Sponsored by Orange
Best Heavy Metal Band Rhode
AWARDS 2011
www.rhodeislandred.co.uk
Feather dusters? Knuckle dusters, more like! These hard rockin’ roosters aren’t playing chicken…
B
est Heavy Metal band was one of the most hotly contested categories in this year’s Unsigned Awards but one band stood out head and shoulders above the rest. London band Rhode Island Red took the prize by virtue of their professional
presentation, which easily matched the sledgehammer punch of their bludgeoning hard rock. Fronted by lead vocalist Lyla D’Souza, whose powerhouse vocals and powerful stage presence belie her tiny frame, RIR can also boast something of an international flavour. The full line up includes Lyla and fellow Londoners Dave Garfield (guitar), Mike McGuiness (bass) alongside two flamboyant Italians: lead guitarist Andrea Basiola and drummer Rha Stranges. Check out the band’s website and you’ll see an impressive short video clip promoting their new self- produced EP Kerosene, which is currently available on Amazon and other popular digital platforms! As Dave Garfield explains, the Kerosene video was shot with a very clear purpose in mind: to create the maximum amount of impact within a short space of time. “Our bass player Mikey works in promotional graphics and he is our
director! He wanted some live shots of the band playing the song’s chorus in the video and we took some advance clips and made up a little promo, and from what I’ve seen it looks quite good. I chopped up the song, going more or less straight from the opening riff into the chorus. I looked at other CD promos on YouTube and they do the same thing, getting right into the hook, which is very effective!”
The band is clearly very savvy when it comes to all forms of media and when asked what separates a really good band from those that can maybe play great but don’t have much of a clue about effective self- promotion Dave offers a very succinct reply, “I think that you need talent, of course, but you also need a relentless work ethic; you need to be on it all of the time and thinking about ways that you can promote your band, not just live but in online digital promotion. You need to be able to create something for that arena, like video or photographs, a good logo. You need a good website and then keep updating all of your peripheral
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websites: Facebook, Twitter, Reverb Nation. MySpace seems to be sinking down the level of importance. You need songwriting of course, but all of these things are as important as each other.” The ability to get the message across live is also very important. How many bands have you seen who have the tunes but lack much in the way of stagecraft?
Dave has some good advice on this subject, too, “I think that one of the best things that you can do is get video a gig,” he offers sagely, “It can be a painful process but that’s something I did with another band. We did a little tour supporting Joe Cocker in Germany and had the opportunity to video the gigs every night. We’d sit there taking the mickey out of each other but watching yourself on video makes you think about how you look when you play onstage; how you interact with the audience and espacially things like not taking too much attention away from the singer by jumping up and down like a major loony! It’s about knowing when to back off and when to come forward, little bits of stagecraft like that you only pick up with experience. A lot of bands jump up and down on the spot and they look like pistons in a V6 engine, it just looks ridiculous! I used to watch videos of U2 and The Edge, the way that he just stands there with a guitar he looks like John Wayne, ‘check me out, I’m really happening!’ it’s a really cool pose and you need to find those poses. It may sound a bit pretentious but people like that kind of thing. It’s part of the magic isn’t it?” With a wealth of solid experience under their collective belts Rhode Island Red are one of the most professional and switched on unsigned bands that we’ve had the pleasure of checking out, we can certainly seem them dominating the stage at a major festival like Download or High Voltage and we sincerely hope that they make it all the way. Before taking his leave to head back to rehearsing with the band, Dave lets slip one thing he’d buy should the band sign a major label deal. “I’d buy a house with a Gibson Explorer shaped swimming pool!” Rock on! PM
UNSIGNED
www.orange.com
Island Red
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