Redambergreen

“The turnout was great,” said Cloutier. “It’s hard to be a band in Windsor, so when you have a good turnout you can count it as a success.”

The second band to play was Redambergreen. They are a power/pop-punk band from London, Ontario, who came down especially to play with Emerald Seas and celebrate their EP release. The band was also packed with high energy and encouraged the crowd to sing along.

They played a fantastic rendition of the Prozzak song “Strange Disease” that got everyone in the crowd cheering and having fun. During their set, the lead singer Sara Preston shouted out to the crowd her encouragement for Emerald Seas. - The Windsor Lance

Check them out on Thursday Oct. 19th @ Cherry Cola's! - Indie Week Canada

Band Name: Redambergreen
Band Members: Sara Preston (vocals), Phil Regimbal (guitar, backing vocals), Mike Funk (guitar), Cam Core (bass, backing vocals), and Michael Marucci (drums).
Years Active: 2½
City of Origin: London, ON.

Who are you and what do you do?
“Hey! I’m Michael, I’m the drummer for Redambergreen.”

In 100 words or less, tell us how your band has gotten to this point.
“Honestly, a lot of hard work, endurance, and love for the music we play. We’ve gone through a couple lineup changes. Our original singer Eric moved away, and our guitarist Cameron became a father. But through all that, we’ve become a stronger band and we’re doing better than ever. I think it’s important to focus on making the best music you can, and to make sure you’re having fun doing it. That being said, a band is a business and we work hard at it.”

What is your latest release and how would you best describe it to someone who hasn’t heard your band?
“We just released our new EP called No City. It’s a huge step forward for us and if I had to describe it, I’d say it’s a fusion of pop-punk, with riff rock. It has big builds and catchy choruses. It’s a really fun record!”

When making an album, which aspect of the process do you put the most time into and why?
“We do spend a lot of time writing. As easy as it is to bang out fast, fun tunes (which we totally do), we also have a deeper dynamic than that…so we try to balance our different writing styles. Some songs come together quickly, while others are much more intricate and developed, and I really think that’s one of our biggest strengths. We have a cohesive diversity, which is to say, we’re not boring, but we’re not erratic and aimless either. We’re also heavy into the production side. I’m a professional record producer, so I have a desire to deliver the best sounding record I can to fans. I think above all else, the song is most important, but if your music sounds like garbage, it’s a wasted opportunity and it’s shortchanging your listeners. Nothing bothers me more than hearing an amazing song with a terribly low production value.”

What is the best part about your band and why?
“We all have an absurd sense of humour? Seriously, if you were at band practice you’d be bombarded by riffs and poop jokes interspliced with serious discussions about time travelling dogs.”

What makes your band unique from the rest?
“For starters Redambergreen contains five unique people. Imagine that! An entire universe of matter and only one of each of us! But on musical level, we’re all so diverse in what we bring to the table. We all draw from so many places that the music we make can go in all sorts of different directions without losing its definitive ‘Redambergreen’ sound. This also allows us to play with tons of different bands which we love. Seriously, we like so much music it’s terrifying.”

How does your band survive the challenges of touring/gigging?
“The same way a lot of bands do I think, by being smart and savvy. In this day and age, with social networking, we communicate heavily with other bands to coordinate gear shares if necessary, which helps each other maximize space and minimize gas. We pick shows that are the best fit for us and in strategic spots on the right nights, and we make sure we promote the hell out of every show we do whether it’s close to home or far away. As I said, a band is a business (at least if you want it to go somewhere) and so being smart about when and where you play is essential. Also, take care of each other. Other bands are your brothers in arms…they’re your lifeblood. Help each other, build a family, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish when you work together. Pooling resources is a huge way to make touring and gigging easier.”

Would you rather be critically-acclaimed; rich and famous; or an under-the-radar band with a dedicated fan base?
“For us, it’s really about playing the best music we can and seeing other people take something positive out of it. But, it’s also a business, and we want to make a reasonable living doing this. So can we have a dedicated fan base and perhaps a moderate level of public notoriety? Please? Because that would be sweet, to share music with people that love it as much as we do.”

If you’d have to compare your band to another one out there, living or dead, who would it be and why?
“We have a TON of influences, everything from the Beatles to Disney movies. But if I had to pick a band that falls in line with what we do, it’d be Cauterize. Those guys blended pop-punk, alt-punk and rock so well. They had sweet riffs and knew how to write something fast or something slow without ever losing who they were. Seriously, listen to their 2005 album Paper Wings. Tracks like “Wake To the Sun” and “Porcelain”. All I have to say is fuuuck!”

Which band/musician would you like to share many drinks with? What would you talk about?
“I Mother Earth without a doubt, they’re my favourite band by far. They are some of the nicest guys I’ve ever met in the business, and they also happen to be some of the most talented musicians Canada has ever produced. Their music is so well written, fun, and diverse but (again with this point) without losing their cohesiveness. The Quicksilver Meat Dream is in my opinion the best record I’ve ever listened to. It’s also the best record I’ve ever heard sonically, or from a production standpoint.” - Riffyou.com

Following the release of their 2012 EP, Through All The Days, the London, Ontario band, Redambergreen seems to have reinvented themselves. With the addition of new vocalist Sara Preston, the 2013 No City EP sees the band move to a heavier, gutsier sound.

The opening track, “Storms And Rain“ demonstrates heavier rock influences with a great riff, a wonderful instrumental bridge and a dynamite vocal track.”Poison“ delivers nice harmonies, wonderful transitions, within a full sound and a slower tempo. The title track has a great intro, an exciting guitar riff, terrific transitions, and a way cool tempo change. The drumming highlights “The Night We Won The War“, which offers great hooks and riffs, a beautifully subtle guitar solo, great harmonies and amazing changes and transitions. “Good Intentions“, my favorite track, delivers a wonderful melody and great harmonies in a power pop-rock song. The changes are wonderful, the effects dynamite.

I had written about Through All The Days, and remarked that I had expected more. Well, here it is. There are definite elements of heavier rock, which the band embraces. The riffs are driving, yet subtle. The drumming is powerful. The songs are well written and masterfully played. There is a fullness to the sound that I like. The production is dead on. Redambergreen nails it with this effort, providing a blend of power-pop, alternative rock, and hard rock. No City is a wonderful album from talented musicians, who found their sound. and it’s incredibly good. - I Can't Believe My Earz

Not a lot of artists have a slogan, but London, Ontario's Redambergreen does: "Stop. Slow. GO!" appears in their social media bios, and considering they fuse elements of pop punk and alt-rock, it's an appropriate description of their sound.

No City is the follow up EP to 2012's Through All The Days EP, and features a progression in Redambergreen's sound that couldn't be helped: between the releases the band had to replace two members. Original vocalist Eric Girard moved back to his Northern Ontario home, and guitarist Cameron Seabourne became a dad and left to focus on family. Their collaborative approach to songwriting is now influenced by singer Sara Preston and guitarist Mike Funk.

While No City doesn't contain any "funk" (see what I did?), it is reminiscent of Through All The Days. But, I find No City has more of a pop punk sound than its predecessor. Considering their music and now having a female singer, it's hard not to compare Redambergreen to Paramore. Preston has a great, soaring voice that does sound a lot like Hayley Williams, and can handle the band's back catalogue nicely as Eric Girard's vocals have similar range. Girard is actually featured on No City's "Poison", dueling with Preston in the chorus. Their voices are actually seamless together, and it's almost a shame that it's only a guest collaboration. I'd say my favourite of the EP's five songs is the title track, which stands out as the most straight-ahead pop punk offering the band has. The verses are hi-hat rockin', riffy and mid-tempo, and blast into a fast and loud chorus. It's really, really solid. No City has themes of love, hardships and inspiration, and deals with all of them directly. The title track proclaims "the truth is that you can't expect anything for free" and "run as fast as you can/catch up to the best", and closer "Good Intentions" admits "when you go away, I ask for one more day/let's make a memory tonight".

Redambergreen have yet to release a full-length, but when they do I have no doubt it's gonna rock. They're comprised of five solid musicians, and didn't miss a beat with the turnover of two members. Drummer Mike Marucci is a friend of mine - in fact, when I took an online course through the Berklee College of Music in Boston I got to use the band as my course subject - and I know first-hand the standards they hold themselves to. No City was co-produced by Marucci and Toronto Producer Dajaun Martineau, and if you like artists like Paramore, Thursday, and Cauterize, you'll enjoy Redambergreen. Have a listen to No City at their Bandcamp site, and learn more about Redambergreen's "true colours"...see because their name is colours...huh? - The Perfect Scene

Despite proclaiming themselves as purveyors of power pop and pop punk, female-fronted Canadian outfit Redambergreen proves to have a lot more subtlety and refined idiosyncrasies woven throughout their material than one would expect from the aforementioned oft-derivative styles. “No City”, the band’s most recent five-song crash course in love, loss and everything in between is such—a mature, revived affair of a genre that desperately needed something this fresh right about now.

But to quickly lump Redambergreen under the power pop umbrella with sonic leaders like Paramore and certain incarnations of Emery would be doing their sound a great disservice. You can, of course, hear clips of Haley Williams in Sara Preston’s delivery throughout “No City”, but Preston’s voice has a far more intriguing, almost amplified appeal to it. Her vocal cords jump and crunch perfectly in rhythm with the deceivingly intricate distorted guitar in “Poison”, as if it takes no effort at all to mimic Phil Regimbal’s copper vibrations. “The Night We Won the War” finds her voice floating up and down the vocal register like clouds, delicate but confident, interesting yet approachable.

While Redambergreen certainly does have a wonderfully comforting and, yes, approachable sound, the band expands greatly on the general immediacy of upbeat power pop by offering their own counterpoint to it: a more brooding, contemplative aural mixture that still somehow maintains the genre’s catchiness. EP-opener “Storms and Rain” (note the melancholy) wastes no time in pulling back the curtains on Redambergreen’s dark rock tendencies, but the clever bouncy guitar picking in the verses manages to keep the band on course and prevents them from plunging into a black cave of maudlin, sulking slow jams. “Good Intentions”, though still more overcast than sunshine, offers a bright light of positivity right at the conclusion of “No City” with Preston belting out, “Let’s make a memory tonight”. Clearly, “No City” is worth remembering.

The crowds would seem to agree with that sentiment, since Redambergreen is completely sold out of their first run of CDs—no easy feat for a blooming underground act. With more on the way, though, and having already nabbed a spot on a London radio station’s “Top 30” charts, I think Redambergreen may really be onto something here. There may be no city built for music like this, yet, but having already proven the malleability of a genre with over ten years of repeat bolstering its foundation, Redambergreen are already well on their way to building it themselves.

Check Out "No City" For Yourself Here:
http://redambergreenband.bandcamp.com/album/no-city

Website:
http://www.redambergreenband.com/

Support on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Redambergreenband

By: Max Puhala - Hear This! Promotions

These guys are a TPS favourite and truly a bright spot in the local scene. Redambergreen are alt-rockers who have a solid dose of pop-punk in their sound. They have two EPs (2012's Through All The Days and 2013's No City, which we reviewed) and a couple of singles. Lineup changes have also been a theme so far, with Kris Rose being their third singer in what'll be as many releases once No City's follow-up comes out. No matter, they consistently put out good stuff - which contributed to playing the Ernie Ball Stage at Toronto's Warped Tour date last summer. - The Perfect Scene