G Love & Special Sauce, along with Redeye Empire brought their tour to San Luis Obispo’s Downtown Brew on the Loveliest of all days, Valentine’s Day. The Sold Out show was attended by Lovers, friends and G Love’s very loyal fans. “We have been received way better than we ever thought we would be. G Love has very critical fans”, Gabe Davis , the lead singer of openers Redeye Empire told us before the show. His band REDEYE EMPIRE is breaking out of Canada in 2010 with an international Rock/ Reggae/Pop vibe. Their third studio album, SEA TO SKY, is named for the highway that runs between Vancouver and Whistler, the hometowns of co-lead vocalists/guitarists Gabe Davis and Mike Redmond. The album, released January 26 via 29 Records, is coinciding with a U.S. tour as sole support for G. Love & Special Sauce. With a major fan base already in Canada, the band is set to take on the U.S. in 2010. “Just being on tour with them (G Love) in general has been great, they’re just a cool bunch of guys to hang out with. It’s like coming back and hanging out with old buddies, it’s like a family environment out here”, co-lead guitarist and vocalist Mike Redmond added when we asked him about the tour.
Friends since high school, Gabe and Mike put the band together in Vancouver, BC in 2005. SEA TO SKY is the bands most sophisticated work to date. The 11-track set was produced by Ben Kaplan (Shakira, Chevelle) and was recorded at GGGarth Richardson’s studio in Vancouver (Red Hot Chili Peppers, RATM). “Every song that we sing, we like to think it means something to us, either through experience or we like to write about stuff culturally relevant”, Davis told us about the songs on the CD.
REDEYE EMPIRE’s live show is generating massive buzz and earning the respect of fans and the industry. They’ve shared the stage with Slightly Stoopid, Fishbone, Pepper, G Love, Xavier Rudd, and Michael Franti & Spearhead, among others.
G. Love & Special Sauce are a trio from Philadelphia, PA. Their laid-back, sloppy blues sound is quite unique, as it encompasses the sound/production of classic R&B and recent rap artists (the Beastie Boys, in particular). The group -- G. Love (born Garrett Dutton) on guitar/vocals/harmonica, Jeff Clemens on drums, and Jim Prescott on upright bass -- released their self-titled debut in 1994 on Okeh/Epic. It received enthusiastic reviews and nearly went gold on the strength of the MTV-spun video for "Cold Beverage." The group toured heavily, also landing a subsequent spot on the H.O.R.D.E. tour, and found a receptive young audience.
G. Love and Special Sauce’s Superhero Brother is their third album for Jack Johnson’s Brushfire label, and 10th overall (counting their 2002 best-of and last year’s live CD/DVD) in a career that now spans 15 years.
Very Special Thanks: Bari Lieberman, Sandee Fenton, Gabe Davis & Mike Redmond !
Interview with Gabe Davis & Mike Redmond of Redeye Empire
CentralCoastRocks.com: Tell us about your band Redeye Empire how did the name come about?
Gabe Davis: We occasionally partake in some recreational activities (Smiles) from being on the West Coast. It actually work out well, one of our good friends, we were toying with a couple names and when we were actually trying to figure out between these two names he walked in and had just gotten off the Redeye flight back from Toronto, and it was one of the names we were toying with. That kinda decided it for us. You can read intothat anything you want actually (Laughs)
Mike Redmond: It was a two part name, we were originally Redeye. We toured with G Love three years ago as just Redeye actually and then we started to get some popularity and we realized we had to get a name that was a little more original and the (Redeye) Empire just flows well. So here we are today, Redeye Empire.
CentralCoastRocks.com: You are of course in the middle of a tour with G Love & Special Sauce again, how are the shows going?
Gabe: We have been received way better than we ever thought we would be. G Love has very critical fans. You have to prove it every night, but if you give it your all and they like what they hear they’ll be receptive. So the feedback we’ve had, not just from them but from Press and everything along the way has been beyond what we expected. So our goal now is really to follow this up by coming back on our own and seeing if we can keep the momentum.
Mike: Just being on tour with them (G Love) in general has been great, they’re just a cool bunch of guys to hang out with. It’s like coming back and hanging out with old buddies, it’s like a family environment out here.
CentralCoastRocks.com: Your third Studio CD “Sea To Sky” just dropped last month. Tell us about the title and music on the CD
Gabe: When we first started our band Mike (Redmond) was living up in Whistler, B.C., he had a band up there, I had a band in Vancouver and we’ve been good buddies since High School and so what happened is I would always come up to Whistler, he’d come down to Vancouver and we would play music together and what happened was from this we decided to drop an album, that was our first album. The point of the story here is that Highway is called “Sea to Sky” Highway, and it was a Highway that kinda connected us musically and we paid homage to it with the third album here. This is by far I think our best body of work collectively and so we felt it was appropriate to kinda bring it back to its roots.
Mike: It represents…it’s our two homes also. We spend so much time popping back and forth from Vancouver and Whistler. It’s fitting, a bit of culture.
CentralCoastRocks.com: Were the songs written fairly recently or do some of the ideas date back a ways?
Gabe:Every song that we sing, it’s not just jargon, we like to think it means something to us, either through experience or we like to…we like to write about stuff culturally relevant, ethically relevant, politically relevant. As an example, one song, our last song is called “El Gaucho”, it has nothing to do with anything exempt a big day in Mexico between the two us (Laughs). It was a day in Mexico where Mike and I rented a car which was probably stolen and preceded to drive up the Coast to go surfing in which we almost got in a fight in the water with a couple local guys, then picked up a guy on the side of the highway.
Mike: Let’s just pick up a stranger on the road (Laughs)
Gabe: He opened up his bag, he had a big bag of Mexico’s Finest (Laughs), which led to paranoia because we thought the Federalies were following us all the way back into town. Then that night we went into a Nightclub which we shouldn’t have even gone into but we met a couple of girls and ended up buying Bottle Service, bottles of Scotch and everything, then we were really gone and then we jumped out of the window of the Club because…we just fricken ran home, that was a long day.
Mike: That was a really big day (Laughs)
Gabe: That song is actually that whole story “El Gaucho”, the Cowboy (Laughs)
CentralCoastRocks.com: The CD was produced by Ben Kaplan (Shakira, Chevelle) Tell us about recording at GGarth Richardsons Studio in Vancouver (RATM, Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Mike: Ben (Kaplan) is not only a great Producer but an old friend, we love working with him and GGarth for that matter. They’re just total stand-up guys, two of the coolest guys to work with. They’re just on the level. They’re a lot like us, they know what we’re trying to achieve.
Gabe: How do you not get inspired by a guy who recorded Rage Against The Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers
Mike: You walk into their studio and there’s this ambience. This tours been an amazing platform for us because we just released the album three weeks ago, it was the Number One Feature Reggae album on iTunes for two weeks and it’s still in the Top Ten feature page for the last five weeks. It’s nice to get some recognition in the U.S. which is fantastic. Not that I’d even call us a Reggae band, I think we’re more of a Rock band although we have been influenced by a lot of Reggae artists.
CentralCoastRocks.com: Was there a certain event or personality that influenced you to pursue Music?
Gabe: G Love to be honest with you. This is a really weird story for me. I went to a G Love 10 years ago in Seattle. I was a huge fan of his, he really inspired me. I always kinda fiddled around with the Guitar but the day after the show I decided to start a band. The amazing thing seven years later it came full circle, we ended up going on tour with G Love. It was an absolute dream come through and now he’s become a friend of mine.
Mike: One unique thing about our band is I think all of us have different musical tastes. The binding thing for us is that we all seemed to like Reggae. Our lead guitar player grew up with straight up Rock n Roll, our bass Player grew up listening to jam bands like Phish and the Grateful Dead, a closet hippie and then I was a bit of a Metalhead when I was a kid (Laughs)
Gabe: You get all of it in our band and that really carries through in the music we write and how we play too.
CentralCoastRocks.com: Now that you are in the “Music Business”, is it anything like you imagined growing up?
Gabe: It’s a lot harder and not as like….
Mike: It’s not as glamorous (Laughs)
Glen: (Laughs) For all the glamour there’s ten times more bullshit out there. It’s a cutthroat industry and the only thing I can say is just play what you want to play, and here’s the biggest thing: It’s a job, it’s a career, it’s not just a good time so if you want to succeed and want to have any sort of longevity in this industry you have to treat it like it’s a job, not just this pastime.
Mike: Especially now because everything is so accessible. You just have to constantly market and throw your name out there to get any sort of recognition
CentralCoastRocks.com: You guys are on the road as much or more than other bands, do any shows stand out as personal favorites of yours?
Mike: Stubb’s (Austin, Texas). The first time I got to play Stubb’s. That was the quintessential place I always wanted to play, we got to do that. And on this tour we have The Fillmore (San Francisco) coming up which is pretty bad ass. We haven’t done a lot of touring in California, every spot we’ve been doing since arriving in San Diego has been awesome.
Glen: I think one show that stands out is weird because it was three years ago and it was probably the shittiest show we ever played because the sound was fucked up and it was just a brutal room. It was in Little Rock, Arkansas, but it was the first time that G Love invited me up on stage with him. So that stood out to me.
CentralCoastRocks.com: Any advice for aspiring musicians?
Mike: Play what you love. We say it’s all this work but it’s a labor of love, make sure you have fun with it, don’t forget that you’re playing music
Glen: Don’t focus on a formula, there is no formula anymore. Just play what you love to play and play with passion and honesty and integrity and sincerity and you’ll succeed no matter what. Even if you don’t play arenas one day you’ll still succeed in your journey
Mike: As long as you’re sitting down at the end of the day and you’re strumming your guitar and enjoying it, you’re doing the right thing. You don’t have to pack stadiums to love what you’re doing
Glen: And groupies! (Everyone Laughs)
Mike: And groupies, for sure (Laughs)
CentralCoastRocks.com: Final words for your fans?
Glen: All I gotta say is thank you for all the support we’ve received. And I mean it. I’m not just saying that. Without people giving us the feedback and saying we love your stuff it would be hard to do this. It would be hard to go on the road and tour and leave our families and leave our homes.
Mike: Say what you have to say and make sure it comes from the heart and we’ll listen
Obispo’s Downtown Brew on the Loveliest of all days, Valentine’s Day. The Sold Out show was attended by Lovers, friends and G Love’s very loyal fans. “We have been received way better than we ever thought we would be. G Love has very critical fans”, Gabe Davis , the lead singer of openers Redeye Empire told us before the show. His band REDEYE EMPIRE is breaking out of Canada in 2010 with an international Rock/ Reggae/Pop vibe. Their third studio album, SEA TO SKY, is named for the highway that runs between Vancouver and Whistler, the hometowns of co-lead vocalists/guitarists Gabe Davis and Mike Redmond. The album, released January 26 via 29 Records, is coinciding with a U.S. tour as sole support for G. Love & Special Sauce. With a major fan base already in Canada, the band is set to take on the U.S. in 2010. “Just being on tour with them (G Love) in general has been great, they’re just a cool bunch of guys to hang out with. It’s like coming back and hanging out with old buddies, it’s like a family environment out here”, co-lead guitarist and vocalist Mike Redmond added when we asked him about the tour.
2005. SEA TO SKY is the bands most sophisticated work to date. The 11-track set was produced by Ben Kaplan (Shakira, Chevelle) and was recorded at GGGarth Richardson’s studio in Vancouver (Red Hot Chili Peppers, RATM). “Every song that we sing, we like to think it means something to us, either through experience or we like to write about stuff culturally relevant”, Davis told us about the songs on the CD..jpg)
blues sound is quite unique, as it encompasses the sound/production of classic R&B and recent rap artists (the Beastie Boys, in particular). The group -- G. Love (born Garrett Dutton) on guitar/vocals/harmonica, Jeff Clemens on drums, and Jim Prescott on upright bass -- released their self-titled debut in 1994 on Okeh/Epic. It received enthusiastic reviews and nearly went gold on the strength of the MTV-spun video for "Cold Beverage." The group toured heavily, also landing a subsequent spot on the H.O.R.D.E. tour, and found a receptive young audience. 
from being on the West Coast. It actually work out well, one of our good friends, we were toying with a couple names and when we were actually trying to figure out between these two names he walked in and had just gotten off the Redeye flight back from Toronto, and it was one of the names we were toying with. That kinda decided it for us. You can read into that anything you want actually (Laughs)
Love has very critical fans. You have to prove it every night, but if you give it your all and they like what they hear they’ll be receptive. So the feedback we’ve had, not just from them but from Press and everything along the way has been beyond what we expected. So our goal now is really to follow this up by coming back on our own and seeing if we can keep the momentum. 
Vancouver and we would play music together and what happened was from this we decided to drop an album, that was our first album. The point of the story here is that Highway is called “Sea to Sky” Highway, and it was a Highway that kinda connected us musically and we paid homage to it with the third album here. This is by far I think our best body of work collectively and so we felt it was appropriate to kinda bring it back to its roots.
something to us, either through experience or we like to…we like to write about stuff culturally relevant, ethically relevant, politically relevant. As an example, one song, our last song is called “El Gaucho”, it has nothing to do with anything exempt a big day in Mexico between the two us (Laughs). It was a day in Mexico where Mike and I rented a car which was probably stolen and preceded to drive up the Coast to go surfing in which we almost got in a fight in the water with a couple local guys, then picked up a guy on the side of the highway.
working with him and GGarth for that matter. They’re just total stand-up guys, two of the coolest guys to work with. They’re just on the level. They’re a lot like us, they know what we’re trying to achieve.
a G Love 10 years ago in Seattle. I was a huge fan of his, he really inspired me. I always kinda fiddled around with the Guitar but the day after the show I decided to start a band. The amazing thing seven years later it came full circle, we ended up going on tour with G Love. It was an absolute dream come through and now he’s become a friend of mine.
cutthroat industry and the only thing I can say is just play what you want to play, and here’s the biggest thing: It’s a job, it’s a career, it’s not just a good time so if you want to succeed and want to have any sort of longevity in this industry you have to treat it like it’s a job, not just this pastime.
sure you have fun with it, don’t forget that you’re playing music
