Guitarist and production whiz Damien Charles (aka King Charlie) explained the rationale behind the band’s decision to call it a day. “In a band it’s like a gang but as you get older everybody breaks off and has families and that’s what’s happening to us. We could have just left it drift off and not do as much work…but I thought it would be good to finish with a bang!”
When contemplating his personal highlights of a decade spent in The Red Eyes, Damien says with a laugh, “It’s actually quite hard to remember a lot of it! We always had a very generous drink rider!” Despite this alcohol-induced haze Damien was able to recall some stellar moments such as “the early days when we started as a jam thing when we got together on Sunday in the afternoon at The Laundry in Fitzroy…we had some amazing people who came and guested with us. We had a guy who came and played pedal steel, which sounded amazing. He was from The Rectifiers I think.”
It didn’t take the band long to attract attention. “El [Witeri] turned up [as singer] and the audience quickly became really big when we started doing Tuesdays at The Evelyn…that was a really great time.” The Red Eyes also had a memorable visit to New Caledonia. “A highlight was playing a festival in New Caledonia,” Damien said. “We were flown over by the French government…there was a huge soccer field filled with families and kids…” Damien regards the band’s performance at Woodford a couple of years ago as a “bittersweet” moment. “We ended up doing a three hour set. El had found out that his sister who he had only just met had died in a car accident. Bill, the guy who was running Woodford, he was talking to El saying, ‘You don’t have to do the show. We will totally understand’. It was over the New Year’s Eve countdown…El couldn’t do anything as his sister’s body was going to be with the coroner for a couple of days and he decided, ‘I’m going to do the show and dedicate it to her’. The audience and the band were so in synch with one another.”
Damien, in considering how the band might be remembered in years to come, says, “I feel like we have been bunched in with a few acts here and there, and I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but the acts are quite fluffy, breezy and have lyrics about smoking pot or loving surfing, but that’s not really where we’re at and it’s not what our songs are about. El’s lyrics are a lot deeper than that. I think our legacy in the future will be that people who were listening to us and going to festivals when we were playing with those sorts of bands will sort of hear us and go, ‘There was a bit more substance to it’…a lot of El’s songs are about struggling with personal demons and trying to not let them take charge…and about a sense of community.”
Despite the band’s demise, these talented musos are likely to pop up in numerous guises in the coming years. Damien, who is a busy producer, sound engineer and mixer, is involved in a number of musical projects. “I try to follow my heart and my intuition…I have been doing an acoustic duo with my girlfriend Kate Lucas who is an amazing singer and songwriter. I have also got a thing called Silver Seeds – they’re the songs that I wrote when I got home from Red Eyes gigs at four in the morning. It’s very different. It’s not reggae at all. It’s more kind of Beatlesy, Neil Youngy pop rock. We have also got a band called School of Dub which is an offshoot of The Red Eyes…it’s a bit more back to the very early days more of a dub jam and less of a big show.”
Talking about big shows, Damien provided an appetite-whetting glimpse of what the audience can expect from The Red Eyes final gig. “We are going to be playing some songs from the very early days that we haven’t played for years. We are going to be playing a pretty big show. We have worked out a show that will be at least two hours long. There will be some special guests…some of the people from the early days will be getting up and playing some of our songs. The whole idea is for it to be a celebration of a great time!”
BY GRAHAM BLACKLEY
