In a world of bands that are lazily described as Band A meets Band B with Band C influences, The RedLights is a band that actually creates an interesting juxtaposition of established genres, while being its own unique entity.
The ska influences are obvious, but so is the hard edge of punk. Tight, off-beat rhythms combined with the beloved sensation of watching a small-framed blonde open her mouth to reveal a full-bodied alto make for an exciting live show.
The project started two years ago when guitarist/vocalist Lawrence Kole was fooling around with demos. He recruited keys player Eric Abbey to help him out, and the dub punk demos they created were a pleasant surprise to Kole himself, and the people he played them for.
| The RedLights
Album: Control
Genre: Dub Punk Sounds Like: The Suicide Machines, Gogol Bordello, Dead Kennedys, Rancid
Upcoming Shows:
The RedLights CD Release wsg Loudmouth and Cain Marco
Sept. 3, 9 p.m., 21+ Jukes, Grand Rapids
myspace.com/redlightofficial –Free!–
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"There was actually some demand to bring it out live, so I put a band together around [the songs] and it's been going very well," Kole said.
Kole selected bassist Ryan Glew from a previous shared band experience with hardcore act The Jobbers. Drummer Ahmed Arfeen formerly played with The Offbeats, another ska outfit, and Kole found lead vocalist Bekuh from another band, Shotgun Sally, after coming across the group's Myspace.
"I heard her voice and I knew I had to have her involved," Kole said.
Jessica Atteberry, whose role is described by Kole as "strings and things," is also a member.
The band's sound is full and upbeat, and the lyrics are worth listening to. Kole shares lyric-writing duties with Bekuh, but when it comes to his pen, he splits the personal with the punk.
"Half of the songs are basically about my life and the things I've been through," Kole said, "and the other half has a political tinge to it. Not so much antigovernment; it's more about being aware of what's around you.
"If the government was your mother's ***, wouldn't you say that you don't need it?" is a pretty good example ... maybe.
The RedLights release its first studio LP, Control on Sept. 3 at Jukes Bar. Recorded at Cold War Studios by Mustard Plug's Rick Johnson and mastered by Mass Giogini, the album will be the tangible form of RedLights' message. This message being:
"The world is full of a bunch of s**t, but at some point you just need to take a breath and realize you don't need to focus on the bad stuff," Kole said. "There's good stuff out there."
Photo: Nicole Brimmy Spess
Delilah DeWylde is a Grand Rapids music staple. From her vintage dress to her black bangs, perched atop an upright bass, one is hard-pressed to find a West Michigan music lover who hasn't seen her perform.
When asked about her persona compared to the real her, she said it might surprise people that she can be "a bit shy," but said a love of music and fun persists for both the stage-side character and the "stay-at-home-in-pajamas" version. A prominent member of DangerVille until 2006, DeWylde switched her focus to Delilah DeWylde and the Lost Boys, then with Lee Harvey (guitar) and Dan McCoy (drums).
"It was actually [Harvey's] idea to start this band, since he wanted to switch from drums to guitar," DeWylde said. "This band is different because I had to become the frontperson and do all the singing."
DeWylde cites a love for The Bakersfield Revival, as well as "vintage-throwback" in general, as shaping factors when forming the group.
"Our intention was to continue with our rockabilly roots and branch out into classic country sounds," she said. "The classic country vocal style was fun to sing, so we kind of went with that since the beginning."
Going along with the classic country themes, DeWylde rattles off a list of the usual lyrical suspects — "Broken hearts, cheating, drinking," to name a few, as Harvey's use, along with reworked versions of old songs the group likes. DeWylde helps Harvey with the arrangements.
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Delilah DeWylde and the Lost Boys
Album: The Price You Pay
Genre: Americana/Honky Tonk
Sounds Like: Rose Maddox, Buck Owens, Led Zeppelin Upcoming Show:
CD Release wsg Ralston Bowles, Red Sea Pedestrians
Billy's Lounge, Grand Rapids Sept. 8, 9 p.m., $5 billyslounge.com, (616) 459-5757 |
Recorded by Joe McCarger at River City Studios, The Price You Pay is important to DeWylde and the band for many reasons. DeWylde feels as though her singing has improved over the year, making it a more personal record. But it is also close for more tragic reasons.
"Dan's brother, Neal McCoy, passed away during the middle of all this, after a long painful battle with cancer," DeWylde said. "It was rough on Dan because he was the only immediate family member in town, but he never missed a gig, a rehearsal or a studio date. Neal was also a musician, and encouraged Dan to do what he needed to do."
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Beacon Light
Album: Overcomin'
Genre: Christian Hip-Hop
Sounds Like: Lucre, Eminem Upcoming Shows:
Beacon Light CD Release Party
The Edge Urban Fellowship, Grand Rapids Sept. 24, 9 p.m., $5 myspace.com/beaconlightmusic |
Brandon Clahassey of Beacon Light began his foray into music at high school parties. He carried this activity into college, honing his skills as a rapper via rap battles and free styling. At one point, however, Clahassey almost gave up.
"I realized I wasn't going anywhere in life and I knew I couldn't do it by myself, so I called on God," Clahassey said. "I actually stopped rapping because I used it in such a wrong way before, so I felt like I couldn't do it in the right mindset."
However, discovering the music of Christian hip-hop artist Lucre changed Clahassey's perception of how rap music and religion could align.
"I felt like God was speaking to me, that I could use rap for Him in a positive way and still have it be good and not be corny," Clahassey said.
Clahassey transformed into a Christian rapper approximately three years ago, and has been writing and recording since. Initial recordings were made at friends' homes, but eventually, Clahassey found fellow musician Jordan Stonehouse. Together, the two started making Clahassey's best work. A lack of funding called some minor discouragement, but a positive experience counseling at a summer camp made Clahassey realize that he could touch a younger audience in a meaningful way.
"I realized not only did the kids really like my music, they were spiritually fed by it," Clahassey said. "That gave me the drive to actually do it. Just seeing how God used [the music] in their lives, I knew I had to do this."
Clahassey chose his 17 best songs and went to work on a record. The result, Overcomin', is Clahassey's reflections on changes that need to be made in society, and is particularly geared toward the Christian community in an attempt to present the gospel.
"There are so many people that are misrepresenting who Jesus is in the world, by the way they live," he said. "Christian actually means ‘little Christ,' so I want to portray him in the right way."
Clahassey also writes about personal tragedies on the album, and says even those who do not subscribe to the Christian faith will find something to like. Recently, his songs "Fire!" and "Salvation" were featured on 99.3 WJQ during the program Ignite Radio.
Beacon Light's Overcomin' will be officially released on Sep. 24 at The Edge Urban Fellowship, where Clahassey is an active worshiper and participant. Some of his involvement with The Edge includes "using hip-hop music to engage the culture and lead people to Christ and change the community."
"I honestly believe I could really live anywhere at this point in my life and believe that I was home," said the 27-year-old.
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Brie Stoner wsg The Soil and the Sun
Billy's Lounge, Grand Rapids
Sept. 10, 9 p.m. $5, 21+ billyslounge.com, (616) 459-5757 |
It took a long time for Stoner to come to that conclusion. Though she's an American citizen, Stoner and her family moved to Spain for mission work before she was a year old.
"My first words were this beautiful mixture of Spanglish," said Stoner, who attended Spanish public schools.
The Stoner family resided in Spain for 12 years, and worked with the government to create a youth center, basketball tournaments, and anti-drug programs.
"What they did was kind of liberal for that time," Stoner said.
When the family left Spain to move to Indiana in 1995, Stoner was 12 years old and unhappy with the move. She had a difficult time adjusting to the new culture and accepting her role as an American citizen.
"Obviously, I'm a US citizen, and I think it's taken me the better part of the last 12 years to feel that authentically, to feel that this is my culture, and this is where I'm from. It was very difficult for me when we first moved back."
In order to adjust, Stoner picked up a guitar and translated her angst to song. She wrote her first song in 1997. A year later, her family moved to Grand Rapids.
"That created a devastating crop of songs," she said. "That move was pretty difficult for me; I think in part that I hadn't yet dealt with the pain of leaving Spain."
"I love her old stuff, but there was a lot of angst," said David VanderVelde, a friend and fellow musician. "She has definitely gotten out of that and sounds a lot more secure."
Stoner began to get more serious about her music when she moved to Grand Rapids and met fellow musicians VanderVelde and Nathan Kalish, with whom she formed a rock band. She bonded with them not only musically, but because they had similar backgrounds.
Like Stoner's, Kalish's parents were missionaries, and the family lived in Austria and the Czech Republic. As a result, Stoner and Kalish were able to form an understanding that they couldn't find with other friends.
"We were both bilingual, we grew up in Europe, and have a different perspective of American culture," Kalish said.
Though Kalish was playing with at least 10 different bands during that time, he says VanderVelde and Stoner's music was the most influential to him.
"I'm really happy she's getting back into music," Kalish said.
Stoner took a break from music to focus on her family. She got married in 2007 and had her first child, a boy named Søren, in 2009. Before she settled, she was signed to the now-defunct Fonic Records, wrote songs for the NOOMA film series, and traveled to California for a year, as well as Chicago, to work on her music. While she was in Chicago in 2003, she recorded her first album with ex-Wilco multi-instrumentalist, Jay Bennett.
Stoner speaks highly of Bennett, who passed away unexpectedly from an accidental overdose in May 2009. She says he had a "mad scientist" appearance - his pants were too big due to weight loss, and instead of investing in a belt, he kept his trousers up with rope. He would wake Stoner up a 4 a.m. to hear how her voice sounded at that hour, and had her record in an elevator shaft, while he lowered a microphone down to her.
Stoner has a difficult time talking about her time with Bennett. Her eyes get misty as she conjures up past memories with him. VanderVelde, who was living with Bennett while Stoner was recording, also had a particularly difficult time with Bennett's passing.
"It was rough for everybody," he said. "[Brie] was heartbroken about it, but she was more concerned about me."
Shortly after Stoner recorded with Bennett, Fonic Records folded. Stoner continued recording with VanderVelde, then packed up and moved to Los Angeles for a little more than a year in 2005.
"A lot of people go there, and stay there, and don't grow up there," she says of LA. "There's something weird about that. You stay in this paralyzed state of lost boys. And the seasons don't change very much, so there is that endless summer there. And I was ready to leave that."
She thought her next stop would be Nashville, Tenn. since she had musician friends in the area. Her journey was interrupted when she fell in love with her now-husband, Steve Mayer. She stayed in Michigan to be with him, while continuing to work on demos. In 2009, Stoner got an opportunity to record in California. She flew out to the recording studio while she was five months pregnant with Søren. The result is her latest EP, Delicate Hour.
"To experience recording songs like those while pregnant — and Søren had just started to move around, and he responded to bass lines, to me singing — it was tremendous."
Stoner's Delicate Hour EP is a culmination of her influences of folk rock and the road she's taken to find her way home — with the exception of her gorgeous cover of Vixens' "Edge of a Broken Heart." The melodies are warm, peaceful, yet haunting with Stoner's hushed vocals blending with her acoustic guitar.
Less rock-y and angst-y than her songs from the past, the EP represents the destination Stoner has reached from being a troubadour to a singer-songwriter who is rooted wife and mother.
She recorded 10 songs in 10 days, and then chose the five to go on her album, with the title track being written the night before it was recorded.
"There was a feeling about that song. It was special to me," she said. "I don't want to say it stood out, but it seemed to capture a lot of my feelings at that time — of what it had been like for me to come home. I don't mean come home to Michigan, though I love it here — I mean come home to myself. To find who I am, to feel happily settled with a husband and a son — to find that in the most unexpected place."
