Rock duo The Red combines emotion with acoustic guitar
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 7, 2001 9:00 p.m.
Bella Records The Red is an acoustic rock duo that boasts
influences such as Metallica as well as Michael Jackson and
promises to offer something new and different to their
audience.
By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Contributor
It may seem illogical, but The Red is an acoustic rock duo with
influences including Michael Jackson and early Metallica.
How is this possible?
The trick is to incorporate the mood of other bands, while
creating a unique musical style.
UCLA students can see this unusual tactic in action when Marco
Aiello and Victor Langhaar of The Red play at Northern Lights on
Friday between noon and 1 p.m.
“I think mostly we try to not take just musical ideas, but
it’s also the idea of the construction, the attitude, the
soul behind the music. That’s really what your influences
are,” said Red guitarist and lead vocalist Aiello in a phone
interview from the office of the group’s independent label,
Bella Records.
With Aiello playing acoustic guitar and Langhaar playing
acoustic bass, the two play live shows without the assistance of a
drummer.
“It’s hard,” Aiello said. “It’s a
challenge and I don’t think that just anybody can do it. I
think we can do it simply because we’ve worked
hard.”
The two joined forces over five years ago when a mutual friend
introduced them.
They felt a musical compatibility and began playing together,
moving from band to band before creating The Red in 1999.
“Every now and then, certain musicians come together and
there’s a chemistry, an immediate understanding or
bond,” Aiello said. “That’s what happened with
Victor and I ““ we pretty much clicked right away. In fact we
played a show about five days later.”
Since then, the duo has recorded two albums, both on the Bella
Records label, the second produced in conjunction with ORC.
The songs for the most recent album, “Let’s Not And
Say We Did,” which will be released April 10, were written
while touring in support of the first collection,
“Mano.”
Touring was not an easy experience for The Red.
“We like playing shows,” Langhaar said. “I
wouldn’t say we like touring. I suspect that touring will be
easier, that it’s something you get used to. We roughed it
the first time and we’ll probably be roughing it a little bit
the next time.”
The Red spent nine months touring, while incorporating new
experiences and characters into songs they wrote and recorded on
the road.
“As you’re going to each town and city, you
automatically become the observer rather than the
participator,” Aiello said. “And so you just start to
collect all these interesting stories about people.”
Capitalizing on these new experiences, The Red created different
personae for its songs.
Aiello chose to write the lyrics in the first person, which
meant assuming characters that were completely foreign to him, such
as that of a pregnant woman.
The idea of telling other people’s stories in the first
person ties into the album title.
“”˜Let’s Not And Say We Did’ is exactly
what that album is because we aren’t those characters, we
didn’t do any of those things that the lyrics say, but
we’re saying we did,” Aiello said.
As for the band’s name, The Red symbolizes the emotion,
rather than the color, associated with the word.
“It’s either love or hate, it’s either sex or
war,” Aiello said. “It could be rage, it could be
sensual. A lot of different people associate different feelings
with the color red. The most important thing is that nobody
associates it with a neutral emotion.
“It’s not in the middle, it’s not
bland,” he continued. “And that’s really what we
strive to make our music.”
The Red was invited to play at Northern Lights after the
manager, Tim Killops, heard its album and decided the duo would be
a good source of entertainment for the noon crowd.
Killops said that he was interested in bringing a band in during
the day and hopes that the cafe’s patrons will enjoy the live
music.
“We like to have entertainment here anyway, so we are
always looking for good bands,” Killops said.
In its continuing effort to avoid neutrality, The Red wants to
evoke some kind of emotional reaction from its crowd during its
live shows, be it positive or negative.
“I think what they can expect is that they’re going
to feel something,” Aiello said. “We’re going to
trigger one emotion, sooner or later, because that’s our
goal. You’re either going to hate us or love us or die
laughing or crying.”
MUSIC: The Red will perform Friday at Northern
Lights from noon to 1 p.m.
