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New generation
sleaze rockers
Red Star Rebels are one of the hottest bands around as far as the UK are
concerned at the minute. They're loud, proud and in your face glam
rock through and through.
We managed to catch up with the band during their 'Road To Rehab' tour
at the gig in Newcastle upon Tyne to find out a little bit more about
these Rebels with a mission ... a mission to bring back good time party
rock!
MM -
Hi lads, thanks for agreeing to take
part in this interview with us we really appreciate it. Would you
like to start by introducing yourselves to our readers?
JR - I'm Jonny Rebel, rhythm guitar and backing vocals.
BR - I'm Blackie Rebel and I am pretty much Red Star Rebels (laughs).
MM - I've noticed there's not that much information on how you guys
came to be, would you
like to give us a brief history on the band, how it all came about etc?
JR - Well we formed at the beginning of 2005 but we
stayed for six months behind closed doors, getting all the repertoire
ready, getting the act ready and then we figured out that a lot of bands
try to put a band together and they try and go out and gig as much as
possible. We didn't want to do that though so we held ourselves back
as much as possible until we were ready.
We kinda worked out that
the hardest crowd you could play to was the prisoners, so we went out on
the prison tour as the first ever gigs we did. Old muggins here
(pointing to Blackie) had to take over on lead vocals as the other guy we
had couldn't get in because of his colourful past. Apart from that he
was a good sort. After that we launched ourselves on to the Camden
scene in North London and then we started picking up tour supports with Gilby Clarke and everything's just moved on from there. So as we
currently stand we've been together about 18 months.
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BR - Well we're quite possibly the best looking band that has ever been
about. I mean honestly, do you know of any better looking band than
Red Star Rebels?
MM - No definitely not ... and modest too!
(laughs)
JR - Modest ? What's that?!?
MM - Have any members of the band been in a band before you joined Red
Star Rebels?
BR - Before you answer that and I go, I'd just like to say that I am quite
possibly, well no in fact I am definitely possibly, well actually just
definitely the best looking male in the South East of England. Thank
you and good night!
JR - Yeh but we're in the North East!
BR - Yeh but I'm
not good in the North East. I'm only third in the North East.
(Madness reigns supreme for a while as each member of the band gate crash
the interview at this point. Lead singer Blackie informs us he's
going for a wank and staggers off into the distance).
JR - Did that answer your question?
MM - Not sure I can't remember
what the question was now after all that madness.
SR
- Was the question ... is Steve Rebel the best drummer this side of
Exeter. I think you'll find that he is.
DR - What in god's
name is going on over here?!?
SR - Oh look it's Dazzle Rebel, our bass
player, always here to lower the tone.
JR - That's because he's plays
bass. That may have answered your original question? Not that
I can remember what it was now.
MM - I think the question was perhaps, have
any of you been in any other bands before?
JR - Oh right! Well
that didn't really answer the question at all then did it? Well
individually we've been around the block with different bands, but we've
been in this one for the past 18 months. We all found each other in
life musically shall we say and yeh we've been around the block and in
other bands but we're here now.
DR - In the past I've actually been
the bass player for the Brides of Destruction.
JR - Technically
that's true. Actually that's quite funny really because the first
time I met Dazzle we got talking and I said to him, when you go for a hair
cut, what is it that you actually ask for when you go to the hairdressers.
He then showed me a picture of Nikki Sixx the bass player from Motley Crue
and then six months later he's actually replaced Nikki Sixx on tour for
the Brides of Destruction. It's strange how things work out
sometimes.
MM - Yeh I caught you guys on that tour at Rios.
JR
- Yeh everyone knows Rios don't they.
MM - What bands have
influenced you all musically in what you do today.
JR - Well collectively you'd be looking at Motley Crue, Guns N Roses,
AC/DC, Sex Pistols. We're walking rock n' roll cliche so you can
guess the rest. The ultimate album that we would look up to would be
Appetite for Destruction, it's weird to see icons from twenty years ago
becoming icons again twenty years on.
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I feel we are at the front of
a new rock scene that's going on around the UK. It's building, it's
building slowly but it's building, and we like to think that us, Red Star
Rebels are at the forefront of this new generation that's happening.
Camden summer 2007 is going to be rock central and everyone's going to lie
and say they saw us on these tours but they shouldn't lie, they should be
there, this is where it's happening right now. This is the birth of
something that is going to be really really talked about, I'm convinced.
DR - This is a new revolution, we're making new fucking music and we're at
the forefront. We're mixing early eighties stuff with seventies
stuff, come and see us live, we're a whole new sort of sound that's going
to fucking kick up the kids, with lyrics and all the bollocks we do on
stage. We are creating a new fucking scene.
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MM - The band have got a new EP out with a DVD as well, would you like to
tell us a little about that. First the CD then the DVD part.
JR
- Yeh sure, the EP is called 'Too Young To Care' EP and it features four
songs and a DVD, which is basically three music videos that we shot during
a few days in Portugal around a year ago. I know it sounds very rock n
roll and cliche to say we don't remember any of it, but it's the truth!
We did it just to package it, we put the DVD together with the CD.
There's a lot of bands out there that aren't authentic, but we truly
believe that the kids out there do want to be into things that are
authentic and with us we walk it, we talk it, it's the real deal. I think
the DVD projects what the music does in terms of the way we are. We're
like this 24/7 and there's no other side to it, so that's what the DVD was
supposed to do with the CD.
Our first single is due to come out in August and is called 'You're Just
Another Drug I've Gotta Kick'. This current tour which ends later on next
week, has lasted three months. Then it will start all over again. We'll
basically be touring consistently throughout the year and then going to
America later on in the year and back. I don't know when there's going to
be an album, but I would think probably late next year.
MM - I
did notice that you had all your clothes off for the most part of the DVD.
JR - Yeh we did, oh no you've watched it
right? I'm really embarrassed now! What can I say, it was very warm
in Portugal!
Actually on this tour we did say at the start that one
of the dates on this tour we would do completely naked. We're yet to
do that so what you've got Bradford, Wolverhampton, Bristol and London
left. There's a one in four chance that anyone that comes to one of
those gigs is going to see Red Star Rebels play completely naked.
(Just
then we get interrupted by the lead singer of the Babylon Babies who's
come over to proclaim his undying love for Jonny's skin tight red
trousers. Welcome to the
kingdom of madness!)
MM - How's the tour gone so far then?
JR - It's gone great, it's so good to be touring with like-minded people.
Crystal Pistol are the real deal. It's not often that we big up
other bands, it's just something that we don't really do, but the truth is
these guys are so good at what they do and they truly are such nice
people.
There's so many bands that we've toured with and there's
always one member of the band that's been slightly less approachable shall
we say, but these guys aren't like that, they're the real deal and such
good fun to be around.
It's going great though, the last three
months have seen us tour with quite a few different acts and last month we
toured with Gilby Clarke out of Guns N Roses and that was great, but this
is the best leg of the tour without a doubt.
MM - What's been your
favourite gig up to now?
JR
- Our favourite gig to date? Oh that's a hard one. Well probably our
favourite venue to play is the Underworld in Camden. Whenever we play
there we always seem to have a good night there. Hopefully next week at
The Garage in London is going to be the best night of the tour. Hopefully
that will be the pinnacle of the tour. We'll all be knackered by then so
let's hope it's going to be good.
MM - What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you
while you've been out on tour so far?
JR - The most embarrassing thing whilst touring
would be probably when I shit my dad's pants in Milton Keynes. Any
of our fans that were there and are out there reading this will know
exactly what I'm talking about. If I went into detail you'd be
absolutely horrified.
MM - I hope you washed them before you gave
them back!
JR - Oh no I chucked them away.
MM - Where can our
readers find out more about the band?
JR - Well there's three places, they
can come out to watch us play live of course, or they can keep track of us
on our website
www.redstarrebels.com or more importantly on MySpace which is
www.myspace.com/redstarrebels. It's usually me and Blackie, and
sometimes Dazzle who are behind the controls of our MySpace site.
Everyone always gets a reply. It's the most important thing that we
do outside of rehearsing and performing.
(As the volume of the party around us grows to a bone shattering
fever pitch we decide to wind up the interview).
MM - Is there anything else you'd like to say to all our
readers out there that we haven't had a chance to discuss yet?
JR
- We're just trying to write songs that connect with what the young people
think these days. We're trying to tap into an audience that will be
responsive to the kind of lyrics that we do. If you listen to early LA
Guns records, that's probably the closest thing around to what we're
actually trying to do. We don't want to come across as arrogant but we do
genuinely believe that our songs are a lot better than that. We truly
believe that it's all about song writing and that's the most important
thing to us above all else and in the cold light of day, it's only the
good songs that people really care about and that's what we like to think
we're all about.
*MM - I'd just like to say a huge thank you to Jonny Rebel for taking the
time out to do this interview with us. Jonny you are an absolute
sweetheart.
Both on and off stage these guys like to party hard and they rock big time. If you ain't seen em yet then be sure to check them
out, you'll not be disappointed. |
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