We recently had the opportunity to speak to Red Light Factory about their recent release ' Avalon' and pretty much everything else RLF.
Your music has been described as dark, heavy, slightly psychedelic with nocturnal allure. How would you describe the Red Light Factory identity to someone who hasn’t heard you yet?
A melting pot of dark potions. One day we’ll be trying to out-heavy Black Sabbath and on other days we’ll be trying to think how we can sound more like Kraftwerk.
Manchester’s music scene right now seems vibrant but also full of nostalgia for past eras. Where do you see yourselves fitting in, and what bands or artists from the city right now excite you?
We don’t really fit into any sort of scene, to be honest. I always loved how The Fall managed to maintain that dynamic for 30 odd years. Tying yourself to a scene means that when the scene inevitably dies after everyone gets bored of it, your band dies too. And by the way, in this day and age there’s a lot of bands piggybacking off each other - they all look the same, sound the same and are probably all drink the same lager, whilst the drummer hits the bass drum between each song and they chant “du du du du du f**k the tories” or whatever the latest trend is. If you want truly independent bands in-keeping with the ethic of the city, that make music purely for the love of the game, then look no further than us, DR DR, The Recreation, K-Estate and Dirty Laces. We’ve always forged our own paths making the music we want to make. Having said that, we’re all massively different - so in a sense we aren’t a scene. But I guess we all have one thing in common… being criminally underrated.
‘Avalon’ just dropped—what inspired the track? Is there a specific story, place, feeling, or reference (mythical Avalon, personal experience, or something else) behind it?
Avalon is directly inspired by night time walking around Amsterdam. Every time I’ve been there has led to a quite inexplicable story like finding Voldemort in a Holiday Inn wardrobe or going out to buy chips and accidentally ending up in Madame Tussauds and coming face to face with a waxwork Nelson Mandela. It’s a place that tests the boundaries of human temptation. Fortunately, I am comfortable being an observer of the inner workings of cities, rather than than someone who throws themselves directly into the fire pit like Ross Kemp - and if things go Pete Tong, you can always find refuge in an Irish pub.
Lyrically and sonically, how does Avalon build on or differ from your debut single ‘Manson Song’? What were you trying to capture with this release?
All the songs have quite dark lyrical themes around human psychology. There’s tonnes of cultural references in the songs for people to find. I guess that tendency came from my love of Richey Edwards-era Manic Street Preachers material; particularly the Holy Bible album. Manson Song is quite explicitly about Charles Manson and the family, whilst Silver Screen Getaway Driver references Linda Kasabian (the Manson murders getaway driver). Avalon attacks things from a broader sense of temptation towards short term gratification being something thats ingrained in the human psyche. Sonically, we never really place limits on where we want to take things. Most of our favourite bands from The Clash, to The Smiths all pushed boundaries wherever possible.
Can you walk us through the creation of ‘Avalon’ — from the initial idea or riff to the final recording? Who contributed what, and what was the studio process like with Dean Glover or others involved?
It started as a GarageBand demo on my laptop a few years ago. It was not far off being the final track actually. I remember showing it to Ben for the first time in his van as a tune we could potentially develop. I think I used a GarageBand drum setting called ‘Big Room’ which almost blew his speakers. It genuinely sounded massive. After a few months, we’d developed a more polished version of the demo on Logic which we were then ready to take to Dean at Vibe. Ben re-recorded some of the guitar tracks to tighten them up, as I’m generally quite a sloppy player, which wasn’t really the order of the day for a track like ‘Avalon’, he then put the acoustic drums down and we went home. I took the instrumental mix away on holiday to Tenerife and wrote the lyrics on a rooftop sun bed. Which is quite ironic when you consider the themes of the song and the sort of place it was inspired by. Sometimes inspiration arrives late.
The title ‘Avalon’ carries a lot of mythological weight (King Arthur, paradise, etc.). Did that symbolism play into the song’s meaning, or is it more personal/everyday for you?
The title ‘Avalon’ was one I initially came across on a Roxy Music album. But yes, it does carry a Celtic mythological backdrop. ‘An island paradise where heroes went to die’ is not your average contemporary song theme. I guess I was trying to paint Amsterdam as a place where people go to lose a sense of themselves. That’s the city that inspired the lyrics. Once you know that, then the whole thing makes sense.
Your sound draws comparisons to Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, The Fall, and Fontaines D.C. Which artists or albums have been heavy on rotation while writing and recording this material?
It’s always an honour to be compared to your heroes and we’ve never made any apology for promoting ourselves to new fans by explicitly stating our influences. ‘Avalon’ is sonically inspired by two albums that came out during our college years between 2013 and 2015 - namely, ‘Currents’ by Tame Impala and ‘AM’ by Arctic Monkeys. That style of production always seemed out of reach at the age of 17 when we were just starting out. But, as we’ve developed our understanding of composition and recording, we’ve finally been able to draw upon that particular place in time and manifest it in our own way. I guess the reason that influence has come back round is my tendency to revisit previous albums by bands that have just released new material - and this applies directly to Tame Impala and Arctic Monkeys. I can’t really say that AM was a particular favourite of mine when it came out, but I’ve recently developed a love for it’s tight and compact approach.
As a band that handles much of your own recording, booking, and promotion, what’s been the biggest challenge—or most rewarding part—of doing it independently with Red Light Factory?
Like a lot of bands stuck in between genres, we are systematically ignored by the machine. We’re never seen as quite heavy enough to be classed as Rock & Metal or quite light and melodic enough to be classed as Indie. So, because we cant really be put in a box, we aren’t seen as particularly marketable. People don’t know what an archetypal RLF fan looks like. But this is something we relish. We’re here to play the long game. We don’t expect an overnight explosion and a sold out headline tour off the back of playing a cover of ‘There She Goes’ outside Boots on Tik Tok like some bands have achieved. We’re uncompromisingly making the music we want to make and if people want to get on board now, in 2 years or even in 5 years, then that’s sound.
You’ve got a big Manchester headline show coming up at Rat & Pigeon. What can fans expect from a Red Light Factory live show, especially now with ‘Avalon’ in the set?
Tight, but not too tight. The key to a great live band is organised chaos. I went to watch Echo & The Bunnymen at the Albert Hall a couple of months ago, and the way Ian Mculloch kept things on the ragged edge whilst complimenting the tightness of the band was like watching a master of the dark arts casting spells over the audience. That’s the benchmark for us - hit the heights of a musical Professor Snape.
Finally, if you could have any artist (dead or alive) join you on stage for a performance of ‘Avalon’, who would it be and why?
It would have to be Kevin Parker. Those big hall, dreamy backing vocals are exactly his game.
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