LOS ANGELES (Red Sparowes Official Website) - As the CBGB and Continental night clubs close their doors, there comes a time to think about what punk rock means in modern day terms. Punk rock means something different today than it did a generation ago when bands like The Ramones, The Replacements and The
Clash roamed CBGB and punks wore torn clothing and dyed their hair to signify their distaste towards mainstream culture and the government. The music and fashion industries found punk to be profitable, and brought in a whole slew of marketable musicians that copied great punk rockers instead of coming up with their own stamp. The ethics punk embodied became corporatized, leaving a whole new group of rock musicians to figure out how to keep their music artistically relevant and pushing the mainstream's boundaries.
Punk rock can be defined as rock music marked by extreme and often deliberately offensive expressions of alienation and social discontent. So has punk rock now become broader in scope? What does punk mean to a band like Red Sparowes, which continually addresses social discontent through its live videos and instrumental ambient amplified rock? Like most instrumental bands, Red Sparowes conveys emotions rather than pinpointing feelings, allowing listeners an experience where they might come up with their own narrative. With its new album Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun, the band documents a historical event in 1960's China in which the government declared that sparrows were one of the reasons that the Chinese culture was faltering. The Chinese population believed their government, and killed all the sparrows. But they didn't realize that the sparrows killed the locusts, and once all of the sparrows died, the locusts swarmed the crops, leading to a famine that killed millions.
Like punk musicians, Red Sparowes wants its audience to question what the government tells the masses. Unlike most punk bands, Red Sparowes do not endorse a political platform, but they do encourage listeners to constantly question what they are being told by corporations and the government. Josh Graham of Red Sparowes says, "There are people and bands out there that keep that spirit alive and keep things moving on their own ideals and their own terms."
As for the long song titles on Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun, Graham says, "The underlying message in the artwork and song titles is really just for people everywhere to examine what their elected officials are saying, to think and independently question what is being sold as truths by their respective governments. As a band, we are not preaching any sort of agenda or taking any specific side, but hopefully just contributing to keeping thought itself in motion, which with the world's current political chaos, seems absolutely imperative."
Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun was recorded at Louder Studios in San Francisco with producer Tim Green (Comets On Fire, The Fucking Champs, The Melvins). The album features performances from drummer Dave Clifford (formerly of Pleasure Forever, The VSS) and guitarist Andy Arahood (formerly of Angel Hair), both of whom had yet to join Red Sparowes when the band recorded their 2005 debut, At The Soundless Dawn. Clifford and Arahood join original members Cliff Meyer (guitar, also of ISIS), Greg Burns (bass/pedal steel, formerly of Halifax Pier) and Josh Graham (guitar, also of Battle Of Mice and visual manipulator for Neurosis) in weaving a skillfully layered instrumental narrative that combines the expanse of the Sparowes' compelling live demonstrations with the incomparable fidelity and precision of studio capture.
A promotional DVD, now available here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IaKN3fSLcA, was directed by Kenneth Thomas, who is currently working on a documentary about punk ideals in the 21st century. Through the promo film, Thomas explains, "I'm showing that the punk ideal of the early 80's is still alive and well in an evolved state with different kinds of music that still push the boundaries and have a fan base that recognizes this integrity."
Red Sparowes' music manages to serve as an escape from the daily grind of information overload, but it also reminds listeners to remain conscious of what we see and hear from the government and the media. Says guitarist Graham, "With Red Sparowes, the music takes on its own identity and sort of plays out like life itself does, peaks and valleys, a spectrum of emotions and feelings, happiness, sadness, anger, etc. So, sometimes there is room for something larger to be said in the music world, and I think with the aesthetic of Red Sparowes, that room exists."
