Interview : Red Light Company

Having seen the recent tour posters for the Red Light Company I was a little apprehensive at the prospect of meeting them, seeing as they look rather scary. But when finally I got the chance to sit down with the lead singer Richard Frenneaux you soon realise that he’s not scary, in fact he’s a rather nice guy!

So Rich your new single (Scheme Eugene) is coming out soon (Nov 3RD), how do you feel the whole process has gone?

It’s interesting because we put two singles out and they were kinda fairly limited…so kinda this is our first proper, proper single that we have put out…so there is a lot of pressure on us [and] we tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves.

You have had loads of radio play recently and NME have done loads of stuff on you, did you like working with them [NME]?

Yeah, we did a Jack Daniels session with them which was pretty good fun and actually we met the video director for our Scheme Eugene video on that set so it worked out for us really well.

Well the video looks quality and different, is it important to you guys to be different?

Definitely…in the UK there have been a lot of guitar bands um there was an influx of it for a long time and that was all good but I think it became stale…so I got really sick of it actually. Like everything new things come up and then they are replicated and new things become old hat so we’re just trying to do something new. It’s really important to be proactive.

You're completely different from what I was expecting having seen your tour poster because you look pretty scary. What’s the idea behind that?

It’s my pet thing I like to stare at people. I think it’s born out of trying to get peoples attention. We have done quite a lot of supports so you need something to make you stand out. It does make me come across as a sort of child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but that’s the fun of being in a band you can be whoever you want to be.

Red Light Company’s sound may be an acquired taste and like all change is difficult at first to acclimatise to but if you get the chance, as they are currently touring the country, they are a really impressive live band definitely worth checking out.
www.myspace.com/redlightcompany

Interview By Lee Hall