Issue date: 5/14/08 Section: Features

The end of the semester is almost here, and that also means that other things are coming to a close for now, too.

The last nooner put on by UNIQUE this semester will be today in Serna Plaza. It will feature Red Host, a local band made of three individuals: Chelsea Wolfe, Jess Gowrie and Ian Bone.

"It's a pretty standard nooner - it's going to be outdoors in Serna Plaza," UNIQUE Programs Assistant Karen Chu said. "Sacramento News & Review has actually been promoting it for the past month so that's good news. We're hoping to get a good crowd for it."

It is Red Host's first time playing at Sacramento State, but the daytime hours might not be the best for the band.

"It's always a little strange to play when the sun's out for some reason," Wolfe said. "It's just the atmosphere."

She isn't fully dreading it though.

"It's kind of fun when it's not so much a bar, when it's a little more like a venue," she said. "So people aren't just drinking and talking the whole time - they're there for the music."

Wolfe said the band's music is basically classified as rock.

"It's kind of a mix of rock. We call ourselves black metal because we don't really know what category we fit in, but we're really not black metal," Wolfe said. "We're just like indie rock, kind of loud - something along the lines of Queens of the Stone Age, Garbage, 90s rock."

Wolfe said other influences include Sonic Youth, Fleetwood Mac and Nine Inch Nails.

Inspiration, however, comes from everything. Wolfe said it can come from, "Everywhere - life, experiences, dreams."

Wolfe said it was an Austrian painter though who inspired the name for the band.

"It's actually the name of a self-portrait of one of my favorite painters. His name is Egon Schiele and he's an Austrian painter," she said.

She said the band came together as a result of her looking for people to play with in a self-named solo project.

"I have a solo project that's under my own name and I was looking for musicians to play with me and Jess and Ian kind of came along," Wolfe said. "They were both in different projects. Ian was in a band called Deluxe and then Jess was in a band called The Drama. They started playing with me but we just started writing our own songs instead of doing my solo stuff and we decided to start a whole new project called Red Host."

MySpace and the Internet do not play a large part in the band's schedule or fan-recruiting efforts.

"We have one (MySpace) and people add us if they add us but we're not one of those bands that sits there and adds people for, like, five hours," she said. "I don't really like the Internet age very much. We all kind of have this nostalgic wish that we could be a band like in the 90s or something where you had to go out with fliers and you actually had to meet people face to face or call people and book a show. Maybe it seems stupid because it's easier to just use the Internet but I don't know - there's something intrinsic about doing things the old-fashioned way."

She also said the trio is unsure of where it is headed as a band for now.

"We're just kind of having fun playing. Our favorite times really are when we're just the three of us writing songs and being really creative and recording," Wolfe said.

Wolfe is still going to continue working on her solo project.

"I'm doing a solo album right now, so that's kind of something I'm working on this summer," she said.

"I think we'd still be a little indie and be on MTV but I just have no idea where life is leading us," Wolfe said when asked if she would rather be a big MTV-featured band or stick to a more indie route.

Luke Soin can be reached at lsoin@statehornet.com

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools