[intervista] Red Lights Flash

1) We can start speaking about your name. What does it mean?

Werner:
After playing together for about two years with another name, we decided in late 1997 to start something serious. I once brought a picture of an American school bus to our practice room and we liked the warning slogan on the backside; “Stop When Red Lights Flash”, so the search for our band´s name was over. We see it as a metapher for our aim to get more and more attention.

2) Where do you come? How did you meet when started the band?

Werner:
We are from Graz, in the south of Austria. It´s a comfortable city with around 250.000 inhabitants. Musically and artistically, you can find a remarkable density of independent bands and artist collectives.
When we met the first time and became friends in 1996 there wasn´t a big scene in Graz. Only a few bands, which were playing live and recorded some demo tapes, existed in our hometown. After practicing and playing some crappy (but still memorable) shows with a different drummer, we met Constantin and founded REDLIGHTSFLASH in 1997. Due to his high-level drumming we suddenly considered REDLIGHTSFLASH as something more important that just a hobby. We started recording our first demo-tape with Tom (later playing in Antimaniax) to spread our name within Austria leading us to our first album "stop when..." released on Remedy Records in Vienna. We also started to organize shows by ourselves in Graz followed by a little underground development with new bands like Bounz The Ball, Antimaniax, Sick Of Silence and many more.
I think we can call this our own era of punk rock which bears fruit until now.

3) Which are the main music influencies in your sound?

Werner:
In the beginning it definitely was melodic punk rock such as The Offspring, Green Day, NOFX, Descendents, grunge with Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but also metal bands as Iron Maiden, Metallica and the like.
Later on everybody knew about all those Fat Wreck and Epitaph bands, mostly coming from the USA, and over here in Europe, Burning Heart and Bad Taste Records was choice number one to find the music we loved.
What kind of music we are listening today is hard to say. We definitely are open to every kind of music but unfortunately the magic moments in which we are overwhelmed by a certain band became very rare.
To answer your question, the main influence in our sound was and still is melodic punk rock, but I think we are at a point now where we don´t orientate and measure our music on other bands. When we are creating songs now we rather look back on our own productions and try to find out what parts still work out and have potential for the future.

4) You are 12 years old. Which are the topic moments in your career?

Werner:
Every album-release was a highlight in our career because each of them meant one big step further. Movement is the most important thing to stay alive.
With our seconds album "...and time goes by", released on Householdname Records of London, we had the possibility to tour UK, which was a great and important experience for us.
Our network was growing constantly, so it came that we met Anti Flag in 2003 after we had supported their show in Graz and talked about our band and future plans. Luckily, our new recordings met Anti Flag´s approval and the third album "free..." was released on their label AF-Records in 2004. Since then we were on several fantastic tours with Anti Flag, Rise Against, Alexis On Fire, Strike Anywhere, A Wilhelm Scream and many more.
So, let´s see what future has prepared for us!

5) How did you contact No Reason Records?

the worked together with rentokill which are close friends - they told us that they re doin great work and we searched for a label in italy. it was very cool and easy. great guys and label - please support them!

6) Which is the best goal for your band?

to produce and write music we love.

7) In which way do you try to promote your band and music? Will you play constantly in the next months?

we played more than 700 shows with red lights flash - so we want to play shows and tours which make sense for us as a band. we saw loads of bands come and go during the last decade. We want to keep the band interesting for us, fresh and vital. we try to be honest and use music as an art form to comunicate with people all over the world, thats our "promo tactic" if you ll call it like this.

- Recensione di 'For your safety ' (2009)
- Sito Ufficiale Red Lights Flash
- Sito Ufficiale No Reason Records

Ilaria, 09/01/10

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