By: Adam Grant

Click here to listen to Black Heart Woman

Click here to listen to The Bottom

 The Red Light Riot has rock n’ roll in its blood – literally.  Featuring Francine Scala and Donna Grantis, this half of the band has much more to them than just a musical history together.  After finding out during their friendship that they were in fact blood relatives, the two started really building their relationship during their early teenage years.

 The ice was broken innocently enough as the two began to compare who they enjoyed listening to, which led to a common ground being shared.  It was then that Grantis let it be known that she played guitar, and Scala admitted to being a singer.  Once this was out in the open, the two began jamming, forming bands, and looking to see how far they could take their talents.

 Then in early 2006 the duo would hook up with work-mates Dave McMillan (bass) and Kevin Mendes (drums), and just like that, The Red Light Riot was born.  The next step was to take their heavy rock influences and use them for a project all their own.  It was not soon after formation that the quartet would head to the extremely small and isolated Ontario town of Hillsburgh where they’d record within a pine-shed studio and live within a cottage on the very same property.

“It was so nice and quiet.  You actually felt like you were away from everything – (like) whatever issues that you’re dealing with at home or at work,” recalls Scala about the recording process.  “It was nice to be just there and just focused on the recording, as opposed to going to a studio from your house for eight hours, coming home, cooking dinner, walking the dog – and dealing with issues.
“It was just nice to get away – no computer, no nothing.  Just our music, CD’s, DVD’s, and that was it – it’s all we had.  It was really cool and I’d totally do that again.”

 In spite of the peace and quiet that TRLR were able to experience during the recording sessions, it still took the better part of 8 months to get every aspect of the album completed and ready for public consumption.  Now with a January 19th release date for the LP War and Ribbons of Euphoria, this group of Toronto based rockers are planning on making 2007 a year of making some serious headway in the music industry.

 Already gathering some serious contacts around Toronto with local artists, TRLR is just looking at getting their names out there by just about any means necessary, but don’t expect them to flaunt their womanly ass-ets in the process.

“It’s very rare to find female artists out there who are strong, independent and aren’t afraid to have manly qualities.  A lot of the female artists out there are very pansy, wimpy, and they sound whiney and they rely heavily on their breasts to sell their product,” strongly states Scala.

“We decided we weren’t going to do that – it was going to be about the music.  We would like girls to see that you don’t have to shake your tits and your ass and wear tight little half tops and all that type of stuff to get recognized,” she continues.  “You could be recognized by your brain, you could be recognized by your talent and you could be recognized by your strengths.  So I think that’s our one thing – we’re real and we want to show the strengths of us, and bring strength out of other people.”

For more information on The Red Light Riot, please visit www.myspace.com/redlightriot