The True Story of How the RJA Made it all the
Way to Virgin Records.
One
day while we were at the studios handling the
daily business two young gentlemen walk into
our offices and state they want to record a
demo with us. We say great lets talk about what
you’re trying to accomplish and your budget.
They then state before we book studio time and
record with Vision we want someone with experience
to come and listen to us to tell us if we're
ready to record and furthermore if we felt they
were any good. We tell them that we never do
that without hearing some recordings first.
They were persistent and stated they rehearse
in Middleburg, Florida and come to find out
they were just a skip away from the studios
so we said we'd stop by on the way home from
work and check you out a bit.
We
finally found the rehearsal spot which was a double
wide trailer off a dirt road in the middle of no
where. They performed two songs for us and then
wanted to know what we thought and if we wanted
to hear another. We said no that will not be necessary
and that we thought they were by far the best undiscovered
band we have ever heard in our careers and would
they like to sign with Vision Sound? They said yes.
Shortly after we negotiated a production deal and
agreed to work together for two years and assist
in developing their young career.
This virtually unknown band called themselves The
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
During
the first 3 months of working with the RJA we (Myself,
Freelance Producer Lee Miles, Vision Sound Producer/Engineer
Daryl Phenneger and Vision Sound Engineer Paul Lapinski)
made the bands very first 6 song demo. We wanted
to send this to labels we connect with to see if
we could catch any early interest in the band. Vision
wanted to make sure we weren't wrong in believing
that this band was off the hook and was everything
that we thought it was. Our goal here was to at
least catch a labels ear enough to make sure they
were paying close attention to what turned out to
be the bands very fast growth spurt. I worked all
the bands pre production and Daryl and Lee worked
their usual God given magic producing and recording
Ronnie Winters vocals. Ronnie had never entered
a recording studio as a lead singer before but he
was very humble to say the least and listened to
every word the people with more experience than
him had to say. Ronnie was like a sponge sucking
up everything musically around him. I asked Daryl
to teach him how to sing so when people heard Ronnie
for the very first time they'd stop dead in their
tracks to hear this unknown young man. When we were
just about finished tracking and mixing the initial
6 song EP I started sending rough mixes to a person
who ended up being a vital part of assisting with
generating the RJA's initial label interest.
Per her request Vision sent A. J. a picture of the
band and a few of the finished songs right off the
press and she was the first to hear the finished
demos. She loved the band and did a small write
up on them and posted it on the front page of the
KOAR site. We were getting e mails and calls the
same day from industry people wanting to know about
this band. If any of you are not familiar with A.J,
Dean Cramer (KOAR President) and altsounds.com get
familiar with their sites, they can be a vital tool
for gaining interest from labels. While a flurry
of label people called, e mailed and flew in weekly
to see the band live none of them were willing to
take a chance on signing this young act just yet.
We
finished the initial 6 song EP and we made thousands
of promo cd's to be given out for free. We asked
the band to hit the streets and give these free
promo cd’s and flyers out to the kids that
they felt would be their core target audience. Not
just their home turf, the band traveled to different
cities, schools, shopping malls and colleges just
to give people free promo music so people could
actually hear the band. One of them would generally
stay home working the free marketing tool myspace
like 15 hours a day to reach out to any new fan
they could get to listen to their music. All of
the guys in RJA worked incredibly hard. They hit
the streets for months and months promoting themselves
face to face with perspective fans while continuing
to promote all over the web.. They finally all quit
their day jobs and lived on pennies a week just
so they could spend all their time, not just their
“free time” promoting RJA. These kids
wanted this BAD and would stop at nothing to make
sure that everyone knew who they were and soon all
of this hard work starting paying off.
What seemed like almost overnight we were getting
calls from labels, fans, magazine and newspapers
all wanting to know who this band was. The RJA's
fan base was growing extremely fast and the band
was continually busting their butts night and day
trying to gain even newer fans. We knew with the
right promotional approach and exposure in addition
to having an electrifying front man like Ronnie
Winter leading the band with "that voice"
the RJA would not go unrecognized for long. So far
everything seemed to be working perfectly and exactly
to the plan for generating a large buzz for the
band, a crucial element for gaining label interest.
Vision Sound combined with all the bands hard work
had made the RJA the most sought after original
band in North Florida in just 15 months. The band
was becoming so popular that the buzz about the
RJA started gaining national attention along with
management offers from some very reputable firms,
but the RJA nor Vision felt that any one of them
could really do anything more for us that we weren't
doing for ourselves already. We defiantly knew we
were at the point in the bands career where we needed
good management tightly knitted within the industry
and strong legal representation but just didn't
find it yet.. At this point we already had record
deal offers but no where near the record deal The
RJA nor Vision had in mind. We finally met our match
when we got a call from Mr. Steve Tramposh, former
Senior Director of A&R at Elektra Records. Since
Elektra Records was no more after their merger with
Atlantic Records Steve was now a free agent. Steve
decided to take a different route this time and
started his own Management Company called "Launch
Pad" and The RJA finally found the home they
were looking for.. Steve took the bands demo straight
to an old friend who just happened to also be the
President of Virgin Records, Mr. Jason Flom. Jason
flew the band to New York immediately and signed
the RJA in October of 2005 to a very promising deal
just days after hearing the band.
Due to the host of people involved at Vision Sound,
Launch Pad Management and Virgin Records, the bands
future seems very bright indeed!
The
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus is finally getting the recognition
they deserve!
Scott Fravala
Owner/Vision Sound/Vision Sound Records LLC.
Discoverer/Producer of The
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
