The latest act to stop by Baton Rouge, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus will open for Seether tonight at the Varsity Theatre. Guitarist and vocalist Ronnie Winter spoke about RJA’s new album and plans.
“We’ve been finished since December, and we actually recorded it in three weeks,” Winter said about the new album called “Am I the Enemy.” “We collaborated with John Feldmann, who is amazing at what he does. We were really efficient.”
RJA’s new single “Reap” is representative of one of the band’s many different sounds on its new LP, Winter said.
“We just jump into whatever style we want,” Winter said. “We make records that flow like playlists that don’t have one specific sound.”
Lyrically, Winter said he focuses inward to write about things that matter to the band.
“They’re all based on our past, future, reflections on what’s going on around us,” Winter said.
Winter said while few remixes exist of the band’s songs, he is not opposed to a remastered track.
“I recently tried to get someone to play around with some of our songs, but it came out terrible,” Winter said. “I don’t want to rule out a remix album, though, as long as it’s good.”
The setlist for the show pulls a lot from the band’s new material.
“We play the new stuff every single day of this tour,” Winter said. “I’ve gotten a lot of responses from fans at the show and then with comments on our Facebook and Twitter page.”
The new album still draws from the band’s roots, though.
“On the first album, we had a lot of post-hardcore tendencies,” Winter said. “We went a little more alternative rock with the second record. There’s probably five or six songs on the new record like ‘Reap,’ with a good amount of screaming and really heavy drums and guitar, but then there’s a couple of punk rock songs on there too.”
Creating songs that sound similar to the band’s old material is unintentional, Winter said.
“We just write and play riffs, whatever we feel at that time,” Winter said. “We write a lot of stuff on the road.”
John Feldmann is an accomplished writer who has written for many different pop acts, including Good Charlotte and Hilary Duff, who worked with RJA on their album.
“We wrote a lot of great stuff in two days,” Winter said. “We are just surprised at that, and we thought how much better the stuff could be if we worked together for two months.”
RJA has played in Baton Rouge multiple times and enjoys both the Varsity and the college atmosphere near it.
“We love playing the Varsity,” Winter said. “The best part is the how it’s right off campus, and last time we bought bikes from that bike shop and rode around.”
Yet not every tour experience has been pleasant. Winter said the band has had odd instances with fans.
“There’s always some girl or guy who claim they are related to people in the band and just try to sneak backstage to hang out,” Winter said. “This one girl tried convincing the security manager that I was the father of her child and I was like, ‘Bitch, I’ve been married for six years, and I don’t know who the hell you are.”