Destroy The Robots
The Red Paintings
The Brisbane music scene is a fertile one and The Red Paintings are like no other band around. Imagine if Albert Einstein picked up an electric guitar instead of a slide rule, lived next door to Isaac Asimov and the town water supply was spiked. Their music is that intriguing. The band has just released a new EP entitled Destroy The Robots and I knew the comments I solicited would be as interesting as their music. I was not disappointed.
Destroy The Robots
 “The first time I decided to create this song I remember sitting in our jam space and looking at the robot pictures that had been given to me from one of our painters in Newcastle. At the same time I had been working with an intro riff that later became the violin intro. The music and the concept felt right and then the next month or so I spent my time creating an idea around destroying robots and what it was I was trying to say. I didn’t realize at the time how important this title was going to be in the future or the situation I was going to be in which would make it all seem so right, maybe it was a premonition. This song is about people controlling people with the commodities of life. It’s about loosing creative control and becoming just another hand ticking on the clock. I believe this song has a relationship with so many situations and happenings on this planet. If only I had more time. I wish I had the right engineer to record this song the way I saw it from the beginning, back then it was an art work now to me it's just numbers.”
Pickles
 “I was told not so long ago that I had to write a song that would be as catchy as walls and would help sell the EP. Somehow I created this almost hours after I was told to. I would have liked to have called Pickles, The Anti Love Song For The 21st Century which to me is exactly what it was meant to be about.  After a crazy ordeal in the studio and happenings afterwards I came to realize this song was about something entirely different. It was about being mislead and brainwashed about going backwards in your life so you can work out why it is you are wanting to go forward again. When I first wrote this song it was very different to the version recorded. Sometimes I wish it had just been me with an acoustic guitar. We recently created a music video that tells the story quite clearly.”
It Is As It Was
 “After the Bali bombing the Pope was quoted as saying “It is as it was.” in regards to the tragedy that had happened that day. I thought that was the most amazing thing I’d heard in a long time and that was the birth of this song. These colors are about my struggle with my parents and their religious beliefs and how I have dealt with it in my own life over many years. This to me is a journey song starting from the fist day I entered a church going through my experiences until the year 2005. I also wrote music to the seizure I had in a supermarket that was added to this song. It has a very similar story line to the idea behind an earlier song called Seeds.”
I’ll Sell You Suicide
 “When I wrote this song I was sitting in a room visualizing the walls as huge veins, thousands of them all around me pumping blood into my soul and creating music outside off me. That’s what I needed to see to be able to write this little crazy. This song is about racism, loosing control, being controlled, not being able to find anything unique in the world and realizing I’m just another nothing and always will be. The title is about being sold your life. The media selling you your death! I actually wrote this song as part of a concept album called “The Revolution Is Never Coming” but I’ve never been able to find the right people or cash to record that album so I let this song go for now.”
Futureless
 “This song was originally called Mr Wilkey. When I first moved to Brisbane, I met some really crazy people and they did some really fucked things to me like try and steal my life. I guess I learnt a valuable lesson, be careful who you take at face value. This song for me was closure. A time I needed to write about and then let go forever.”
Destroy The Humans
 “Silence is a virtue. Many things can be said in silence. I must apologize, this track was actually recorded and I know many TRP fans were looking forward to hearing it on this EP. As far as I’m concerned it was going to be the most amazing track on this EP. We had Lionel lay down Opera tracks that took over four hours on this piece. He went so hard, he ended up loosing his voice. Ellen and Wayne layered down heaps of overdub strings and we had an accordion as the intro just the way we play it live but many times more colorful. So what happened? Well, the studio guy told me it was shit and that he refused to put it on the record. I asked to hear the track before it was written off but I was refused a preview. So I bit my tongue and there you have it, 3:33 seconds of silence right were the closure of this EP was meant to be. In the end am I happy with this new CD? Well, not really, this CD to me is for the robots. It’s not a collection of songs recorded the way I saw them in my head before I entered the studio. What I do love about it though is that it does seem to catch the anguish we were experiencing during this time and I changed many lines to fit with the current situation. On the first night of recording this EP, a band member lost their very close stepmother, that created a real hole in some of our hearts. I’m just so sorry I couldn’t give people my true colours; all I see on this recording is numbers. It will scar me for life. I’m so sorry I became another robot. The robots march forever…”
Thanks.
Rob Hudson
official site