Musical Notes- Blacken'd Red

Enjoy this installment of Musical Notes, with Angelo Noto Campanella as he reviews Blacken’d Red

I first met Iggy Pasalic during the session of July’s Art Crawl. Shortly after this meeting I attended a jam night in a remote location that lasted till dawn. I even got to sing some blues. There were three points ingrained in my mind during this interview;

“It’s all about the music”

“We’re not trying to reinvent anything”

“Ain’t nothing we won’t do for our kids”

Let me explain that last point. The members of Blacken’d Red along with their manager Valerie Savoy (of Killer Image) are organizing a fundraiser for the kids of Parkview School at Gage Park on August 25th. There are numerous local musicians that have signed on for this worthy cause. To get more info on this event follow this link http://killerimage.ca/parkview-school .

This 70’s guitar driven hard rock band has been influenced by Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Guns and Roses and Early Van Halen. They are definitely the consummate stadium band and give this kind of performance at venues across Ontario. All four members of Blacken’D Red are seasoned musicians which can be heard in every song they play. They’ve been nominated for a Hamilton Music Award and for Best New Hard Rock band in Ontario. Their song “Dimestore” off of a recent 6 song EP is #1 on CFMU radio. The members of the band are Jack Rogers on drums, Brian Pincombe on guitar, “Angry” Dave Green on bass and Iggy Pasalic on Vocals.

What role has the city of Hamilton played in your musical career?

We’re all from Hamilton. We’ve all lived in various places in Canada but we always come back to Hamilton. Hamilton is home “We’re from the Hammer” born and bred from back in the early “Banisters” days to going down to “This ain’t Hollywood” today. As far as I’m concerned it hasn’t changed much. The same vibe we got at Banisters 20 years ago, we’re getting that same vibe at Hollywood, with people that are passionate about music, and Hamiltonians have always loved music. Whether its punk rock, we’ve got “Teenage Head” and “The Forgotten Rebels”. We got hard rock “Blacken’D Red” and “Monster Truck” comin’ outta here. Monster Truck is on tour with “Slash” right now, kudos to them. We do quite a bit down at Hamilton Place, they’re behind us 100%.We got a CD release party happening down there in October, they’ve been absolutely great. The View magazine has been behind us, we had the front page and an article a few weeks back. That’s like Hamilton’s Rolling Stone (magazine) so I bought 5 copies and gave them to my mother … LOL … (http://youtu.be/FVMhZN-9V7c) Also with this benefit we’re doing at Gage Park, usually you gotta give 90 days notice for any permits to do something at the park, we told them what it was all about, that it was for the kids and there’s nothing we won’t do for our kids. If there’s any way we can give back and help out, we’re all about it. And to do it at a venue like that, Gage Park’s Band shell, I’m stoked and think it’s awesome. I’m hoping for a really good turnout for that. We have some great bands in mind that are gonna do it. I can’t really say a lot on it until it’s confirmed, but there’s some surprises in there too, it’s all Hamilton talent. All the Hamilton talent that you would expect to be there are gonna be there. Until we get the confirmation on paper then we’ll start promoting the rest of it. It’s in conjunction with Valerie Savoy, our manager from Killer Image. Thank god for Valerie, she’s really helped tremendously in pushing the band to the next level. She’s been community minded forever with her photographs and management skills and the City of Hamilton is behind us 100% on it. It’ll be a one day Festival for the kids.

What would you say makes your band stand out/ unique?

Quite honestly I don’t think we’re a whole lot different talent wise than a lot of the other great bands that come out of Hamilton. I think the difference comes from the fact that we’re not afraid to approach things a little bit differently, think out of the box a little bit. Don’t play the same bar circuit, create your own gigs. Do your own thing. Use your Imagination. Creativity. Hamilton Ontario is a Rock n’Roll staple. It always has been, it always will be and if there’s any way that Blacken’D Red can help push that forward then that’s why we’re here. You can never be more proud of your city and represent. Get out and support your local talent. I hear a lot of people me tell me that when they go out on tour they wanna stop in Hamilton. I ask why Hamilton and not Toronto? They say “We like Hamilton better, there seems to be more of a vibe, more of a Rock n’Roll thing goin’ on there”. And it’s true. Everybody wants to come and play Hamilton.

What are the goals for the band/ recording/ touring when and where?

We’re going back into Grant (Ave Studio) to do some more recording. We got a long EP recorded and it’s been released but we wanna record a full record. You don’t have to go to New York or L.A. to get world class (recording), we have it right here in Hamilton Ontario at Grant Ave Studio with Bob Doidge producing it.

To find out more about the band, tour dates, and hear some of their music follow the links below.

http://blackendred.com/
http://www.facebook.com/blackend.red
http://www.myspace.com/blackendred
http://www.reverbnation.com/blackendred
http://soundcloud.com/blackend-red
http://killerimage.ca/tag/blackend-red/