All posts tagged red bull

• May 13, 2014

  Red Bull story: ‘Inside The Mind of Aaron Bruno: AWOLNATION’, March 2014

  A story for Red Bull about the electronic rock band AWOLNATION. Excerpt below.

  Inside The Mind of Aaron Bruno
  by Andrew McMillen

  

  Chapter One: Nation Builder

  Minutes before the stage lights dim and he walks out on stage with his bandmates, Aaron Bruno carves out a few moments for quiet reflection. Long ago, his father handed over a nylon-string guitar and taught his son the rhythm part to ‘La Bamba’. While his old man played the lead riff and nodded in appreciation, the young boy became hooked by the strange power of these sounds.

  While the blonde Californian sits in silence, ruminating on a career marked by a series of draining trials that were passed only through sheer bloody-minded persistence, he’s drawn back to the present by a familiar, intoxicating sound. A smile spreads across his face as adrenaline courses through his body. There are no nerves, now, only excitement. Just out of sight, a teeming crowd is chanting the name of his band, over and over: AWOLNATION.

  It wasn’t always like this. There weren’t always chanting crowds and wistful backstage smiles. Aaron Bruno knows all too well the stinging disappointment of pouring his heart into music that doesn’t connect with the public. He has learned that there are few worse feelings than spending years honing songs and sounds that remain largely unheard.

  There’s an empty desolation that comes with playing show after poorly attended show; with releasing albums that gather dust on store shelves and in unsold boxes. All those long hours and spent energy – for what?

  Five minutes into AWOLNATION’s debut album, Megalithic Symphony, the singer – who wrote all of its music and lyrics – introduces the fourth track with a heartfelt message to his new legion of followers. “Thank you for listening again,” Aaron says over dramatic synth chords in the opening seconds of ‘People’. “Or for the first time, or for the last time. We share this moment, and I am grateful for this.” It’s the kind of genuine appreciation that could only come from a performer with over a decade of skin in the game, so to speak; from someone who knows what it feels like to be on the wrong side of popularity.

  “I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs,” he says. “I’ve been in two bands that were signed to different labels. We had all the hopes in the world to have some great success, and none of it really worked out that way.” Throughout his career, it’s been a case of two steps forward, one step back; an ongoing battle of attack and retreat, fought within the boundaries of several distinct musical genres, culminating with the electronic rock of his latest project. “So this time around, when AWOLNATION started to take off,” he says, “I feel it was well-deserved, if I may say so.”

  To read the full story, visit Red Bull’s website.

  Elsewhere: I also wrote about electronic production duo TNGHT for Red Bull in early 2014.

  No Comments / Feature Journalism, Music Journalism, Published Writing / Andrew McMillen

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• January 28, 2014

  Red Bull story: ‘It Took Two: TNGHT’, January 2014

  A story for Red Bull about the electronic production duo TNGHT. Excerpt below.

  It Took Two
  by Andrew McMillen

  

  Chapter One: Like Minds Attract

  The two young men stand in a small room, each holding a laptop and silently sizing up one another. One is a lanky, pale Scotsman named Ross; he is better known as Hudson Mohawke. The other, a shorter Canadian with Haitian ancestry, is named Lunice both on stage and in person. Following their work, it’s pretty obvious what both men specialise in: creating beats and layering melodies that convince even the most dance-averse to join the surging throng that crowds the stage.

  Exchanging pleasantries and making small talk backstage at festivals is one thing. To make music together is something else entirely. Though Ross and Lunice both possess extraordinarily high musical IQs, their keen ears don’t necessarily hear the same things. Nor is it a guarantee that they’ll be able to tolerate another living, breathing presence in the recording studio. Electronic music production is a pursuit that demands isolation, introspection and patience. Doubling the humans in the room rarely doubles the quality of the music. As they plug in their laptops, power up the sound system and crack their knuckles in anticipation of the work ahead, both men know that this collaboration, named TNGHT, will either be a disaster or a roaring success.

  It helped that they both had the exact same equipment at that crucial first session. “That’s been an issue for me before – you get in the studio with someone who’s in there using something else,” Ross says. He gives a heavy sigh to indicate his frustration. “It’s a hassle to get parts from one computer, take a USB drive, put it in this shit” When he and Lunice got together, there were no such impediments to creativity, as “it’s more simple to just do it on one computer.”

  The pair of them had both been using the FruityLoops digital audio workstation software for years, but their set-up was identical, even down to the Virtual Studio Technology interface and the plug-ins they both used. This partnership was clearly meant to be. “What’s funny is that we approach it completely different,” Lunice says. We use the same things, but how I see him work is sort of how you’d see somebody work with an operating system; they’d hit ‘search’ instead of just writing right away. And I guess that’s how the whole jam [mentality] comes from, because we’re not specifically [making] anything, we just make it happen.” Ross nods at his musical partner while sipping a gin and tonic through a straw, and says, “Lunice would do things that I would never think to do, and likewise.”

  To read the full story, visit Red Bull’s website.

  No Comments / Feature Journalism, Music Journalism, Published Writing / Andrew McMillen

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