Letters in Red to perform first all-original set

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By Kaiya Morrison

Nearly two years ago I meandered my way to North Gate Tavern for a sit-down interview with the newly formed Baton Rouge-based band, Letters in Red. About to perform their first show in their hometown, they spoke of future plans, which included beginning as a cover band, and then slowly integrate to all-originals. My cynical side thought the day would never come, and the band would only perform covers, eventually fading away into obscurity as I’ve seen so many do in the past.

Fortunately, I was wrong. Letters in Red will perform their first show in Baton Rouge since February on Friday, July 25 at Clicks Billiards, and they will have an all original set - no covers.

“We’re going to start the originals here and slowly incorporate it into what we do nationally,” Jason LaRose, guitar player for Letters in Red, explained. “We’re slowly incorporating the originals shows so we don’t have to take such a big pay cut when we do all the originals only.”

Including LaRose, Letters in Red is completed by members Rhett Guillot (lead vocals, guitar), Adam Crosby (bass), and Blake Martinez (drums), and while the show at Clicks will be the first original show they will perform in Baton Rouge, it will not be the first ever.

“We played our fist original show in Florida with Trapped at The Swamp two weeks ago,” Crosby said. “We played eight songs that night, and at the Clicks show we will play nine. We have a new top secret song.”

“There’s such a drastic difference between our covers and our originals,” Guillot explained. “We’re more aggressive than modern rock, but we’re not metal. If you take all the good stuff about metal and you put it together, then that’s what our music is. It’s more like songs than just riff, riff, riff. If you take the aggressiveness of metal and the guitar harmonies, and you put it more of a song context, then you have our music.”

As a cover band, Letters in Red has done well with a constant tour schedule that brought them as far as Alaska. Letters in Red also signed with Sludgefest Records, an independent label, just a few short months ago. Despite their successes thus far, the plan was always to convert to an original band.

“We spent three weeks in Alaska at the end of March,” Crosby recalled. “It was amazing, and we ended up having a lot of time to practice, so we spent a lot of time working on the original songs.”

Truth told, the guys did admit that it’s taken much longer than anticipated to integrate the originals into their tour schedule.

“It’s taken us longer to get the originals going,” LaRose admitted. “I think we slacked off on the writing process because we were touring so much.”

“Playing covers is fun, and we would rather be playing than not playing, but it’s not what we want to do,” Crosby added. “I think it took having a deadline of a show date to make us do it.”

Making the switch will not be all fun and games. Success thus far aside, they are essentially going to be starting from scratch by having to gain new fans.

“The best thing about this town is that it’s fast to gossip around a good band,” Crosby said. “If anything pops up, it gets spread around fast. It takes five seconds to build a fan base and then five seconds to tear it down.”

As for their future, Letters in Red will record its first full-length album in November of this year. Until then, they will continue touring as both a cover and original band.

You can learn more about Letters in Red by visiting www.myspace.com/lettersinred13

Originally Published: Issue 694 - July 23, 2008

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