There is not much that is subtle about the band Rye Coalition.
With their second full-length on Gern Blandsten Records titled
The Lipstick Game, it is evident that every aspect of their
band is calculated to be loud. Their music itself is loud. Their
“Yeahs!” are loud. Hell, even their record cover (a
pouting hot pink imprint of a lipstick smeared kiss) is loud.
After all, you can’t listen to real rock’n’roll
with the volume turned down low, right?
Lead vocalist, Ralph Cuseglio, is really funny during our conversation.
With me in Manhattan and him finishing up school in the Mid-West,
we gab over telephone lines about many things this afternoon.
First, there is the subject of his band, which he praises with
cutting honesty and unabashed enthusiasm, “We are a big
fish in a small pond right now. We headline a lot of shows.
When we don’t, when we play before another band, a supposedly
‘bigger’ band, it is a joke.” Coming off like
a really proud parent, he continues, “We are excited about
what we are doing and we feel like we had to wait a long time
when a lot of bands have toured extensively and put out record
after record. We haven t had that opportunity. We are like ‘Damn,
we can songwrite this band under the table. We can shit all
over this band.’ You know?” But, it is hard to argue
when they put their money where their mouth is. This new record
is outstanding. Even if you don’t want to like it, you
will. Their guitar hooks are catchy and technical. Cuseglio’s
breathy screeches and wildman singing commands his listeners
to rant along behind closed doors into their makeshift microphones
of hairbrush handles. This is the kind of music that you put
on as the soundtrack for getting dressed for a really hot date.
Let’s meet the rest of the band. Jon Gonnelli plays guitar
and supplies vocals, David Leto plays bass, drums, organ, and
sings, and his brother Gregg Leto plays drums and supplies vocals,
too. They are all from New Jersey and have been around pissing
people off and simultaneously making them dance for several
years now. When it comes to their presentation, Cuseglio is
not shy about wearing his influences on his sleeve, “Bands
like Led Zeppelin, we are big on them. Almost too big. Lately,
we have been big on Yes too. We just go up and don’t give
a shit what anyone thinks of us. We just go up there and rock
out.” We need more rock stars anyway. Enough with the skinny,
do-gooder, clean-cut bands that do not even know how to utilize
their meek stage presence. In with the howling, mysterious,
brooding, explosively entertaining bands for the new millennium.
Rye Coalition is in a good position to start the movement. In
an age where most bands are rallying behind some kind of greater
cause, like freeing jailed monks who have to wear Nike’s
and are forced to eat meat or something like that, Rye Coalition
are not bashful about their mission just to rock out. Cuseglio
explains, “We have never have had a political agenda, we
never advocated any big issues. Our main thing is just to go
up there and give the people a good time, so people can forget
all their shit for a while. To be their drug, basically. To
have the people not think about anything else besides the music
that they are listening to, that works for us. Our audience
is mostly a college crowd, around our own age. I don’t
feel that the younger kids are into us. We do not attract a
teenybopper crowd. Which is good. We’ve played some shows
with certain bands, but we realize that it isn’t our crowd
when it is just seventeen year olds. I don’t know if it
is because they are not ready for the rock or what. I feel like
we are not really about being cute and making people all giddy
about seeing us. A lot of bands can play on that. But, I don
t think we can because of the kind of music that I think we
play and our
I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude. I don’t have the cutie
element. We just don’t have that.” He goes on to emphasize,
“We are four, dirty men. We have never had this fashion
agenda with our appearance. We are just four guys who just want
to get up there and play music and I feel that we do that pretty
well.”
Sometimes, the attitude that they present during their performance
does spill over into their interactions with people in the scene.
They really are nice people, I promise. Cuseglio recounts, “The
biggest misconception about our band is that we are really mean
people. There is a big difference between what you do on-stage
and what you do off-stage. People miss that idea with me in
general. People act like I am a big monster. A part of me is
into it. I feel like I am bothered when people want to get to
know me because they think that [being a mean guy] is who I
am and that is what I am all about. It freaks me out. There
is a huge power dynamic, especially when I am offstage. If people
are intimidated by me, when they believe that that is how I
really am, that freaks me out.” The only thing standing
in their way is the physical distance between the band members.
You see, right now the band doesn’t live in the same time
zone, which has been an obstacle in their overall plan of world
domination. Cuseglio breaks it down, “I’m moving back
to New York, which will take us one step closer to being a full-time
band. We’ve never been a full time band. It ‘s always
been us playing together in-between school breaks. We never
practice, only to write songs. I think that it has been good
for us. We will have another record out in the next year, probably.
When we are together, we tend to spit out songs, which is good.”
The hardest part for them is trying to arrange their schedules
so that they can take time out to tour, which they were hoping
to do this summer. “That is one of our goals. The idea
was that once Jon and I graduate, we were going to take on the
world, as far as touring goes. We were going to tour extensively
and be a real band, like the ones we play with. But, I don’t
think that that is going to happen. We still have time. We are
still really young. I still think that we still have our best
records in us.”
There is not much that is subtle about the band Rye Coalition.
With their second full-length on Gern Blandsten Records titled
The Lipstick Game, it is evident that every aspect of their
band is calculated to be loud. Their music itself is loud. Their
“Yeahs!” are loud. Hell, even their record cover (a
pouting hot pink imprint of a lipstick smeared kiss) is loud.
After all, you can’t listen to real rock’n’roll
with the volume turned down low, right?