Red Fang are bringing a stoner sludge avalanche in all its Rock-n-Roll glory to Geelong
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Red Fang are bringing a stoner sludge avalanche in all its Rock-n-Roll glory to Geelong

American sledgehammer stoner metal giants RED FANG are returning to Australia this May, so hold onto your beard, because things are going to get messy! We chat to vocalist/bassist Aaron Beam about the upcoming tour supporting their latest album Only Ghosts.
Hey Aaron thanks for having a chat with us. You’re returning to Australia this May, are you looking forward to that one?
I’m so excited that we are coming back again. It’s been a while and I think this one’s going to be a real good one alongside Drunk Mums, so it will be nice to have some friends to come out with us for the whole thing. It will be cool… and we like that band too!
Well that’s always a good thing! What can Aussies expect from the show?
Well I haven’t seen Drunk Moms so I don’t know what they will be doing, but from us it’s always pretty close to the same. The thing that inspired us in the beginning was just playing these sweaty basement shows around Portland or wherever else we were from, and we have always approached songwriting and the way we play shows the same way, whether we are playing in a festival stage or in a little club so we always just try to bring that same attitude to the show that we did when we were actually playing basement shows in a club.
Are they the type of shows you guys really thrive on?
Yeah absolutelty. I love going to basement shows too, I don’t go to as many as I used too, I don’t really get out as much because I’m a Dad now and not as familiar as to what’s going on in that world anymore, but it’s something about that energy. There’s a lot less at stake I guess, people take much bigger risks and there’s a lot more adventure going on in those basement shows than the bigger shows, I just love that energy.
You guys are coming to Geelong which you have previously performed at The Barwon Club. Do you remember the gig at all?
Absolutely, I remember that club well. Geelong has, the particular venue has much of that kind of basement show vibe to it but I also remember hearing that it’s one of the rowdier towns in Australia and I remember that being the case. There was a couple of shows that were really packed out and people were getting pretty rowdy and having a good time so we are really looking forward to coming back there.
Well you can definitely expect the same response! You’ve got your six-date tour which looks pretty packed. Are you guys sticking around in Aus after the shows wrap up?
We have to head straight back. We actually just landed in Atlanta just a couple of hours ago, and we’re starting a short little US tour tomorrow. And we travel straight from Atlanta to Australia. Last time we were down there I stayed on for an extra week at the end and went up to Cairns and went scuba diving which was cool. We have a few days off though, so I think we might do a bit of sight seeing while we were.
Seems you guys are constantly touring?!
Ever since we all left our day jobs in the beginning of 2011, so we actually have to tour to make money. I mean we all love touring and that’s what’s so exciting to me about this band; in the first place we’re just making music that really felt like some of the best music I’ve made in any band, and I’d never actually been on a US tour before before I joined this band. It does get harder; my son is almost nine and so touring so much is getting so much harder and harder for me. The touring itself is easy, it’s just the being away from home that’s hard.
You guys formed a while ago and have four albums behind you now, are there plans of making a fifth album?
Oh absolutely. At this point we have an avalanche of riffs that we’re just trying not to get buried under right now. Every time I pick up the bass, I write a new riff so I’m trying to slow that process down, I don’t want to actually slow it down but there’s so many riffs that it’s really hard to sift through them in my mind and start crystalizing things into actual songs. It’s easy enough to write a riff, but it’s not necessarily easy to turn it into something that sounds like a coherent piece of music.
And will you be bringing a lot of the tracks from the recent album to the upcoming tour?
We’ve worked in a few songs from the album; we do probably a minimum of three songs from that record, and sometimes we do as many as five or six. We’re really excited about those songs and playing them live is real fun and they fit in really well with the rest of our set so you’ll definitely hear some of those ones. There’ll also be a brand-new song as well that hasn’t been released yet…
Being a band that don’t seem to take anything too seriously, is that a core value to you guys as a band?
It definitely helps us when on the road, that can get kind of tedious and becomes a grind at some point, especially when you have seven-hour drive after seven-hour drive, and so having a sense of humour really helps with that kind of thing. It’s not like we sat down and had a meeting about not taking ourselves seriously, that just how all of our personalities are. We were kind of drawn to each other because of that and it definitely makes touring easier. It’s also one of the reasons people can relate to us as well; we’re just normal dudes, we aren’t playing some part or anything. Musically, lyrically it’s a little bit darker and deeper than the videos might portray but you can talk about intense shit and also be a light-hearted silly person.
When & Where: The Barwon Club, Geelong – May 15 (Tuesday).
Tix via www.tickets.destroyalllines.com