Founded in 2001 by bassist/keyboardist Brandon Ross and vocalist Lynnette Shelley, The Red Masque, is an avant-rock band from the Philadelphia area. Their music is best described in their website as “The Red Masque fuses together such disparate musical references as horror movie soundtracks, rock-in-opposition, zeuhl, heavy rock, gothic, psychedelia and kraut rock”. The band has thus far released three albums, one EP and one single.
In August 12 their latest album, Fossil Eyes was released through the avant/experimental music label ReR USA (the USA branch of the famous ReR Megacorp label in the UK). This is a good occasion to have an interview with the band members about the band, its activities and influences.
SF: How did The Red Masque start, when and by whom?
BRANDON: I joined a group that Lynnette was putting together which played a couple shows then went separate ways. I decided to continue with Lynnette since I was impressed by her vocals and driven attitude. We had numerous bizarre try-outs and then established our original TRM line-up which morphed and evolved into our present incarnation.
LYNNETTE: Brandon and I started The Red Masque in February 2001. Previously, we had played together in a few bands in Delaware, where we are both originally from. I moved to Philadelphia in 1999 for a job, and Brandon followed a few months later. We auditioned musicians for a while (even playing with some others in Baltimore, MD, for a while, before forming the prototype The Red Masque band lineup in 2000. Brandy of the Damned (from the George Bernard Shaw quote) featured original TRM guitarist Steven Blumberg, and keyboardist/concert harpist Nathan-Andrew Dewin, and another drummer. That drummer quit before our first gig, and we eventually replaced his spot with Kevin Kelly in February 2001. The band members felt we should change the name to something that was “less goth” and also not as long (the old drummer had come up with the name). I’m not sure how “The Red Masque” is less goth, coming from a Edgar Allen Poe story, but there you go….Our first gig as The Red Masque was less than two months later.
SF: What’s your musical background?
VONORN: Mother was a concert pianist and father great lover of jazz.
BRANDON: My father liked classical and Jazz and my friends got me into rock and then progressive rock. I began playing bass around 17 or 18 which helped divert me from doing something drastically violent and played in some interesting semi-progressive bands as well as an all improv group before going off to create the Red Masque.
LYNNETTE: none, other than playing around in some bands in college, and singing in some choirs when I was younger. My biggest musical influence was probably being a DJ at a non-commercial radio for several years and getting to play whatever I felt like. Since most of the more popular bands and artists has either gotten lost in the archives or been stolen by less scrupulous djs, I was left with piles upon piles of more obscure music to listen to.
SF: What are your influences?
VONORN: Mostly 20th century classical, jazz, RIO, Zappa, Beefheart, Henry Cow,Miles Davis, Mahavishu, The Doors,King Crimson, Yes, ELP, Genesis.
BRANDON: Mainly Vander Graff/Hammill, Magma, King Crimson, Doors, Yes, Genesis,Henry Cow,Olivier Messian.
LYNNETTE: I don’t think I have a specific influence for singing, as I am basically self-taught as a vocalist and I just tried to perfect my own natural sound to the best of my ability – not that I live in a musical vacuum as I certainly listen to a lot of other vocalists – from opera singers to early musicians, to alternative bands to progressive bands to garage rock and psychedelic and classic rock. My favorite vocalists are ones who have their own unique voice: Diamanda Galas, Peter Hammill, Peter Murphy, David Bowie, Lisa Gerrard, Grace Slick, Siouxsie Sioux, Dagmar Krause, Yma Sumac, Tom Waits, P.J. Harvey, etc etc etc.
SF: Hardships that band have had to face?
VONORN: On June 18 2006 I had to endure 5.5 months in the hospital with a very rare spinal condition. I was left almost a complete paraplegic wheelchair bound and unable to walk. I believed I would never play the drums again. I informed my friends of my feelings and told them to seek out another player. The love and support from my friends, would not let that happen. When I was finally, able to sit up and drop my feet to the floor, I felt my right foot start to tap out one of out songs. I then envisioned myself behind a set of drums playing that song. Right then and there, I knew I WOULD walk, and play drums with my friends again. This nerve condition leaves most blasted out in a wheelchair.My Doctors really could not say, what would happen next ,but they did said “your healing at a remarkable pace, but give it time. Just keep doing what your doing.” I went thru my therapy to to walk, in a matter of months as opposed to years.
On Oct 27 2006 I left the hospital,and the very next month,I played an important concert at the fine NJ Prog House, not on drums but keys, theremin, and jembe. The Daring Dave Kerman, and The prodigious Paul Paul Sears came to the aid of the band, by provided their masterful drumming. After the show they complemented me, by saying “It took two of us on drums to make up one of you”.That was a very moving and inspiring to me. Lynnette and Brandon gifted me with a tall wooden juju voodoo skull stick, that kept any evil spirits away and it is still on the job.
LYNNETTE: Well, everyone has their own individual, personal hardships, and sometimes, unfortunately, they affect the band. Our original keyboardist, Nathan-Andrew Dewin, lost his brother in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and I know it affected him deeply, and ultimately, was one reason he finally left the band in 2002. More recently, most people know about Vonorn’s ongoing struggle with Transverse Myelitis: two years ago he contracted this disease and was paralyzed for a time (he was in the hospital for about four months). He has since learned to walk again (and then drum again) but it obviously impacted our new album by delaying its release. He still has some flare ups and chronic pain issues. Then Brandon’s father died unexpectedly. A few months later, guitarist Andrew’s older brother committed suicide and he currently has some things going on his life. So these were all things everyone was dealing with during the course of the recording for Fossil Eyes.
BRANDON: Since we seem to be in our own niche we’ve had to feel our way around as to promotion, live shows,what is the best venue etc As well as recording/producing ourselves and the technological issues involved. We are trying to create original music from scratch without a pre-conceived stylistic frame-work and you have to realize what goes into doing this, since music especially prog has become so boxed in.
SF: Whatever comes to your mind that you can tell our readers so that they can know you better.
BRANDON: I think there is a creative/destructive energy running through the music, that is like an autonomous entity wanting to be born. It may enter your mind for a moment to leave it’s impression, like a kiss.Or become an uninvited guest altering your conciousness in a strange way.
VONORN: I’m insane, and love creating zany dangerous beautiful hideous things. Its what life is all about, opposites, dark-light, yin-yang,silicon or saline-implants,war-peace,Repukeulans-Demoncrapics,Disco-death,Polkas-Theredmasque.
LYNNETTE: I think the thing to take from us is that we are all curious people trying to explore various musical possibilities. Perhaps some think of us as being very dark and serious based on our recordings, but if you knew us in person, you would see that we are often rather goofy and have a sense of humor about what we are doing. That’s not to say that we don’t take our music seriously… I know I’ve pulled out half the hair on my head while trying to get the latest album out. The music is very personal to us, so of course we want it to be the best it can be and to reach the most amount of people that it can.
SF: Unlike your previous albums, it seems that Fossil Eyes has a thread that runs through it; perhaps not a concept album, but with a definite connecting idea that binds all the songs together. Is this a correct assumption?
VONORN: Yes that is correct my friend! you win the Red Masque moth wing covered, autographed, see thru, radio active, turnip and grape flavored eatable underwear!
LYNNETTE: It is definitely a thematic album. Lyrically, at any rate, the germ of some of the ideas started when I was working in an office building several years ago, 11 floors above ground, and I heard screaming coming over from the room next to mine. I went over to look, and the girls in the office were all freaking out because of a giant moth that had somehow gotten into the room. It was about a 10-12 inches from wingtip to wingtip and had these great big eyespots on its wings and big, fern-like antennae and a furry striped body, about the size of a mouse. It was really bizarre looking, especially in the context of being in an office building in the middle of downtown Philadelphia. I looked it up later on the internet and tentatively identified it as a polyphemus moth, which is the largest North American silk moth. (On a side note, I saw a Polyphemus one more time… about a week before the album was printed, one landed on my windowsill of my apartment and sat there for about a day before disappearing. I have not seen one since….)
So this idea of nature intruding or intersecting with the more “civilized” humans kind of came into my head then and most of the songs on the album used some sort of animal or insect imagery as a metaphor for the human species or for an alternate view at of our more primal instincts. For example, “Anti-Man” is about war, but told from the rebel army point of view. And, in this case, the rebel army is comprised of cockroaches or similar “pest” insect and they are rebelling against what they view as their human oppressors.
The song “Polyphemus”, meanwhile, is a more metaphysical look at the ephemeral nature of life. When I had read about these moths, I found out that they have no mouths and cannot eat: once they are hatched from their cocoon, they exist solely to mate and then to die. Or “Carbon 14” was inspired by a visit to California’s La Brea tar pits, which has the remains of various prehistoric wildlife preserved in them. “Das Snail” features a protagonist unsure of his or herself, and wondering about their role in life, yet at the same time, resenting to have to conform to a role, like a snail curled up in a shell, or like driftwood being molded by the elements.
But besides the words, we wanted to use “intersessionals”, or short mood pieces, to link the songs to each other, and treat the album as a whole as more of a soundtrack as opposed to separate songs.
BRANDON: Yes the thread I believed created itself submerged in tar,beating in the mind of an insect,spiraling towards realization.
SF: My personal impressions of Fossil Eyes are that it is heavy sounding, intense, eerie and even provoking images from horror stories (all of which I find to be great). What made you go further in that way, which you started in your previous albums? What inspires you to create such dark music with the matching lyrics? Could you also address the band creating shorter songs as opposed to few lengthy ones as before?
BRANDON: The sound here resonates on a deeper level thematically each song can stand on its own as well as bind together to make up the whole.
VONORN: We are doing shorter length works now.
The music, for the most part, is arranged in one and two minute movements.
We move back and forth between bitter and sweet sounds.
Our forays into those two tastes have become more abbreviated, but just like gourmet food, the portions may be small but they are real tasty.
LYNNETTE: I don’t really consider the band to be dark… more like shades of grey. I do think we are more intense than some people are familiar with, and they interpret intense as being dark.
SF: Do you have any ideas for your next release? Do you think that you will continue in this direction taken on Fossil Eyes, or is it too early to tell?
BRANDON: I would like to bring our overall aesthetic together with concepts revolving around trans-dimensionalism, god-like entities, world events, and parallels relating to the Red Death itself.
I prefer concepts to grow organically though and be very subtle that way things are left open more for individual interpretation.
LYNNETTE: We have some ideas we are playing with (I may have some lyrics about a wendigo — I was reading Algernon Blackwood’s story “The Wendigo” again recently as well as reading some of the Native American myths on the subject, as well as other cultural myths and legends – like the Norse mythologies) and I know Brandon has been playing with some riff ideas, but it’s a bit too soon to say what direction we are going to go in.)
VONORN: Working on possible full blown symphonic as well as stripped to the bone works. We most probably will wait for inspiration to steer our sails in the direction it will go. I think we may try a disco, country, classical, rap, deth gospel metal nude polka concept CD next, but we realize we probably don’t have enough styles as of yet .
SF: Will you be supporting your new album with live shows? How about getting into one of those Prog Fests; do you think the prog-crowd will “get” your sound, or will an experimental/indie fest work better?
VONORN: That had better get it! or they will die slowly from the subliminal messages embedded in all our songs about buying every thing Hanah Montana has every put out.In a matter of hours their poor puny brains will turn to an oozing stinking black slush.
Depends on the treatment of the material and how we bill ourselves. Prog festivals tend to book artists with prodigious speed and dexterity.We can create in that style, however we enjoy leaving areas open for improvisation that can be thunderous or haunting and melodic.I feel we can perform for both audiences,however the avant guard school tends to reward artists who have formal musical education and graduate degrees.We are for, the most part, sans degrees in those lofty perches of higher learning.
LYNNETTE: We are trying to book shows now, so we’ll have more info on that at a later date. I hope to have some shows for fall and winter 2008 (we have a couple booked now in Philadelphia and Baltimore), and hopefully many more in 2009. As for the prog festivals, we are hoping with the album coming out on RER USA, some of them might start taking us a little more seriously than they have in the past. As for people “getting us”: some will, some won’t. I know we have better luck playing at shows where people don’t have a pre-conceived notion of what progressive music is, or the audience is a little more open-minded. It’s true very “traditional” and older audiences who are only used to bands that sound like Genesis may not get us, but I am not overly concerned with that, as these audiences generally do not go out to support new music (except the occasional outing to a large festival or latest reunion tour). So I don’t think we are losing much by not appealing to them.
I do want to have some sort of tour at some point as thus far we’ve been mostly only able to play shows within a couple hours drive of Philadelphia. My goal this year is to find some sort of booking agent or manager that will be able to help us out in this respect. So if anybody is interested, they should contact me. There is only so much I can do on my own so I am hoping I can find someone who has the time to devote to this, as well as “think outside the box” in terms of getting us some exposure (which we need). That being said, I think we have the potential to offer much more than an average band (soundtrack work for example), and can appeal to a current audience, particularly with the success of certain proggy bands like Muse and Mars Volta. I could see the crowds who like bands like Acid Mothers Temple, getting into us as well, so it’s just a matter of reaching out to them somehow.
SF: When you look in retrospect on your previous albums, how do you feel about them now? How were your albums received by your fans and the prog/underground press?
VONORN: Quite well They worship us, and quite often,sacrifice small animals to us.
LYNNETTE: There are things I’d like to change about all the albums. I still don’t think we have gotten a true “live” sound yet on our recordings: either due to limitations in budget and equipment, we made due with what we had and used the mediums to the best we were able to at the time. But I would ideally like to have more of a true Red Masque live sound on future recordings. I think we are much more intense live than we come across on recordings.
From the feedback I get, we have gotten a lot of positive response to our music, which is heartening. Some people obviously don’t get it, and that’s alright, but for a lot of people they are a breath of fresh air. Whatever you can say about us, I do think we have our own unique sound.
SF: Your new album is released in August 11th, 2008 through Dave Kerman’s ReR USA. How did you score this impressive deal?
LYNNETTE: I “met” David through the internet, on a prog forum that we are both members of (www.progressiveears.com) and he wanted to hear my band’s music. This was probably around 2002. After Feathers for Flesh came out in 2004, he contacted me to ask if Ad Hoc Records, under RER USA, could release our next album. He’s also been talking about working together with me on an album (along with another guitarist), but Dave is a busy guy, and so far this has not materialized into anything concrete. I hope in the future it will though.
VONORN: We have worked very hard for many years, and Dave is a fan of ours (being that he played with us), and He knows that we were ready to go to the next step ,and be given the exposure we deserve.
SF: In your website it says that there’s a new guitarist to be announced? Could you tell us who it is, how come you’re expanding your lineup and how did you pick him?
LYNNETTE: We let go Andy in May this year, because he had some personal issues he had to sort out. We are currently working with a guitarist, David Pym, who is very familiar with the band, and has worked with us unofficially in the past doing film work and soundtrack work. David created the animated video for “The Spider Is The Web” off of our new album, and we also collaborated with him on some soundtrack work for a short film he made for the 2008 Lovecraft Film Festival. And I did some artwork he animated for another short film that appeared in the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. We will debut him at our show in September in Philadelphia.
VONORN: The Madman Video Davido Pymo ,we won him in a poker game,or, we kidnapped him a few years ago,We decided not to sell him to the white slave market.Also in that locked cellar chained to the wall with only a measly Macpro laptop to keep him company. Davido had been listening and learning to play the songs.So now he chooses to stay with us. He still has to wear our custom Redmasque ankle bracelet that tells us where he is at all times. David plays guitar quite well and is able to tackle very complex material without any charts. He also plays Bass, keys, composes is a unique multimedia artist, and I think he will be a fine addition to the family.
SF: I know that the band is not your only or main profession, so what are you other occupations alongside the band? How does it, if at all, affect your sound and the time to make it?
BRANDON: We’ve been asked this before, and it makes me think alot about identity. Do you define yourself by your art and do other things to support that? Can your art support you? Why not? Are you defined by other things you do or is it just temporary stop-overs in the pursuit of an ultimate goal? Multiple goals? My conclusion though is that the highest goal an artist, musician, or anyone can achieve is to be able to live life completely on their own terms.
VONORN: I am an independent multimedia producer.I have done productions for MTV,VH1,and have worked with oscar winning composers. Currently I am producing, recording and writing with an artist, who has interest from Madonna and Virgin records.
LYNNETTE: I own my own freelance graphic design business (www.designbyredeye.com) and am also a professional artist.
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I’d like to thank the band members for taking the time to answer the questions.
You can listen to the band’s music here:
(Interview by Assaf Vestin)
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