I think the goal for us is to keep writing our music, always, never stop writing our music. We’re doing a lot of international touring too, we want to go back to the Philippines, Singapour, we’re talking about doing a headlining tour in Australia because we’ve got a lot of fans in Australia. Maybe New-Zeland too, we’ll see if it works out. A lot more like south pacific shows.
Last question: What are you expecting about Paris tonight?
R : It’s already better than last time. I remember, it was rainy, we got here really late and we didn’t have any time to see the city so it was kind of depressing because you know, this is one of those cities that’s so unbelievably famous, no matter where you live, at least once in your life you’d like to say “I’ve been to Paris, I seen it”. So today, at ten a clock in the morning, we all jumped in the train and we went to see the Eiffel Tower, saw the Louvre and we walked around. Got some fresh bread, some chocolate and really had a good time so, just that’s better than last time! We could appreciate the culture and walk around which that’s one of the best part of the tour. And like I said, it’s already better if we got twenty kids, that would mean we did double than last time, so I’ll be happy with that!
Thank you. We’re wishing you the best for your future !
R : No problem and thanks to you!
by Timothy
Website : redjumpsuit.com
