Red Huxley's road to Rancho

So which was this plucky young band that made a crazy dream a reality? It was the fearsome three; Dylan Jones, Matthew Pullen and Murray Stephenson of Red Huxley, who cornered Eagles of Death Metal guitarist and producer Dave Catching backstage at their performance at One Night in Cape Town in 2012. Not too long after, Red Huxley were doing their best to raise the money to fly to and record their debut album, "Nothing More", in the Rancho De La Luna, Dave's recording studio in Joshua Tree, California. Rising against the odds, they made the USD24 000 they needed via fundraising site, Kickstarter, a first for a South African band, and ventured forth on an eventful journey to their musical Mecca.

We managed to grab some time with singer Dylan amidst a whirlwind of press interviews and album launch planning to find out more about their Road to Rancho adventure.

Congrats on the debut album, the process sounds like it was quite the journey. When you initially managed to win backstage passes to One Night in Cape Town, did you ever imagine the outcome might be recording your album with Dave Catching from Eagles of Death Metal at his studio?

Dylan Jones: Absolutely not. As a fan of the band I just did it as a Justin Beiber fan would and when he emailed to say he would like to record with us it was the coolest thing ever.

What was it about Dave Catching that made you want to work with him?

Dave has recorded all of the Eagles of Death Metal and Queens of The Stone Age's albums and, before that, he did the Dessert Sessions and before that Kyuss. And he is part of that family. It all started out at that studio, at Dave's studio; Rancho in the middle of the desert in Joshua Tree. It's like this family of musicians; Dave Grohl is involved in a big way, he's friends with them, he's jammed with them. It was that history; these are the bands we grew up on and bands that we love.

Raising the money you needed to record through Kickstarter was quite the feat. Why do you think you succeeded when other SA bands have often failed to reach their target with crowd-funding initiatives?

Well the first thing I can say is we worked our asses off 'cause we really wanted it to happen. With Kickstarter you have to make a video telling people your story, asking people to give you money, in a nice way. And you want people to feel part of it. And we thought the story was pretty cool 'cause there were these proper famous bands involved. Then, once it was set up, we did a lot of work in terms of PR, marketing and social media. It did a bell curve, when it started out our friends and family were like yay - and then towards the end we started pushing again and then it started having an organic effect where random people were contacting us and a few people put in some big sums of money and that really helped. The response was amazing.

What sort of influence did Dave have on the end product?

We had never worked with a producer before so we didn't really know what to expect. One thing he did a lot was he simplified stuff, so he would rather say: "Take that section out" and keep it pure and simple, let the song run through as it is and make it shorter and punchier. So now our songs are shorter and tighter and to the point. He let us be who we were.

What was it like filming the entire process? Feel like you were in a reality show?

Kim who filmed it is from Motion City Films and he filmed our first music video, My Own Way, and he became a good friend of ours. He decided to come with us 'cause it's a good story and they want to create good content for themselves. So Kim and Dan Nash from Bangers & Nash came along and Dan was writing and Kim was filming. We were so comfortable with Kim when he was filming and I was quite surprised 'cause I thought it might be awkward to have this camera hanging around the whole time, but we hardly noticed him. He really portrayed the trip in the right way; he did a great job and we'll always try and work with him again.

In the Motion City documentary it shows you socialising with a few recognisable faces. Care to do some celeb name dropping?

We met the guitarist and sound engineer and guitar tech of Queens of the Stone Age - and the drummer from Awolnation, Hayden Scott, he has left the band since then - all the Eagles of Death Metal guys were there and a few other local musos. So then we had a full-on braai family vibe with all the guys. At the end of the night we all ended up in and out of the jam room swopping instruments the whole night, it carried on for hours. There is a real sense of community in their music scene it's really supportive.

Do you have plans to head back to the States or to work with Dave again?

Yeah it's quite funny, as we were leaving Dave was like: "When you come back to do the second album you must book more time." So we were like: haha funny funny, but then we were like - ja, okay. Kickstarter Version 2, so, ja, we would obviously like to go back.

What can we expect at the launch this Friday?

We've got all sorts of bells and whistles. It's being sponsored by Jagermeister and Rayban and we're really making the effort to make the place look cool; we'll have visuals going, like two big screens. We do have a VIP Rayban room where we will be showing the documentary early, maybe from 9 till 10. Paul Snodgrass will be the MC . There's gonna be a lot of Jagermesiter everywhere.

If you music could be characterised by an animal what would it be and why?

Jeez that's hard, a man bear pig or a liger, a lion and a tiger. I don't know that's really hard 'cause we do go hard, we rock out sometime, but then that's not all the time; we also like to take it easy and chill out sometime, so I don't know it's a tiger monkey. Cool question though.

What's next for Red Huxley?

For the rest of year we just want to promote the album, so we're going to Joburg end of November and then Durban in December, then end of December we're touring the Garden Route. We'll probably start writing some new stuff early next year, 'cause of all the inspiration we got at Rancho we want to start amalgamating and working on that, and then maybe end up overseas at the end of the year sometime.

Happily ever after? Here's hoping so!

Catch Red Huxley at their Cape Town launch at The Assembly this Friday!
"Nothing More" will be available for purchase at all Red Huxley album launch shows and gigs and on iTunes in early December 2013.

redhuxley.com

Red Huxley tour dates:

• Friday, 15 November: The Assembly, Cape Town. R50 at the door. 8pm. Line-up: Red Huxley, Goodnight Wembley, The Dollfins, The Robfather.
  
• Friday, 22 November: Tanz Live, Joburg. With: Newtown Knife Gang.
  
• Saturday, 23 November: Arcade Empire, Pretoria. With: December Streets.
  
• Sunday, 24 November: Park Acoustics, Pretoria.
  
• Friday, 6 December: The Winston Pub, Durban.
  
• Saturday, 7 December: Live the Venue, Durban. With: Crash Car Burn.
  
• Sunday, 8 December: Upstairs, Durban.
  
• Friday, 27 December: Pool City, Port Elizabeth.
  
• Saturday, 28 December: Raggies Bar, East London.
  
• Tuesday, 31 December: The Mexican, Jeffreys Bay.

Photos by Kim Hinrichs