The Red
Paintings don’t do anything in halves; one look at their live show will
tell you that much.
“We have projections of 50s-era movies and old
space movies, as well as movies we’ve made ourselves,” frontman Jamie
Barrett says.
“There are also people onstage painting – some
of them have never painted before… they’re just closing their eyes and
feeling the music. Also, the girls in the band dress as China dolls.”
Ambition runs just as high. In fact, Barrett
says he wants to be the first band to play on Mars.
“Making music has always been about pushing
forward, mixing art and music, pushing the boundaries out of our
planet. I can’t be another Rolling Stones or Beatles or even The Vines…
there needs to be something that’s always moving forward. If we can do
that then that’s great for those people who don’t need to sit there and
hear the same thing over and over again. They can grab our CD put it in
their stereo and go ‘Holy shit, let’s escape to another planet, let’s
move on’.”
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.
For the time being, The Red Paintings call planet Earth home – in fact,
you’ll find them in Brisbane. They relocated from Melbourne just over
six months ago after Barrett says the band were “getting lost” in the
Victorian capital.
“I was finding there were a lot of difficult
musicians who weren’t listening to my ideas and didn’t understand where
I was coming from,” Barrett says. “A lot of people want to have a
standard format band – get up there, play rock’n’roll, look good, have
chicks fall over them, take cocaine…
“For me, it was never about that. I look at
music and I don’t think it’s about me. It’s about a wider audience and
opening people’s eyes, it’s about getting artists onstage in front of
an audience who wouldn’t normally have that platform for their work.”
There’s also a political bent to The Red
Paintings. Music’s always been one of the most effective ways to reach
the masses and Barrett says he’ll use the band’s upcoming national tour
to promote alternative messages.
“The Red Paintings is about saying ‘No, we’re
not going to relate to pop stardom’. Instead, we’re gonna do a reality
check and look at what’s happening in politics. You know, wake up
everyone! Maybe if the people start leading the leaders will follow.
“With the Iraq war, we weren’t shown the real
story on our news stations. The Socialist Alliance organisation showed
me some photos and it blew my mind. I thought the best thing for The
Red Paintings to do was grab those visuals and use it as a backdrop so
when we play people can see what’s really going on.”
The Red Paintings play the Great
Northern, Byron Bay Wednesday Oct 29; Surfers Paradise Beergarden
Friday Oct 31; Sol Bar, Coolum Saturday Nov 1; Ric’s Wednesday Nov 5
and the Tatts Hotel, Lismore Friday Nov 7.
NICK COPPACK
