One Size Fits All

_{Ten years into his tenure as the vocalist for Floridian post-hardcore four-piece The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Ronnie Winter seems sure of one thing: getting rid of his band's label was the best decision they ever made.}

_{Catching up with The Music from the road in the United States, Winter says that not being restricted by any executive expectations has opened up countless doors for the group, not least of which is their upcoming Choose Our Adventure tour, for which the destinations were decided via a fan-driven ticket-purchasing scheme.}

_{"We're kind of a wacky band," Winter explains of the gimmick. "We don't have a label and we don't have funding or any kind of, like, structure, but we can do whatever we want ‐ and the guy came to us with this idea, which was the whole [Choose Our Adventure] theme behind the tour. We thought it was great, and a lot of bands aren't willing to risk something like that, because sometimes it might backfire, but we don't really care ‐ we were gonna give it a shot and see how it goes."}

_{Carefree as he might sound, Winter is in truth the frontman for a diligent group of people who are scheduled to record their fourth full-length album "right after" their impending tour. "We're always focused," he says, dismissing the notion the band's attentions are spread too thinly. "You need to have a lot of foresight. Some things you can't foresee ‐ there's always going to be surprises and hurdles that you're not prepared for, but in a general sense we're always looking about two years ahead of the game."}

_{Still, Winter maintains, the only reason they're in a position to do that in the first place is because of their freedom as artists. Looking back on the past ten years, Winter says, "After we left our label, we had 100 per cent control of everything. It's a lot easier to maintain a plan, because there's no one telling you what to do. Anyone who's self-employed understands that. When you're on a label it's a little more difficult because they have their interests and we have our interests and everybody's trying to make everybody happy, which I understand, and they understand, but sometimes the band's interests don't match the labels, so that creates a conflict not only in creativity and direction but also just scheduling.}

_{"We had to pull out of Soundwave one year because our label wanted us to make a record, but we wanted to do Soundwave ‐ so that's an example right there of where a band can clash with the label and wind up listening to the label, and then the label didn't put them in the studio. So we were just sitting at home doing nothing. That was a huge disappointment, not only for our fans but for the band. We'd much rather have been hanging out in Australia. But that will never happen again, because we don't rely on a label to make our records ‐ we're self-funded ‐ so there's an example of how we can think ahead and accomplish our goals, because we're doing it on our own."}