Red Yeti

PROVO — Provo residents Kimball Barker, Isaac Lomeli, Coleman Edwards, Nick Blosil and Jared Scott each had dreams of being in a band. In playing together they’ve found their niche in rock and roll. After forming two years ago, Red Yeti has released two EPs and is thrilled to be releasing a third at the end of the week, with a release show at Velour.

KSL: What's your "origin story?" How long have you been playing music, what inspired you to create a band, etc? How did you find the members of your band?

Red Yeti: Barker was anxious to start a band and he approached Isaac Lomeli with some music he had written and asked Lomeli if he would join him on a musical project. They would play acoustic shows as a duo and would bring in local bassists and drummers for concerts. Their music wasn't going anywhere since they didn't have any other full-time members beside themselves, until they met Coleman Edwards. Edwards is a keyboardist and Kimball's long-lost second cousin. They literally ran into each other one night in Provo and got to talking about music.

The next day Barker and Edwards got together and wrote the groups first single "Black Cloud.” Other members came and went, leaving the founders wondering if it was all worth it. Right when they were ready to bury Red Yeti, they noticed the drummer Nick Blosil. The band continued to play and record without a bass player and they really didn't know what they were missing until they were approached by Jared Scott. Determined to play with Red Yeti, Scott went and bought a bass and taught himself how to play and he has since made a huge difference in the band by accompanying Barker on vocals.

KSL: Give me the thousand-foot view of your sound and style. What kind of mood should you be in to listen to your music? What should you be prepared to have it make you do? What inspires you? Who are your musical influences?

Red Yeti: After going through so many transitions, Red Yeti has finally emerged as a rock band with signature style in sound and performance. Their music is designed to get people excited. It has a certain tone to it that is reminiscent of classic rock, but also incorporates synthesizers and rhythms that are associated with pop music. This is mostly due to the wide range of influences within the band. They draw inspiration from legends like Led Zeppelin, The Who, ACDC and also modern rock bands like The Black Keys, Wolfmother, and Tame Impala. The music is loud, guitar heavy, and rhythm-driven. We play the way we feel and that's excited.


KSL: What do you tell yourself before a performance?

Red Yeti: The motto before shows is "Bring your 'A' game." When we play a show we want the crowd to enjoy it as much as we do. We want them to be involved in every song, to share the performance with us, and through the way we play we hope to portray our love and appreciation for them. We believe we have the greatest fans and we want them to believe they are the greatest too.

KSL: What has been the most exciting thing to happen in your career to date?

Red Yeti: We competed and won the RAW Artists "Musician of the Year" award for 2012. Since then, we've played in every venue between Provo and Rexburg; played in the UCCU arena for thousands of screaming fans; we interviewd on PCTV and ABC 4/CW 30; and we're just finishing our third (and best) EP that we'll be releasing on April 4 at Velour Live Music Gallery in Provo.

KSL: What is your 5-year-plan with your music?

Red Yeti: Throughout our time together we've accomplished some exciting goals and met some fascinating people. Our big goal as a band is to get people to hear our music. We want to tour and get our music on TV and radio. We're currently negotiating a licensing deal with an indie film company and we'd like to get into the licensing business so we can distribute our music through multiple channels.

KSL: Who have you most enjoyed collaborating with and who is your dream collaboration?

Red Yeti: We're all about collaboration regardless of the creative medium. We've had really positive experiences collaborating with local musicians and videographers and one of the main reasons we like to collaborate is so we can offer our talents to help others accomplish their goals. We realize through collaboration everyone goes further together and that is a beautiful and powerful thing. We've played with bigger musicians, but every time we've had those opportunities it wasn't "how can these bigger guys help us?" but rather "how can we make this a great show for them and get people excited about them." Taking that approach benefits everyone, so no matter who was, we would want to bring that same quality to the collaboration. But if we had to choose: Royal Blood. - KSL

Provo, the college town in the middle of Utah Valley, has seen a surprising amount of success in a place much different from it: the music industry. But while the morals of the two worlds often clash, the band Red Yeti is using its values to find success.

The band consists of Kimball Barker, Coleman Edwards, Isaac Lomeli, Jared Scott and Nick Blosil — all Brigham Young University students, all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and all ready to bring something new to the music scene.

“We’re five Mormon guys, and I feel like it’s about time that people really saw that there is an equal standard of fun without anything but pure music and pure crowd interaction,” said Blosil, Red Yeti’s drummer.

Becoming who they are now — a band with a recently released extended play, which is more than a single but less than a full album, and winners of the 2012 RAW Artists “Musician of the Year” award with a growing fan base — has been a process.

“I first moved to Provo … I was really into indie folk music so I was writing that stuff,” said Kimball Barker, Red Yeti's lead singer. “Then I got together with Isaac and also Coleman, and I kind of just kept up with the indie folk stuff, and these guys were good enough to just go along with it.”

But slowly, things started to change.

“We were jamming after practice one time and were doing really blues-rock-like riffs and stuff,” Barker said. “Nick was bold enough to be like, ‘Dude, you should play this because this is you. You really seem honest and like you’re really expressing yourself when you play rock music.’”

Over time, this and other experiences guided the band to its current sound. Now, the band members agree that while they draw inspiration from many sources, they’ve found their niche in rock ‘n’ roll.

The band's tribute to classic rock in a modern era creates a sound that resonates across generations.

“We’ve found our most avid fans actually among our parents’ generation and then among high schoolers and teenagers,” Blosil said. “It’s really exciting to have that mix.”

While rock ‘n’ roll isn't necessarily the first place people think to find five returned Mormon missionaries, the band infuses its music and performances with the values and passions from each member's life — values like honesty, unity and service.

Throughout its evolution, the band has emphasized the idea of honesty, and each member feels this commitment to honesty will bring the band success.

“We finally just discovered that it doesn’t matter what people want to hear,” Edwards said. “It matters ... what the honest music is that comes out of you. The most important thing is … you basically play your emotions. You get out what’s on the inside, and you’ll find the people who like that. People will relate to it because it’s genuine.”

And like the adage says, the members of the band believe the truth will set them free — free to follow whatever sound best suits the band and free to be true to themselves.

“We really do feel like when people hear us, they’re going to feel us,” Barker said. “They’re going to feel that honesty and that we’re really trying to reach them and really opening ourselves to them, and that gives us freedom to, to do whatever we want with it. ... You know, we’re not under anyone else’s control but our own, and that’s how we want to keep it.”

But this honesty isn't confined to their time in the recording studio or on stage. Instead, the band members find that the first requirement of honest, genuine music is honesty in their everyday lives. - Deseret News

With Red Yeti’s upcoming EP release at Velour in sight, the band reflects on its evolution as it moves forward.

This EP marks a shift in the Red Yeti focus. The band’s setup once included banjo, violin and female vocalists. But today’s Red Yeti ditches folky vibes for rock ‘n roll’s sake.

Band frontman Kimball Barker said he initially wrote folk-driven, “heartbroken” songs because that’s who he was at the time. But he noted an additional motive — he wrote folk-rock-flavored songs to fit the Provo scene.

That changed one day after Barker finished a jam session with Red Yeti drummer Nic Blosil.

“We were making up these really cool blues-rock grooves,” Barker said. “And afterwards, Nic said, ‘Kimball, why don’t we play this more? It’s more you. That’s where you really express yourself more: through rock ‘n roll.’”

So the band made the switch. Keyboardist Coleman Edwards describes the band’s current sound as rock ‘n roll with a bluesy, new age feel. High-energy performances and guitar solos showcase these stylistic focal points. Red Yeti seems to have found its niche, a niche with room for more residents.

“We’re always trying to find other rock bands to share this with us,” Barker said. “We’re trying to make a scene here. But it’s not the Red Yeti scene. It’s the rock scene. We’re trying to get more people involved and really get rock music back to Provo.”

Barker noted that this new EP is “the most honest music they’ve ever made,” and to him, that’s the most important aspect of their style. Barker prioritizes artistic honesty over wooing record labels.

“The success comes when artists are really honest,” Barker said. “And when that’s present, I don’t think it matters whether you have a label or not. People are attracted to that honesty. And if people are attracted, then that will attract labels.”

Red Yeti members intend to own and maintain control over everything they create themselves. Their financial strategy has proved successful so far. They’ve paid for all band expenses exclusively with money they’ve made as a band.

What to expect at Friday’s show

Sometimes, Provo show-goers stand as statues, arms folded as they contemplate musical nuances. Red Yeti expects their audiences to break free from this mold and move.

“We don’t want people to just cross their arms, stand there and listen,” Barker said. “We want them to jump around, push each other around and sing along; that’s become the brand of Red Yeti. You’re supposed to go wild at a Red Yeti show.”

Stephen Aldridge, a filmmaker who created the Red Yeti Microtrilogy, sees a unique energy in the band members.

“Everyone has a personal side and a public side,” Aldridge said. “But musicians like Red Yeti also have this kind of turbo-charged performance mode where they take their own personality and launch it at the audience.”

But the band cultivates a soft side as well, according to Edwards. He said they seek to leave an inspiring, positive impact on listeners.

“During every show, we try to have, for lack of a better term, a tender moment,” Edwards said. “We try to have a moment where we just get real, talk about something and connect with the crowd.”

Red Yeti hits the stage at Velour Live Music Gallery (135 N University Ave, Provo, UT 84601) on Apr. 4. Doors open at 8 p.m. Find tickets here.

- See more at: http://universe.byu.edu/2014/04/02/release-the-red-yeti/#sthash.pwyTbz1W.dpuf - The Daily Universe

Why not quit school for music?

Kimball: There are things in school that we’ve learned that have benefited the band. Like in our band, we have a Master in Information Technology or Information Systems, and then we have two Public Relations Majors, and two Marketing Majors. With our combined knowledge, we manage everything about the band. I think a lot of artists have to depend on someone else like a marketing team or manager or things to get their stuff off the ground, and get it out there in the public, but we feel confident that we can do it all ourselves. So our whole idea is to keep things independent and be our own marketing team, our own PR people; we design our own website and things. We like having it all consolidated in one thing – that we make the music, but we also make all the business happen as well.

“Take Us Alive”

Kimball: We write our music together, we find it comes out best that way. “Take Us Alive” was written down in a cabin in Spring City, Utah – which is just this tiny little town. Last August we moved our stuff down there into this cabin and just wrote music for a week. During a break of songwriting, I was just on my guitar playing that opening riff to “Take Us Alive” and everyone kinda perked up. We all got on our instruments and jammed out the rest of it that day.

Testimony: Rock ‘n’ Roll Mormons

Kimball: So we’re all Mormons. Is that specific enough? But we love rock ‘n’ roll. That’s what we grew up on. I know personally rock ‘n’ roll is what got me through some hard times. I know the power of music and I’d like to share that with other people. Red Yeti has always been about making people have a good time and making people feel better about themselves, no matter their walk of life – that everyone can just enjoy the music. It brings people together. That unity – that’s kind of the message of Red Yeti: just get together and have a good time and be the best people you can be.

My philosophy is, if you want to really break the rules, keep The Commandments. It’s not the norm anymore in society…I don’t think we’re like overly religious. I think that people think it’s kind of cool, part of our brand is being good guys also who really like to play hard rock.

Where the hell does Red Yeti come from?

Coleman: It’s named after my pickup truck actually. It’s a 1987 bright red Toyota pickup. We bought a Yeti cooler a few years ago; we put a sticker from Yeti on the back of the truck, the truck got named the Red Yeti after that. We used the truck as the band started: we were getting to gigs, hauling all our equipment around; we put three of us in the little single cab up in the front, driving around. It kind of became part of the band itself, The Red Yeti did, ‘cuz it was all taking us around. - Meet the Bands

ABOUT
We at Red Yeti are a band focused on getting as many artists as possible involved in playing music. We encourage local artists to play with us and often feature guest soloists on violin, banjo, and xylophone. We attempt to utilize their talents in beautiful, but unconventional ways. We also strive to make a wide variety of music so people from all types of styles can enjoy listening to us play.
INSPIRATIONS
Red Yeti is inspired by many things, but one of the main things we as a band want to do is uplift those that listen to us. Each of us in Red Yeti has experienced times when music has changed who we are, motivated us, and helped us through rough moments. We are striving to produce music that will do just those things for everyone listening; thus, memories of our personal experiences with music are huge inspirations for what we produce. - RAWartists

Red Yeti's "Take Us Alive" was licensed to a national ad campaign for Altra running shoes. It has aired all over the country on ESPN for the past year. - Provo Buzz