When I first saw Little Red play, it was like someone had dragged me by the scruff of my neck through a time portal and dumped me at a 1960s dance. Youthful boys in grey suits were singing four part harmonies, the crowd had grins plastered on their faces, and for a brief forty five minute set I fell under the Little Red spell.
They are a band that has the rare talent of being able to cherry-pick the best bits of the 1960s rhythm, blues and soul sound and fashion it to something which is entirely their own. They are also horribly sincere and have won hearts all across Australia, making established music reviewers ‘squee’ with delight, and convincing minor mid-‘90s television celebrities to come in for session work.
At the moment, however, all bassist and singer Quang wants is a cup of tea. Having just returned from a hectic tour with The Panics, much like an athlete training for the Olympics (but without the Uncle Toby’s sponsorship) his body has been pushed to limit and he knew he was going to “crumble and have a meltdown afterwards.” But despite the sickness, he’s generous enough to run through the process of recording Little Red’s soon be released debut LP Listen to Little Red.
Despite recording with producer Steve Schram, who the band has a long working relationship with, it was a battle to capture their live performance on tape. Quang admits that “we recorded 10 or 11 songs before time got ahead of us, and in the end a lot of stuff which made it on to the album was first or second takes.” There was also a strong emphasis on trying to set their sound apart from their obvious influences. “What we listen to, a lot of it is what you’d expect – The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Kinks and The Rolling Stones. We still think that kind of music is the best. I mean we’re writing the kind of music we want to hear, but we’re still trying to work out how to progress our sound.”
During recording though, one past television luminary was already convinced that the Little Red boys had the skills to pay their respective bills. The album features Hey Hey it’s Saturday musician Wilbur Wilde offering his sweet sax sound on the track Jackie Cooper. Wilbur still has awesome chops apparently, and retold years of anecdotes and experiences in the recording studio. “He’s got a zillion stories, he just thinks so fast, way faster than me anyway,” Quang jokes. And for future reference, how do you hijack the talents of a past television legend? “Age [guitarist Adrian Beltrame] works at the local video store that Wilbur comes into heaps, and we just asked him, ‘Hey, do you want to play sax on our record?’ We gave him our EP and he liked it so he came in.” It’s that easy folks.
This recording will be released to a rabid fan base developed over Little Red’s hectic summer, which saw them hitting Australia’s festival scene with abandon. Reminiscing, Quang is definite about which festival topped the list. “For me personally, Meredith was amazing. There’s the one stage, everyone gathers in the valley, there’s drinks, the couches, and people just watch music and have a great time.” And if the gods weren’t already smiling on Little Red, they definitely made themselves known at the Supernatural Amphitheatre. “It was raining the whole of the previous night and most of the morning and thirty minutes before we started, the clouds parted and the sun came out and all these people came out of their tents to watch us. It was pretty special.”
This intervention, divine or simply a quirk of the notoriously unreliable Meredith weather, proved to be prophetic. Little Red then went on to win the Garage 2 V competition and shared the stage at this year’s V Festival with such luminaries as The Smashing Pumpkins and Hot Hot Heat. But more importantly, they got to taste the fruits of success. And by fruits, I mean copious amounts of alcohol. “It was fucking great the way they treated you at V Festival,” Quang enthuses. “Everyone got these awesome riders – they were massive – and buggies, and they put us in the 80th floor of the Meridian with 360 degree views of Sydney.”
It sounded ostentatious, as you’d expect the behind the scenes workings of any big festival to be, but buggies Quang? Who needs buggies? Laughing, he goes on to explain that once you reach a certain level of success you can’t be expected to walk like normal punters. “The buggies were just to get around. We only walked for about 100 metres the entire festival!”
Critics may well ask whether Little Red have made it. Whether they are truly successful. Can they walk the stage with stars such as Billy Corgan and Duran Duran? I answer them with this – they don’t walk anymore. They have buggies.
Listen to Little Red is out June 28. The band plays Come Together Festival in Sydney on 7 June. They also support Vampire Weekend on 4 August at Metro Theatre in Sydney and 6 August at Melbourne’s Prince of Wales.
