“It’s one of those things where, especially in the Melbourne scene, you can’t wait around for yourselves to be put on festivals,” she says. “Admittedly when it comes to the local shows we do, we get approached to do them, but when it comes to doing something a bit more spectacular, you may as well do it yourself.”
Another advantage of doing it this way is that it gave them the freedom to fill the lineup with many of their favourite bands. “It allows us to play with all the local bands that inspire us and that we think rock the hardest,” von Johannsohn says. “We think that’s an important thing in performance. Sometimes there’s a tendency to forget that you’re performing, or telling a story. The bands that stand out are the ones that really get with the audience and put all the blood, sweat, beers and angst into the performance. So we’re hoping it’s going to be a very impressive day for the audience.”
El Riot! will be headlined by Dead City Ruins, which was a massive coup for Red Light Riot, as these Melbourne rock gods are serious crowd-pleasers. “It’s really good timing too, because they’ve just been in the studio recording their latest album,” von Johannsohn says. “It’s part of the first bunch of shows they’re doing after getting out of the studio, so hopefully we get to hear some of their new songs.”
The remainder of the lineup is just as impressive. “We’ve got the Captives boys, they’re second-headlining. They’re apparently training up a brass section, which is going to be pretty epic. They wipe the stage those guys; really, really impressive. Then of course it’s the Red Light Riot single launch; then we’ve got Wolfpack for one of their first shows back in Melbourne after their USA tour with DRI; Suiciety, who of course have been around since the early-’90s, which is amazing; Blind Man Death Stare are on before they skip off to New Zealand for a tour. So there’s lots of little milestones for a few of the bands.”
Von Johannsohn’s actually playing in another band prior to Red Light Riot’s set. “My new band Stay Sharp will be doing a digital launch of our EP, which is exciting. So I’ll be sweating it out twice on the night.”
In Shadows itself may be a sub-two minute, scream-driven punk explosion, but it’s crammed with potent subject matter. “In terms of the theme of the song, it’s basically around the atrocities inflicted on the victims of war. One of the drivers behind the message of Red Light Riot is that we can never become complacent and there’s always a story to tell. It’s for people who think that their voice doesn’t matter.”
This push to represent the underdogs and minorities in our society is another key tenet of the Red Light Riot message. “It’s a vicious cycle, where you get told by society that you’re not good enough, or you get trapped in things like religion. And of course there’s nothing wrong with having a belief system, but when it’s used as an excuse for fascism, for the right to tell me as a gay woman that how I live is wrong, that’s just fucked. It’s a message for people to break free.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
