After suffering a near-fatal seizure, visionary performer Trash McSweeney now sees colour in his music and has set out to share with the world all the ideas about what he has seen and felt. By taking to his guitar, piano and notebook, The Red Paintings were officially born upon the dawn of the new millennium.
Based in Australia and Los Angeles – and having been fortunate enough to already tour much of the globe – The Red Paintings are a five-piece group (guitar, bass, drums, cello & violin) who incorporate additional orchestral, choral and performance art features wherever possible. With costumes, themes, painters and other artists their shows combine sound and visuals to create a living canvas that stimulates the senses and minds of the audience. A true and unique art experience. The Red Paintings’ sound evokes everything from child-like lullabies of the future, to tearing, biting, alternative-rock numbers. They are sometimes compared to multi-faceted acts like Radiohead, Muse, and The Arcade Fire, and their appeal reaches baroque-pop steam-punks, metal-heads, indie-rock fanatics, and beyond.
After five years in the making and 8 world class studios throughout the globe
"The Revolution Is Never Coming’’ has finally had its final mix in Los Angeles, this truly is a record of epic proportions. Sharing desires shaped from a passionate world view, The Revolution Is Never Coming is what Trash hopes will be the tipping point for the band's career. With their diverse history and cult following, the band has stepped into 2013/14 with an arsenal of music, a highly-praised innovative live performance, and die-hard fans (who Trash says are "the best on the planet"). It truly looks as though the future is now for the band.
It comes as no surprise that they have been handpicked as support for Scottish post-rockers Mogwai, The Dresden Dolls - self proclaimed “punk cabaret”, American poet and mastermind Saul Williams, and popular punk group Mindless Self Indulgence. Recently scoring support spots in the US for The Posies, Atari Teenage Riot and MSI. The Band has also played major music festivals including Big Day Out, Livid, and The Great Escape, where they shared the stage with bands such as The White Strips, Sigur Rós, The polyphonic Spree, the Battles, and Soundgarden.
The live show features visual content which includes unique projections along with human body and canvas painters who join the band on stage collaborating in real time to create artworks that reflect the band’s music and energy. Artists are sourced with the aim of finding struggling but talented painters and providing them with a new platform to showcase their work.
Prior to this most recent endeavor, the band released the first two EPs in their Robot Trilogy series, Walls and Destroy the Robots. By taking their show to the streets alongside dozens of fans, the band staged marches throughout capital cities and towns in Australia with intricately designed futuristic costumes and 9-foot robot statues. With all eyes upon their excitingly provocative performance art and accompanying nightly shows, three tracks from the EPs gained high rotation on well-known radio stations including Triple J, Nova, and Sports Talk UK. With EPs selling well and charting week after week - including a mind-blowing 15 weeks on the Net 50 - the band kept things buzzing with interviews and reviews across the globe. To date, they have made appearances in such distinguished print media as Rolling Stone, Blunt, and NME.
Before closing out December with two monumental Christmas themed charity concerts, the band released the final EP in their Trilogy (Feed the Wolf) and embarked on The Animal Rebellion tour (as well as like-minded marches in which they donned costumes depicting genetically engineered animals). These helped sales surpass the 25,000-unit mark for all TRP CD releases to date! Riding this wave of success, the band released their final single and music video from Feed the Wolf in December, the beautifully haunting ballad entitled "We Belong in the Sea". Following the success of the single on YouTube (the mournfully grand video reached top honors on YouTube in the same month), the band plunged headlong into an Australian and U.S. "Sea" tour. This included an invite to perform at the prestigious MUSEXPO conference wherein the band received praise from industry guru, Bob Lefsetz.
Song writer Trash McSweeney, an advocate for animal rights, organized a historic benefit show in November 2008, to help raise awareness on the whale slaughter in the southern ocean. The band recorded a parody of Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning", called "Whales are Dying", the music video for the song was released January 2009. In 2010 The Red Paintings joined the line-up at Worldfest, a solar-powered celebration of music, the environment, animals and humanity, in Los Angele's and have continued to support animal rights organizations playing at several charity events. The band support animal welfare groups like the Black fish and Mercy for Animals.
In late 2009/10 the band relocated to Los Angele's, spending their time touring the area and working on the fan-sponsored record, The Revolution Is Never Coming, which generated over $40,000 in donations, while planning, filming and editing some of their most creative and visually dynamic music videos to date.
In early 2011 the band returned to Brisbane creating a stage show inspired and dedicated to the trees, ‘The Tree Show’ drew visuals and messages from artworks created by LA artist Mark Ryden. This was followed by a very special and intimate acoustic show inspired by alien abductions. ‘The Abduction’ was a rare experience for Brisbane fans as Trash hardly ever plays solo shows. Trash than returned to Los Angele's to finish mixing “The Revolution Is Never Coming” and embarked on a US Tour with a new stage show entitled “The Black Paintings Tour”.
Late 2011 the band put a call out on their Facebook page, stating that if 1000 people liked their status they would bring the band back to Australia for a Nationwide Tour, the fans answered the call and the band brought their “Black Paintings” tour fresh from the US to their Australian fans in January 2012, before returning to the US to complete a 12 date promotional tour entitled the “Future-less” tour in support of the US “Streets Fell into My Window” single release.
“A surreal & dark adaptation of the Alice in Wonderland tale, with a strong mix of live action performance, stylized animation and twisted puppetry, which delivers audiences into a whole new ‘Wonderland’ of unrestrained fantasy and imagination.”
The clip has being winning awards at International film festivals all over the globe.
McSweeney never far from a fresh idea and creative new show returned ounce again to announce a new stage show and tour metaphor to the bands future album release labelled ‘The Chinese Whispers Tour’ kicking of a 7 day sold out national tour of Australia, this new stage also saw the act return to London, the UK and Europe for a ambitious 40 date tour kicking off from Nov 8th till Dec 23rd, 2012 and the release of the new single and video ‘’You’re not one of them’’ first released In the UK with EMI/UEG. In its first month of release being picked up and played on over 140 radio stations across the country including UK most influential stations Kerrang, BBC1 and Q radio.
(2013 and current)
A jam packed year already with Mcsweeney releasing new material from the awaited album with labels across the globe from The End Records, USA (Prodigy/Fat Boy Slim) with the debut single from the album hitting the commercial charts in its first week at #42, Rough Trade in Europe and Birds Robe/MGM in AU/NZ and Japan. Then news the bands booking now being taking care of by Northern Music agency (Opeth/Trail of dead) in the UK/EU, Harbor agency in AU/NZ.
TRP recently touring Nth America to support the first single release ‘You're not one of them’ revealing a new stage show as main support for NY act 'Mindless Self Indulgence' on their Sold Out theater tour in April/May, 2013 and then hitting the UK for another Sold Out tour with UK act 'The Pineapple Thief.
The band then returned to Australia for the debut album release on June 7. A busy schedule already in the works with the band touring Australia and a media tour month of June, China and Japan and shooting their next music video in July, UK festival tour and side shows in August, 25 date USA tour in September and October, then they join US neon punk act once more as main support for their UK/EU theater tour throughout Nov and Dec a Christmas break and then they do it all again and more in 2014 as the act release and break their highly anticipated album, The Revolution Is Never Coming, and the new innovative stage shows across the world.
The first two album reviews have given ‘The Revolution Is Never Coming’ 10 out of 10 stars, a perfect score. For an album that most thought was never going to see the light of day it may just have been all worth the hard work and the wait. Here is what music site Tone Deaf had to say about the new release.
''There is nothing to fault in this extraordinary and long awaiting long player debut and it will no doubt bring further international acclaim to the Australian band.'' ...
''Taking elements from the full rainbow of rock from the 60s to the future and beyond, you’ll find The Beatles sitting alongside Karnivool, and Radiohead in a world where Seattle grunge, punk, neo-classical, prog, and many more genres live harmoniously...’’
Trash Mcsweeney has been dropping hints over the past year or more about being the first act to launch their album into space across 13 different countries across the world. You can follow the acts intergalactic activities on their space balloon official facebook page HERE: www.facebook.com/theredpaintingsspaceballoonalbumlaunch
''I'm going to send 'The revolution is never coming' to space. I mean why not? I don't want to be tied down to one planet''.
“Their haunting lyrics and arrangements play games with your head until Stockholm Syndrome finally creeps in. I couldn’t blink, let alone tap my feet. By the encore I was totally fucking mesmerized. These guys could have told me to have sex with the cigarette machine, and I would have, transformed out of all recognition.”
– Blunt Magazine
‘’TRP will change how you think about ANY live performance. They will take you on a journey into the future with a vibrant and visionary performance that is sure to impact your mind and senses alike!’’
– Time Off Magazine
“The Red Paintings really are a unique experience all of their own.” – DB Magazine
The band are currently working on the release of their highly anticipated debut album, The Revolution Is Never Coming, and creating a new innovative stage shows for the albums world tours and releases.
