Falmouth-based Band, REDRø Talk Past, Present and Future.
Figure 1: REDRø at Fives during the crowd participation, Photographed by @louarthurphotography
Although the five-man band have exciting things planned, like every Gen Z it’s all up in the air.
Andy, the guitarist is working behind the bar at Lemon Twist prepping for the customers that will wander in later. Ruby and Alex are sitting side by side in front of me, Ruby is drinking an oat milk latte with a shot of vanilla syrup which I’m very jealous of and the bassist, Alex is drinking a Corona. Alex tells me how he even put on a clean shirt for me, flattering me for the first time in a while.
REDRø are a five-man band, their drummer Oli, is too busy to make it to the interview and their other guitarist, Cass, has relocated but makes trips back down to Falmouth for gigs. This band started as three, wanting to be like “The Gorillaz” an online band, with COVID being around it worked for them, playing at online festivals such as Mango Music Festival in 2021. All the songs played at the Mango Music Festival were pre-recorded, but Alex agrees that performing live is much more fun but definitely more stressful trying to lug all of the equipment into the venue and then back out an hour later.
The band have a two-pint rule, only two pints are allowed to be consumed before the gig and then one during. An incident that happened four years ago led to this rule, Andy was about to start playing and he turned to Alex with a wide grin on his face and said, “I can’t see anything”. They still played their set and later on, chundered. The rule has been broken since, but they have learnt from that one night.
Back in the day, the band took inspiration from Mac Demarco but Andy says they moved from that to a more indie vibe “Not like Arctic Monkeys or the strokes nothing like that, Chaise Longue by Wet Leg has just come out and me and Cass were like right this is what we were going to do. We didn’t do anything like it”. Andy is still behind the bar prepping lemons for whatever drink they pair with, hovering over the booth we are all sat in.
Alex tends to lean towards the heavier stuff when writing, “We've all got a very similar taste in music, but it differs enough that each song doesn't sound exactly like the last, I hope anyways”.
REDRø performed live at Fives on the 9th of February, and I was lucky enough to squeeze into the crowded room as the band began playing. Their crowd participation is something I’ve never seen done before this early on in a band's career. Everyone has to get low during one of their songs, and without a doubt, every single person in that pub crouched down. I thought I would be able to get away with not doing it, but I was pulled down by the very enthusiastic person next to me. Andy also loves to tell a bad dad joke, he even gave me one for this interview, “Two fish in a tank, one turns to the other and says do you know how to drive this?” Alex and Ruby looked disappointed, but Andy’s smile says otherwise. The Crowd participation is something that makes this band even more enjoyable to see live. Alex specifically wants to create a song that Andy can crowd surf too. “I think it will be beautiful”.
Figure 2: Guitarist Andy @REDRøtheband
Everyone in the band has full-time jobs, Alex works at a club in town serving intoxicated university students, and he also runs his own filming company, filming the surfing community down in Cornwall. Andy stands behind the bar shaking up cocktails looking pretty, and Ruby is learning to crochet, not very well according to herself.
They all did a Falmouth tour, hitting every venue in the area. Five Below has reopened and REDRÆ are waiting for confirmation of a gig in June. Five Below subsides underneath the pub Five’s, hence the name. Five’s Below is a venue before my time, but Alex tells me it’s smaller than Kings, one of the three clubs in Falmouth. The floor in Kings is always sticky and the music is normally questionable remixes, which the more you drink, the less you seem to care about tracks blending together.
Only three clubs reside in Falmouth, pubs around the town make up for the lack of drink-related spots. Mango’s is a no-go for all students who respect their well-being, although they do have a decent shot selection with rather erotic names. Toast is run by women and plays ABBA every weekend without a doubt and Kings has a rather small dance floor where elbows are jammed into ribs.
The pubs do a decent job of having live music playing half the time and Redro have been lucky enough to be able to play at every pub, club and venue, including Kings.
REDRÆ are very humble, “We are just five people that play music and we just happen to have people like it”. They have their entire set down to the T. “Long song” was performed live for the first time, Ruby mentioned how it was a working title but when I asked Andy about it, the name seems to have stuck. “It sounds artsy”.
This entire collective of different personalities and career-driven individuals come together to create something that gets people moving and out of their homes, it’s quite difficult to do that these days.
They plan on releasing a live recorded EP with around five songs, including “Long Song” and “Words”. Alex was sure to remind me that their released song “Quiet” doesn’t sound anything like the pre-recorded version when played live, that song was never intended to be played by five people, and he wants to re-record this song, so people get a real taste for REDRÆ. I asked them a question everyone hates getting asked “Where do you see yourself in five years” I watched them squirm as they worked out that they would be 27 years of age. I was nice enough to bring it down to a year, Ruby is planning on doing a masters in Brighton along with Cass. This would open doors to new venues in a new town. Falmouth students have a thing for drifting over to Bristol and Brighton. “We need to play outside Falmouth, love Falmouth to pieces but we need to venture out”. The band almost performed at Brighton due to a gig swap which I had no idea was a thing. “There are so many good opportunities in Bristol, but Falmouth is where you get the contacts”.
Andy also wants a sponsorship with Fanta Lemon which he explained to me was due to the incoherent amounts of that drink they all consume when they are practicing because a vending machine sits opposite the room tempting them all.
REDRÆ give the people of Falmouth a good show, their music is top tier and their plans for the future are not set in stone like many people, but they want people to hear what they muster up in either Andy’s or Alex’s bedroom (since they are housemates). Ruby’s voice is something else, her vocal range with the raspy notes that she can produce is incredible. Alex has a good bass face which every bassist needs. Andy and Cass work simultaneously on guitars to add layers to each song. Oli sits on the drums. Jude also deserves a shoutout, he is their technician, in charge of audio levels and lighting, which makes them all look like the real deal.