Red Cavalry

Red Cavalry are the alternative rock duo of James Peate (Guitar, Vocals, Mandolin) and Alex James (Bass, Drums, Guitar & Vocals). Based between Aberystwyth, Wales and Bavaria, Germany. Their newest single, Red House is out now and I had a catch up with the pair to talk about their music.

How did Red Cavalry come about? 

"We’ve been friends since meeting in university and had played in bands there. Alex had written a song he wanted lyrics too, which resulted us coming up with the idea of writing and recording an album in a retro ‘60s’ way: we got together for a week in Germany and wrote and recorded an albums worth of songs. 

That got us started and we synced in to writing and recording cycle after that first album (James doing most of the writing in UK, Alex doing most of the production, mixing and mastering in Germany.)"

Who are your biggest influences?

"We’ve both got a definite love of 60’s music especially The Beatles and The Beach Boys but with the song we’re releasing this year there’s a bit more of The Cure and The Smiths as well as The Byrds with the brighter, jangling, layering of guitars."

Are there any advantages or disadvantages performing as a duo as opposed to a 4 or 5 piece band?  

"With the nature of living across a continent, there only being two of us to organise makes things much easier both in getting things recorded and having everyone sit down and make decisions on things. More so than ever with the current world situation, the duo format makes rocking up and playing outdoors or smaller venues easier, with less equipment. For example, we never have to travel with instruments knowing that we both have stuff we can pick up and play either side of the channel on arrival.

Whereas we wrote our earlier songs with a mind to being played by two people on just acoustic and an electric guitar; with the more layered and rounded sound of the new songs it makes it more of a challenge to think about playing live. There are also certain limitations on drums and maybe keys that would make things easier with more members."

What's your setup for live performances and how does it compare to studio recordings? 

"Thus far we’ve been very basic, just using one acoustic and one electric. But in future I think we’d like to get a bassist and drummer on board for live shows – though its very hard to plan at the minute. 

The sound of our up coming album Alas, So Long and the tracks from it are very dominated by the rhythm of my Rickenbacker and the lead of Alex’s PRS – both very distinctive sounds and not one that is easily replicated by just an acoustic and one of the electrics."

Currently, you're both living in different countries, how does that effect your progress with music?

"There’s obviously a difficulty in the recording process, where there’s a delay as one person sends something over and you have to wait to see if the other person likes it, or it fits once mixed in. Or conversely as with the first record you suffer delays until you’re able to be together and then under time constraint as to what you’re able to produce. 

Ironically, its turned into a strength with the pandemic as where a lot of artists are having to adjust or put things on hold we’re still writing and recording as normal. I also feel that working over the internet slows everything down, when together there are often more distractions and outside pressures (practicing, gigging, limited studio etc) that can cause you to want to rush things."

Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time? 

"More than anything we want to keep writing and recording as well as hopefully working with different people – whether that be on music projects, or video and graphic design for our music.

Hopefully with a few more albums under our belt still growing our fan base, in an ideal world to do more and bigger live shows across Europe. For the most part we just want to keep putting out music we enjoy, in genres where you don’t get great songs or albums in the mainstream anymore."

If you could jam with any other musician, who would it be and why?

"(From James) Personally I’d love to jam with Yuri Kasparyan from Kino. Which I know is not someone many people will have heard of but Kino’s sound has a big influence on me, and his guitar style is so unique, I feel I could play anything and it would ending sounding awesome with him playing on it."

As a rock duo, do you ever get compared to other bands with a similar setup?

"Not really as a duo, the constraints of not being together and having drums and bass in recordings I think somewhat dampens the perception of us as a duo. More focus so far has fallen on the guitar style comparing us to bands like REM, The Cure and The Smiths; which is never a bad thing."

Considering the current situation (COVID19), what are your plans following the release of your new music?

"With the new album and the singles from it we should have new music to release throughout most of the rest of the year. We were hoping to have done some live shows in Germany and the UK in the autumn but obviously that’s no longer an option. 

Instead we’ve plans to remaster or record songs from our first album No Music but Class Music and re-release that. But mainly we’ll be on to recording some new songs and hopefully the next album for 2021, which I’m writing currently."

Final word: Red Cavalry take the mic

"Thanks for having us on! We’d love it if people would check out our music if they haven’t its on all major streaming platforms and they head over to twitter, Facebook or Instagram and let us know what they thought, or ask us question or even just say hi! We’ve got links to our music on all the socials too!"

Instagram.com/redcavalrymusic

https://m.facebook.com/redcavalryband

https://twitter.com/redcavalryband?s=09

Fantastic having a chat with Red Cavalry. Dont forget to follow them on Spotify.

If you would like the opportunity to take the mic, drop me an email at stewjones22@gmail.com