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An unflinching beast that answers to no man. The music industry hype machine is often just that, promising more hot new bands, ones to watch and top tips than it can possibly deliver - but on the odd occasion it keeps its promise; Red Light Company are one such occasion.
Two years ago, Richard Frenneaux was just another frustrated musician in search of like minded souls to help realise his musical aspirations. Rather than count on a fabled chance encounter, he turned to the internet, posted an advert on a UK website, sat back and waited. Not called the World Wide Web for nothing, Richard didn’t have to wait long for Shawn Day (bass) to answer the ad… all the way from America’s least populated state, Wyoming, 4500 miles away:
“I was feeling musically dead at that time and hearing something fresh out of the city blew me away” says Shawn from the seclusion of London’s Sony BMG offices.
“It’s funny when you’re on different sides of the globe” muses Richard “With the internet and music being so readily available, people can have very similar influences, so you don’t need to go to school together to make a band.”
After just a few emails, preparations were hastily made; Shawn sold up, jumped on a plane and headed to Blighty for their first gig just three days later. But there was a hitch and with insufficient funds to finance his stay, he was detained by immigration. It was touch and go, but eventually deemed to pose no threat to the UK economy Shawn was released and met the band in a pub, his first time in an English boozer.
With Chris Edmonds (keyboards), Paul Mellon (guitar) and James Griffiths (drums) completing the line-up, an independently collective dream was fast becoming a living reality and attention turned to establishing a band proper as Richard explains:
“We were just two outsiders in London at the time and we wanted to be in the gang, so we built a gang of our own. Four people is kind of a gang… five’s like…”
“Dysfunctional?” offers Shawn
“There’s always some heated discussion” concedes Richard
“Always a culture clash” adds Shawn alluding to the fact that he was born in Osaka, Japan, Richard spent his formative years in Australia and New Zealand, James is from Wales, Paul Scotland and Chris the sprawling metropolis of Maidenhead.
“If you fall out with one, at least you’ve still got three others to talk to” says Chris suffering in self-imposed man-flu silence.
Trans-Atlantic gang primed and almost ready, all that the band needed to do now was arm themselves with a sufficient arsenal of impressively head-turning songs, a task that Richard had been busy occupying himself with for some time:
“It was just myself and Shawn writing” says Richard “I produced the demos in my flat in Baker Street, so we had an idea of the sound we wanted. Adrian (Bushby: U2, Placebo, Foo Fighters) who co-produced just took what we had and made it better in so many ways. But I think the songs speak for themselves in whatever form they’re in, you can strip them back to acoustic and they still sound great.”
It’s a confidently modest admission; their debut ‘Fine Fascination’ is a well polished, but not over produced album with ambition that divides its lyrical content between the highly personal (‘With Lights Out’ addressing the suicide of a childhood friend) and as Richard admits, the fictionally ambiguous:
“I sometimes like lyrics to paint a pretty picture but they don’t specifically have to say anything, there’s a lot to be said for just the sound of words.”
That might be true but talk is cheap and like any band searching for success, hard graft is the only thing that gets you noticed. The process of relentlessly gigging up and down the country, honing their writing skills and stagecraft began and it didn’t take long before the fruits of their labour were rewarded with an unexpected offer to support Editors on their 2008 European tour:
“That was the first tour that we did” explains Richard “We were thrown in at the deep end a little bit, but we feel the most comfortable on bigger stages. Our music isn’t scratchy indie, we wrote it with ambition, to be something more than that, we’ve got a real hunger for it.”
A hunger that the press are currently sating by referencing the fledging five-piece alongside the likes of Arcade Fire, Editors and even U2; not comparisons to be taken lightly and compliments that can incur undue pressure, fuel delusions of grandeur and make or break new acts.
“Our management is always like ‘just enjoy it, enjoy the ride, and don’t worry too much’” quips Shawn “But you can’t help it. With this album release you kind of feel that you’re walking around with a blindfold on… nothings an exact science, especially in the music world, but that’s what makes it so exciting.”
For the most part however, the attention currently surrounding Red Light Company is validation of their global aspirations and in part recognition of a promising young talent, who don’t want to be seen as ‘a’ band but ‘the’ band:
“It sounds a bit clichéd when you say the only pressure is from yourself, but that’s just the way we feel” explains Richard “We built this band up from nothing, had a lot of radio support and toured relentlessly and sometimes we do feel like we’ve deserve it. We’re all very ambitious people and we want to be the best if not the biggest band in the world.”
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