Never Coming, Finally Here

Progressive theatrical performance group The Red Paintings are far from your average rock band. Their stage costumes incorporate robots, aliens, sea creatures and geishas, they create artworks live onstage, often using naked, human canvases, and their musical expression is driven largely by the synesthesia of eccentric frontman Trash McSweeney. Their modus operandi attracts both awe and contempt in significant amounts, the latter considerably heightened after generating $40,000 from fans back in 2008 to record a debut album that seemed like it would never materialise. Late in 2011, McSweeney told Time Off that The Revolution Is Never Coming was finished and ready for a 2012 release; stepping off a plane from his part-time home in LA, he explains why it took another long 18 months to release.

“I'll tell you what happened,” he starts with a sigh. “We'd go and do a mix and we all decided, 'I think it's good – let's get ready to release it.' And then I'd get on a plane, [listen to that mix] and go, 'Oh, my body doesn't like it.' Instincts were saying, 'This isn't the right mix… Nup, I can't release it.' And I'd be pissing a lot of people off; people were like, 'Oh fuck, Trash, do you want to commit artistic suicide here? You can't just do this.' And I was like, 'I'm really sorry, but I said to the fanbase that I would put out the record that I wanted to put out'… So we would lose $50,000 and then go researching different engineers and try to achieve the vision that I had, and sadly it took $230,000 and eight or nine studios and eight or nine engineers.”

The right mix was finally nailed through the skills of late LA producer Bryan Carlstrom (Alice In Chains, Anthrax, The Offspring), who likened The Revolution Is Never Coming to a 21st century War Of The Worlds, though it still took him a few goes before the producer in McSweeney was satisfied. 

“We finished the mastering of the record for vinyl and CD and mp3 in January or February this year. It took ten times to master the album. It cost a lot of fuckin' money,” he admits with a weary chuckle, each step of recording, mixing and mastering taking an inordinate amount of time. “It's hard to make an album like this; I didn't realise how big of a mammoth journey it was going to be. It wasn't like we were just recording some indie band who can just throw a couple of guitars in there and a drum kit and it sounds like shit and it works; you can't do that with The Red Paintings – well, you can't do that with this album. And when you're trying to mix a 35-piece orchestra against a massive choir, and Theremins and huge guitars and drums and blah blah, it's like a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the sense that you have to work out where you're gonna come in with different colours and different shading. And you know, [you have to decide] what black you're going to use that's gonna define certain aspects of the painting; do you want people to see it straight away rather than have them spend time looking at the painting and realise, 'Whoa, that's just popped out – I didn't see that?' There's lots of hidden treasures in The Red Paintings' The Revolution Is Never Coming; [it] is an album that people will find things in years down the track, and that's the album I needed to create. If it's the last album I ever make, so be it – at least I created one artwork in my life I believe in.”

Though McSweeney is resigned to the fact that people will either love the record or hate it, he's buoyed by early rave reviews that appear to have been able to detach from the history of The Red Paintings to simply hear the music of The Revolution Is Never Coming. An unconventional, outspoken personality such as his will always attract forthright criticism though, and the naysayers have taken their toll.

“A lot of people in Australia are very negative and have abused me, called me many things; there's even been forums saying I ripped them off. It got really bad there for about twelve months where I went into a really depressive state, 'cause it was like – oh shit, if only you understood what I was going through and that you realise that I haven't given up; I've been working my arse off on this… The best way I could approach it was to just be like a normal person, and not try and act like a rockstar; I just physically went to those people and got their names and numbers, and I would call them around the world and go, 'Hey, it's Trash,' and they'd freak out like, 'What the hell, you're actually calling me?' I'm like, 'Let's discuss what I've been through and why the album has come out late and why what you are getting for your $40 is so much more than you would have got in 2009 if I'd have released it then.' And then what I found was 99 per cent of those people were like, 'I'm so sorry, I apologise – I'm gonna delete my post and I'm gonna give you more money to help you because I really believe in you; you're a good guy.'”

There's no doubting McSweeney has suffered for his art; one can hear it within the terrifying highs and lows of emotion and sonic imagery that exist in The Revolution Is Never Coming. But one question remains – is he finally happy with it?

“Yes, I am,” he says quietly as his animated fast-talking subsides. “My body all the way through [listening to the final master] was calm, and I knew that I'd achieved what I wanted to do… I feel like The Red Paintings are like an onion – there's so many layers to it and a lot of them hurt your eyes,” McSweeney admits of his own experience rather than that of the casual observer of the band's activity over the past 14 years. “I feel like I've shed a part of my life almost, like a skin or something, or more spiritual than that because I put my heart and soul into that like nothing I've ever done before. I lost my girlfriend during the experience, I neglected my parents and my family – for months I didn't speak to them, sometimes longer – I lost friends, I lost a lot of money; I put everything on hold to create that artwork, so it's nice to let it go.”