Red Wanting Blue

Balancing Act
With From the Vanishing Point, Red Wanting Blue looks for an even broader fan base

By Brian Baker

Over the past 15 years, Red Wanting Blue front man Scott Terry – the only constant in the Columbus, Ohio-based band -- has self-released eight albums, welcomed and bid farewell to several members, enjoyed a fair amount of critical acclaim, toured to within an inch of his sanity and amassed a rabidly dedicated fan base that follows the edgy modern rock outfit’s every move.

By all rights, Terry shouldn’t be intimidated by anything or anyone at this point and, in large part, he isn’t in the least. And yet, when it came time for From the Vanishing Point, RWB’s ninth album, there were considerations that transcended Terry’s previous experiences, namely that the new album represented the first time the band had recorded for an actual label.

“We signed with Fanatic in spring of 2010, and they wound up re-releasing our last record, These Magnificent Miles,” says Terry via phone from a Cleveland tour stop. “This is the first album we’ve made with Fanatic from scratch.”

The reissue of These Magnificent Miles created a few trickle-down effects; first and foremost, it caused a gap in RWB’s steady release schedule to that point.

“We signed with Fanatic, and our fans were expecting something new, and we had to shine them on for another year,” says Terry. “The label said, ‘The rest of the country has to hear [These Magnificent Miles] first.’ ”

Perhaps the more significant impact came from the gap itself. While Fanatic worked These Magnificent Miles to a wider audience that hadn’t yet been charmed by the quintet, RWB used the holding pattern to hone the material that would comprise Vanishing Point, its official label debut.

“We were able to set aside time for pre-production for the album, and give ourselves time to work on the songs, so it was a little different from our previous records,” says Terry. “We would lighten our schedules a little bit, but to be able to take time was a real treat for us.”

One of Terry’s primary concerns with Vanishing Point was to balance the band’s desire to evolve creatively while reassuring longtime fans that Red Wanting Blue hadn’t traded its integrity or altered its sound for a label deal. Terry and the band (singer/bassist Mark McCullough, guitarist/keyboardist/singer Greg Rahm, guitarist/singer Eric Hall, drummer/percussionist Dean Anshutz) kept that in the forefront of their thoughts as they shaped the songs for Vanishing Point.

“To our fans, there’s a certain idea of what’s going to happen now that we’ve signed to a label; ‘Is the sound going to change?’” says Terry. “I wanted to make sure we were remaining true to what Red Wanting Blue has been historically, as we develop and try to explore new musical territory.”

The one common element that inextricably linked These Magnificent Miles to From the Vanishing Point was the road. RWB has been a constant tour fixture over the course of their history in general and over the past two years specifically, and that created a connection between their last album and their next one.

“These Magnificent Miles was a record we wrote about the road, because it’s what we’ve been doing for over a decade,” says Terry. “From the Vanishing Point is a record that was written on the road; we’ve been doing nothing but touring strong for the last two years, 150-plus shows a year. The writing for From the Vanishing Point is kind of picking up where These Magnificent Miles left off, and that was important for us. We’re really proud of this record because it stands to be the best culmination of our sound, past, present and future, all on one record.”

While RWB’s road experiences inspired the songs on Vanishing Point, they also provided Terry with the album’s title. He flirted with what would have been a familiar variation before settling on the final version that identifies the album.

“It’s a line from the lyric from the song ‘Love Remains,’ ” Terry notes. “We thought it was appropriate. We’ve been living on the road for over ten years; although Columbus is home base, the road has been the home of this band for the last decade. Think of Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings From Asbury Park; I almost wanted the title to be Greetings From the Vanishing Point. It’s what we do, staring at the road, driving all the time.”

To maintain consistency between the last album and the new album, RWB once again called on producer Jamie Candiloro to helm the board. Candiloro provided the same professional sonic edge that distinguished These Magnificent Miles while offering an expansive subtlety to Vanishing Point that signals RWB’s graduation to a larger sphere of influence.

“We wanted stuff to sound familiar, to represent RWB as what it has been and what it’s forming into and what we hope it to be,” says Terry. “For all the people who have no idea who Red Wanting Blue is yet, this is the first album we’re really pushing with our label. We’ve never had more traction with radio interested and getting press on the album. We wanted to hold true to the people who know us and at the same time represent ourselves accurately to the people who have no idea who we are yet.”

One of the big departures for Red Wanting Blue on Vanishing Point is the methodology the band utilized for developing and presenting the songs for the album. In the past, given the band’s independent and somewhat cultish reputation, RWB enjoyed the luxury of a certain casual transparency in the writing process and often tested new material on their audiences long before taking it into the studio. With These Magnificent Miles, they learned the downside of that practice.

“Fans really loved the album but they said, ‘I just wish there was more new music; we’ve heard this some of this stuff over the years, and I wish there was more to discover,’ So we wanted to keep a lot of this music close to our chest and not let much out. The way technology is these days, I’ve played a song for the first time, no one’s ever heard it, and the next town, the next day, somebody knows the words already because they saw it in YouTube. You’ve got to be cloak and dagger about what you let people hear.”

One aspect of Red Wanting Blue that had the potential of being both benefit and detriment is the band’s long history. Terry first assembled Red Wanting Blue while a student at Ohio University in Athens in 1996. Three years later, he moved the band to Columbus where they have remained ever since. Over the years, RWB’s gained a reputation as an explosive live act while going through the natural growing pains and rotating personnel that afflict most bands.

“It takes a long time to find your sound and sometimes to let that sound find you,” says Terry. “You go out on the road and you’re young and you don’t know shit, and all you know is you want to go play music and you love it. And as much as you like to think you’re going to make a dent in the world, the world dents you right back and a lot harder.”

In 2007, RWB was named one of the best independent bands in the country by the music website Alternative Addiction; the following year saw the release of These Magnificent Miles, the recording of which was filmed by New York producer/documentarian Ken Davenport, who combined studio and live footage to create These Magnificent Miles: On the Road with Red Wanting Blue. The band’s long timeline and fervent fan base should have been irresistible to labels but they stayed away from RWB for a bafflingly long stretch. Even Fanatic was slightly reticent.

“The label was very nervous right away about, ‘Are your fans going to hate Fanatic because you’re signed now and you’re not this mom and pop thing?’ ” says Terry. “Fortunately, our fans are like, ‘It’s time. We want this band to be seen and heard.’ ”

So far, reaction to Vanishing Point from those passionately zealous fans, as well as new listeners and critics, has been overwhelmingly positive. Back in October, RWB previewed the album in its entirety at Columbus’ premiere venue and site of some of the band’s biggest shows, the Newport Music Hall. For all the times the band has played in Columbus - for all the time they’ve played everywhere - previewing their real label debut was more than a little nerve wracking.

“I was really nervous; it was the first time that our band had done ‘An Evening With...’ at the Newport, and we were like, ‘We’re actually going to play all this music that people don’t know yet, and then we’re going to take a break?’ ” says Terry with a laugh. “Oh my God! Were people going to leave? Would they be upset? But we had released a new song every day leading up to the show, so people would have a chance to acclimate themselves to the music so they’d know it. Still, I never expected so many people to know all the words. It was an awesome feeling. We’re trying to put Ohio in our minds, the way we are, our Ohio, our band. We’re trying to make our fans proud and put that on the map, and I think our fans are supportive of that.”

Red Wanting Blue’s beefy discography presents another dilemma for the band. A lot of first timers are going to be shocked when they discover that the new band they’ve just stumbled across is actually nine albums deep into a career that stretches back to the mid-’90s. And each subsequent album makes it that much more difficult for RWB to please their rabidly loyal fan base who cling to their favorites from the band’s voluminous catalog.

“We really only push [2004’s] Pride: The Cold Lover forward with physical copies,” Terry notes. “We sell all those records on iTunes, but the physical copies were where we drew the line. Everything from Pride forward, we feel very strong and confident that it’s relevant to our sound and what it’s based in. Some of that older stuff, people still love it and it’s good to go back and get a history of the band.

“There’s still a lot of people who are like, ‘I met my wife at a show and we love this album,’” he says. “Or ‘I love this album because it reminds me of my time in college, or falling in love with my girlfriend,’ or whatever. You don’t want to take that away from people but at the same time you can’t go out and play nine albums worth of material when you go somewhere to play for 90 minutes. We were talking about putting together an early-years package, so when people go to iTunes, they’re not completely overwhelmed by what they’re supposed to get, like we’re the Grateful Dead. I guess it’s a good problem to have."

Tour Dates

01/05 Charleston, WV Empty Glass
01/06 Pittsburgh, PA Club Cafe
01/07 Akron, OH Musica
01/10 Lexington, KY Natasha's Bar
01/11 St. Louis, MO Plush
01/13 Indianapolis, IN The Rathskeller
01/15 Traverse City, MI Union Street Station
01/17 Newport, KY Jefferson Hall
01/20 Toledo, OH Frankie's
01/21 Bloomington, IL Windjammer Lounge
01/26 Youngstown, OH Youngstown State University
01/27 Wheeling, WV Wheeling Jesuit University
01/28 Youngstown, OH Cedars
01/31 Clarksburg, WV PJ Kelly's
02/02 Findlay, OH Nino's
02/03 Fishers, IN Britton Tavern
02/04 Cleveland, OH House of Blues
02/07 Chicago, IL Schuba's
02/08 Ames, IA Mother's Pub
02/09 Omaha, NE The Waiting Room
02/10 Kearney, NE Cunningham's Journal
02/11 Kearney, NE Cunningham's Journal
02/22 New York, NY Rockwood Music Hall ( tickets)
02/23 Vienna, VA Jammin' Java
02/24 Murphy, NC Murphy's Grill
02/27 Atlanta, GA Smith's Olde Bar