Portland-based hard rock outfit Red Fang are heading to Europe next week (Jan. 14) on the second leg of their tour in support of Mastodon. Moshpit Tragedy caught up with guitarist Bryan Giles before the band’s recent show in Detroit and asked him about the Portland music scene, creative communities, and the band’s penchant for making hilarious music videos.
Home to a roster of prominent indie rock bands like the Dandy Warhols, Sleater-Kinney, and The Decemberists, Portland, Oregon also boasts an equally impressive list of metal and hard rock alumni (Toxic Holocaust, Agalloch, Midian.) While that may have contributed to Red Fang’s decision to relocate there from various other cities Giles, chain-smoking throughout the interview, has a more practical explanation: “I swear to you the reason we moved to Portland, our drummer moved the day they made it illegal to smoke in bars in San Diego and we followed him a few months later. That’s what got me there initially.”
Despite the glaring spotlight pointed at indie rock Giles says the Portland scene still has plenty of love for the hard rock and metal bands gigging in the wings - particulalry given their fans’ appreciation for the rock’n’roll lifestyle: “A lot of clubs are open to it because there’s money in it - our fans drink - if you want to be crass, building your band is like making your band a bigger and better “Beer!” light so that bigger clubs want to have you.”
“Hank is Dead” will be the band’s third video with videographer Rob “Whitey” McConnaughy and a recent teaser trailer depicting a beer-drenched air guitar contest suggests that it will be as hilarious as the first two Whitey videos shot for “Prehistoric Dog” and “Wires”. Giles explains, “we take our music very seriously but a video is supposed to capture your personality - and we’re dorks - so it works for us because of who we are. If [Whitey] wants me running around in a pink dress I’m like fine, if you think it will make people laugh.”
“We can’t take hardly any credit except for that we’re in them and we wrote the songs but the director, Whitey McConnaughy that was a case where we were lucky, like who you know, cause he’s just a gifted, really driven filmmaker. I’d seen some of his videos in the past - one of note that really struck me and got me chasing after him to do work for us was ‘You Don’t Want Your Nails Done’ by Panther. In the video, everything is made out of cardboard, and Whitey made every single object, there’s like working record players, it’s just insane, a cell phone made of cardboard, everything.”
Whether like Portland’s terrestrially-based music scene or the ubiquitous social networks online, Giles says all manner of creative communities are founded on the sharing of ideas. “Any kind of sharing of your creativity will spark other people’s. Somebody painting in Paris is going to inspire someone in Mexico City to make a painting. With the internet I don’t think even touring is as important as just creating and putting music out there and sharing it, although the best way to share it is to tour.”
“It’s cool to play with bands, locals and bands you’re touring with, you get ideas from them. The touring band community, a lot of people I feel closer to that I only see three or four times a year but because I know that they’re doing what I’m doing, so we see each other and it’s really fun to catch up because we share stories and stuff like that. And it is a community, but it’s not city-based, it’s highway-based.”
Murder the Mountains, the band’s sophomore record, was released on Relapse in spring 2011. It’s a sludgy tar pit mix of Melvins-style riffage and Kyuss-like grooves. Supporting Mastodon on both their North American and European tours is a notable feather in Red Fang’s cap but Giles says that, for him, success was never the point. “I always wanted to make music; I was describing myself as a lifer when I’d been doing it for ten years and now it’s been over 20 years that I’ve been playing in bands for no monetary gain, just because I love it.”
http://www.redfang.net
http://www.whiteyfilms.com
http://www.relapse.com
http://www.mastodonrocks.com
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