Duty Calls

It started as a jam session, solidified as a 12-piece and is now down to seven multi-instrumental musicians.  The Red Eyes exude talent, and according to guitarist and creative mind, Damien Charles, it's all organic. “I thought it would be great to have a live band. I knew a lot of musicians so I roped in heaps of different people.

The first ever drummer and guitarist were Redford and Sam from Shapeshifter. But every week there were different musicians and we'd just jam out and I would dub mix it and what have you.”

Fate intervened when El Witeri, a reggae vocalist and ex-flatmate arrived in Melbourne and went knocking on Charles' door.

“We lost contact when I came over here after a few years. Then he just turned up on my doorstep one day. He found me and said he'd come to do music - he'd sold up everything in New Zealand to come over to Melbourne to try and find me and do music. It just so happened that I thought he'd slot into The Red Eyes perfectly.”

What resulted was a growing fan base, a move to a bigger venue, offers to play at some of Australia's most well known festivals and reviews describing them as Melbourne's 'reggae/ dub monster band'.

“We never rehearsed, we'd just improvise, but gradually the line-up consolidated into people that were keen to do it all the time. We got offers to play at festivals, like the Bellingen Global Carnival, so we thought we should release something. We actually started rehearsing songs and made our first couple of records.”

Those rehearsals and records have led them to 2010 and 'Red Army', an outgoing, politically minded mix of soulful lyrics and intricate programming with the energy of a live show.  The album also features The Red Eyes' only recorded cover - 'I Get Wild/ Wild Gravity' by Talking Heads.

“We've always chucked songs we like into the live sets and I wanted to make this album more like a live set, especially the first half of it. (I Get Wild/ Wild Gravity) is a song we've been doing live for about a year or so, we really like it, it's a cool song.”

CATCH THE RED EYES' TOUR OF DUTY AT THE ZOO SATURDAY JUNE 5. ‘RED ARMY’ IS AVAILABLE NOW ON I-TUNES.