I love a rock song that manages to fit almost all of rock and roll history into a few minutes. Luckily for me, Pittsburgh, PA legends The Redlines are back with another rock and roll anthem for the impending summer! On their newest single “Runnin’ With The Pack,” the band masters that mid-tempo, nearly spoken-word style to talk about putting up with mistreatment for attention.
Founder by singer, guitarist Brian Seese, The Redlines have been playing for nearly a decade around the Pittsburgh area. Rounding out the lineup is bassist Sandro Campagna, drummer Tony Vinski, and second guitarist Jason Lizzi. Together, the four of them have cooked up a slew of thrashy, trashy rock and roll hits. With radio play around Pennsylvania and Ohio, the band is constantly expanding their presence in middle America.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the video for “Runnin’ With The Pack,” a song that’s built around a Lou Reed-esque vocal performance from Seese. The guitar tone is crunchy, reminiscent of Lou’s New York period. But the song is not just a Velvet Undergound worship track. As Seese’s tongue-twister lyrics cascade across the driving back beat and scorching licks, the band manages to condense the almost hundred-year history of rock music into three minutes and twelve seconds. There’s blues riffage reminiscent of “Rocket 88.” There’s organ that recalls bands like The Doors. And then, there’s the wistful, driving attitude that brings to mind bands like Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. It takes a special band to combine all of these sounds into something seamless. The Redlines are that special band.
While the lyrics of “Runnin’ With The Pack” are about what we go through for attention and love. But, The Redlines are runnin’ with a pack of great rock and roll bands that came before them. Listen to the single, watch the band run through the Pittsburgh streets in the video, and stick around for an interview with the artist below!
Watch the video and read out chat with the band below…
You’ve talked about how this song was sort of inspired by your dog. How did the song move from about a puppy biting your leg to a song about the complexities of human relationships?
Running with The Pack came about rather quickly. I sat down to work on a specific 12-string song that we had started but my new Akita puppy wouldn’t leave me alone and just kept biting at me while I was trying to work. Once I got him calmed down I had all kinds of scratches and bites on my arm from him so I just grabbed my guitar and was singing lines about my dog ripping me to shreds. It was a fun song to write but I wanted to steer it away from being about my dog cause it didn’t seem too rock and roll.
What I had written reminded me of a “Here’s Looking at You, Kid” by The Gaslight Anthem where he sings “…Bleeding out from all these wounds…That will cut you to ribbons sometimes. And all you can do is just wait by the moon and bleed if it’s what she says you oughta do.” So I went down a somewhat similar path but made it about a guy who is so infatuated with his one-night stand that he hopes to make it last longer regardless of the emotional pain she might be inflicting. Sometimes a new relationship can become like a drug to the point that you might ignore any warning signs.
The mix is pretty big here. Even though the core of the song is sort of this simple, garage-y kind of thing, was there a conscious effort to kind of fill the space as you were recording?
We didn’t try to fill the space for the sake of filling space but it was more of a result of experimenting with different things to emulate some of our favorite bands. We felt this song had a bit of a 70’s glam feel to it like New York Dolls, Sweet, or even T-Rex so we tried to play that up a bit with the instrumentation. For the vocals, our producer, Eddie Ashworth, really enjoys experimenting with backing vocals which really shine on his work with Frenzal Rhomb, Long Beach Dub Allstars, and the Ziggens. So we tried to take advantage of his enthusiasm where we could and played around with some of his different ideas.
How does this song compare to the rest of the material on the forthcoming Kick Out Today?
All four songs are pretty different but we picked these songs in particular for this album because we felt that at their core was a strong garage rock component. We wanted to explore the subgenres of garage rock but put our own spin on each song. One song has a 50’s greaser/surf feel, another has a 60’s soul vibe, and the other song is more punk/grunge garage-rock revival. It wasn’t an attempt to re-create those types of songs but rather to find inspiration in those subgenres to create our own unique take that fits with our fuller, shinier sound.
Y’all are on a couple small labels. Could you talk about dividing your distribution between labels?
We’re currently working with two labels, both out of Pittsburgh. Swade Records is our longtime label founded by our bass player, Tony Vinski, back in 2004 and they will be focused on digital distribution. Pyschodaisy Records is handling the production and distribution of our CDs. We got hooked up with Pyschodaisy through their founder, Tim Thomas, the publisher of Second Scene magazine who ran a feature on us last year. This label was something he set up years ago that went dormant for awhile and we reached out to him when we found out that he was looking to resurrect the label to put out new music.
When can we expect more music?
The full 4-song “Kick Out Today” EP will be released on April 22. And then we’re heading back to Eddie’s studio in June to start recording 4-5 new songs for our next EP that we’re hoping to have ready by early spring of 2023. The plan is to similarly release that one digitally and on CD but then also combine it with this one to make a double EP vinyl release. Pray to the vinyl gods that production times are in our favor!
