“It’s kind of all over the place, and I like it that way. I don’t want to ever be locked into one thing,” Charles Adcock said about the sound of local band The Red Thangs.
The Red Thangs are a four member band based in Oxford, made up of lead singer and guitarist Charles Adcock, lead guitarist Adam Ray, drummer Drew Shetley and Blair Bingham who adds a mix of instruments as well as vocals.
Bingham and Ray offered their own descriptions of the band’s sound:
“It’s really positive and energetic and kind of a summery sound also. It’s really indie and dance-y and fun to listen to,” Bingham said.
“I describe our sound as bright, energetic, poppyand not especially polished,” Ray said. “We try to play everything cleanly and with good musicianship, but it’s not super produced. It’s still live music.”
Adam Ray went on to describe the history of the band.
“The band has been an evolving process; Drew and I have been playing together since 2009,” Ray said. “The current incarnation of the band has been playing together for about a year and a half. Charles since 2010, and we picked up Blair at the end of 2012. “
The band showcases its versatility, with Adcock and Ray switching out on guitar and bass duties, and Bingham playing ukulele and keyboard and using a mini-synthesizer in addition to harmonizing on vocal parts.
“What’s really fun is being able to jump in with whatever we need or something off the wall but fits the song, and just be able to do that,” Bingham said. “So it’s been a lot of fun to explore different instruments to create what we do.“
In addition to playing guitar and bass, Ray also uses a trumpet to add a new element to certain songs.
“Trumpet is something that I’ve been playing since sixth grade, so it’s a great little trick to throw in,” Ray said. “The problem is, on songs that I was playing trumpet on, that meant that the guitar or the bass had to stop. If I just play the bass with the left hand and play trumpet with the right hand it works, so you get to have both of those things going on at once. Of course it compromises the bass a little bit, but adding the trumpet makes up for that.”
In accordance with The Red Thang’s sound, Shetley’s drumming is defined by an unorthodox style, which started with the snare in his first drum kit being set up wrong.
“I’m a left-handed drummer, but I play a right handed set,” Shetley said. “That opens up a lot of options for me to use that maybe other drummers can’t, but it also limits me quite a bit. I think that helped me forge my own style.”
The songwriting process for the band usually starts with Adcock.
“Charles is our principle songwriter,” Shetley said. “He writes most of the lyrics. He has the vocal melodies, a basic guitar part and occasionally some drums.”
Shetley also described the process by which The Red Thang creates their song, saying that it always starts with Charles.
“He plays it for us, and then we start jamming out on it. And we flesh out our individual parts. Charles brings us the framework and then the rest of the band dresses it up.”
“Charles is a real top tier songwriting talent,” Ray said. “The way the song idea comes in varies: it’s usually just an acoustic guitar, and we strum along and play with it, or more and more these days Charles will put together a little sample track in Garageband, and he’ll write the melody and sing over that, and we’ll listen to it and as soon as we have that basic song idea, the rest of us start building on it.”
“It’s a combining process; a growing process,” Ray added. “Charles’ vocal part will be there, and Blair will immediately just lay down vocal harmonies over the top of it. And I’ll come up with some guitar part, and Drew will do the drums.”
The Red Thang members write their music to appeal to all listeners, keeping the content nonspecific. One song called “Belly of the Whale” demonstrates this quality of their music.
“It stems from the Jonah and the whale story, but it kind of just ended up being reflections of certain times in my life,” Adcock said. He stressed that his songs can be interpreted differently.
“I like to let the listener really decide what the song means for them,” Adcock said.
One song, “Icarus,” differs from the band’s other tracks in that it was primarily written and sung by Blair Bingham, who said she hadn’t written any songs for the band prior to this track. She mentioned that Charles started her out with a guitar riff, and after becoming familiar with it, she was able to add lyrics.
“I think Charles definitely forced that song out of me in the beginning,” Bingham said, “But I’m so glad he did.“
These two songs, along with nine other tracks, were featured on The Red Thang’s debut album, which they recorded at Tweed Recording Studios.
“The recording process was a lot of time and effort but of course it was worth it in the end,” Bingham said. “We recorded each instrument and each vocal track individually, so I got really familiar with everything that was going on.”
She added that every member was confident in the final track after having had the chance to watch and critique each other.
Adam Ray explained how it felt to put their sound on a record.
“It’s good to have personality; sound quirks and stuff like that on your recording,” Ray said, “But there’s no reason to put out an album with mistakes on it. We just made sure it was all clean and represented our sound to the best of our ability.”
The was released this summer. The self-titled album is available on iTunes, Spotify, and Bandcamp. The band is currently playing shows to support the album and looks to continue doing so.
“I do think we owe it to the music we’ve already recorded to keep touring with it and pushing that,” Adcock said.
“The goal, now that we have an album out, is to get as many people to hear it as possible,” Ray said. “We think that the album speaks for itself, and if people hear it then they’ll like it.”
The Red Thangs are playing at Proud Larry’s this Friday, where they will be playing a set with Belle Adair.
