Tommy Redmond is a classically trained classical vocalist who has performed at some of the most prestigious stages and schools in the country. His brother, Richie, was a natural guitar maestro. Yet, despite similar tastes, the two waited until their thirties to form a band. That project is Longstryde, a newly-formed rock band whose debut single, “Superhuman,” was released in June, and whose follow-up, “Wishing Well,” is due on September 13th.

In May, Richie spoke to Post-Burnout about the band, the members’ backgrounds, why it took them so long to get the project going, working with members from halfway across the world, the influence of the Grand Theft Auto series on their music, learning guitar from Danny O’Reilly from The Coronas, getting on RTÉ at an early age, his want to get on the GTA VI soundtrack, and much more.

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The first thing I’ll ask is a little bit about the background of the band. My understanding is that Tommy was an operatic singer and he sang in a choir, if I’m correct. He wanted to branch out and do music that was a bit more meaningful – he’s, obviously, your brother! [Laughs] That’s an important detail! – and you guys started this project. What was the impetus for this, what were you listening to and what was your brother listening to, how did they differ and what were the similarities?

Well, we kind of met in the middle, somewhere, but, to begin with, my mother put him into the Palestrina Choir in Dublin, on Marlborough Street, across from the Institute of Education. But, yeah, he’s been put there since he was four years of age. He was going, maybe, three times a week, and then he’d come home [and] I’d be putting these movies on and playing GTA, and the movies and the games had all these soundtracks, and that’s where we bonded with the taste. We didn’t like anything of the period, growing up between the early 2000s to the current time. We always kind of met in the middle, even though he was in the choir. Then he got a scholarship to Wesley College and I went to [St] Benildus [College] in Stillorgan. He got a scholarship to Wesley because they wanted him for their choir, there, and then he went to do a music course. He was in the Chorus Scholars at UCD and then he was in the Irish National Opera. I spent so many years myself saying, “Oh, we should do this! We should do this!”, and, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!”, but [neither] of us ever did the step to do it until he, then…to build up his repertoire for the Irish National Opera, he bought some recording equipment for home; just like [an] interface and Logic and MacBook Pro, and all that. Then I, actually, had to move back to my parents’ for a bit, not too long after he got the equipment, and, on my day off, I said, “Oh, I got to try to learn this. Because I play guitar, so I’ll try to put something down. I’ve had songs in my head for ages.” So, I just laid them down. I learnt how to do the drumbeats on the Logic Drummer thing, and did the bass on the synthesisers. Then he’d come home and I’d go, “Look what I’ve done, here!” I’m not a singer but I’d be doing a real falsetto voice on the words I came up with. Then I’d go off and come back another time, and he’d go, “Look what I’ve done to this!”, and it just kind of came from there. I suppose when each of us saw the other making an effort, we’d go, “OK, we’re onto something here!” To be straight, we were just kind of lazy for many years, doing other things. I wouldn’t say there was ever an obstacle in the way. We couldn’t blame anything outwards; we’re just lazy in ourselves, and then we kind of went, “Oh, yeah! We might have something here!” [Laughs] And we started with the song we have, called “Superhuman,” that’s ready for release. We started off with that one. I wrote that song when I was sixteen, actually, and I’m thirty-two, now. Like anyone in their late teens or twenties, they’re off, messing. [Laughs] Not doing what they should be doing. But I settled down and I’m married now, so I stopped all that messing. Just got stuck into it, and my wife was always encouraging me, “Just do it! You’re getting older!” Myself and my brother, we work for my dad in his fruit and veg shop in Bray in Wicklow, and they’re not necessarily footsteps that we ever wish to follow, but it’s a family business, so we supported it and we all pulled together. Then I got another kick to do music, to give it socks, because my dad, in the space of two years, had two heart attacks. He’s not even sixty yet and he’s still working. So, I see that and I go, “That’s all ahead of me if I continue here,” you know? It could be, down the line, if we stick around, because it’s in the family, heart issues, so that kind of gives us the push to keep doing what we love, instead of just following suit. Saying that, though, we could be making more of an effort at it, though, but we’re gliding along nicely. So, from then on, I have my own place, now, and I record stuff at home, now. I got the same gear he got because I learnt how to use it; I’ve got Logic and all, now. And I have this thing, now, it’s called an attenuator, so I can use my amp and record it through impulse-response speakers, which is a game-changer for me. I can actually playback and play to a metronome. I never played to a metronome, ever. I’m almost twenty years playing guitar [and] I never used a metronome until I started recording my own tunes and hear[ing] them coming to life.

Do you find that easy, to go from just plugging into an amp to going to the digital side? Because I think that’s a very new thing, and a lot of modern guitarists don’t even use amps anymore; it’s just through computers. Did you find that easy to adapt to, or was it strange?

Eh, once I got the hang of it, it was easy. But I wouldn’t say I’m all for it because I liked the old-school carrying of the amp. [Laughs]

[It’s] good for effects, though, because rather than having to buy a bunch of different pedalboards, you can just streamline it in that way, I guess.

Yeah, well I do have about thirty pedals, I think, but I still prefer them to the stuff you get on the impulse response. I still prefer the raw one. I can tell the difference. Except reverbs; I like the reverbs on Logic Pro, but everything else has to come through the guitar, the pedals, [and] the amp. I have a really nice impulse response speaker. I’ve actually bought a set of them, and I always use the same one, every time; it’s a Mesa/Boogie speaker. I use it every time, even for the clean stuff. So, for now, we just do that at home. We do it at home, and I’ll send something to him and he’ll send something to me, and then my wife’s brother, Andre [G Silva], he’s in Brazil, and I send him a track with just the chords of the song, and he’s able to just add magic to it. He played the bass in “Superhuman” and our other songs, “Wishing Well” and “Habit I Feed.” As it just so happened at the time, as well, my friend Mikey Rogers, he is working at Sun Studios in Temple Bar. I don’t know what his rank is there but he’s up there, anyway, and he knows how to do all the Pro Tools stuff. He opened the doors to me. He just goes, “Look, if you want to do something proper, do it here. All the equipment’s here.” So, we booked in with him and we got “Superhuman” done in one day, but we used the drum track that I had made on the computer – you could tell it was fake, like – and I played the bass, myself. I just played the bass notes. As a guitarist, you can pick it up. I was prepared to put it out, there and then, and then I really thought about it and I had been advised, “Don’t put that out; it needs real drums and real bass,” and that’s what we did, we got the bass put on by Andre and there was this lad, he put himself forward in Sun Studio – because there’s a college there, as well, and Mikey teaches students, there – a fellow named Alex Sanchez. At the moment, he’s the drummer for Guns Reloaded, the Irish Guns N’ Roses tribute band. Best drummer I’ve ever seen and delighted to have him on board. He met Mikey because he put himself forward in the college to be a guinea pig to teach students how to record drums. So, that’s how I met him, through a mutual friend, and never looked back. Amazing fella. He sat in the studio that day, and we were playing the song to him and he was on his phone, he was, and I was kind of looking at him, thinking, “He’s not even paying attention! Jesus! Should I say something? Should I say something?” I said, “No. Don’t. He must know what he’s doing.” Then, just as soon as the song ended, he just puts the phone down and walks in, and I said, “Do you want to hear it again or anything?” He goes, “No, no! It’s fine!” He nailed it in one take! [Laughs] I was like, “Who is this guy?!” He was very professional, like. I’m only new to it, like, so I see this professionalism in him [and] I’m like, “Holy God!” But Tommy, now, would be professional on the vocals, because he’s done many gigs before. He’s well trained, he’s done many shows, he was the lead in the high school musicals and all that in school, and played in the National Concert Hall, the Bord Gàis [Energy Theatre] and all that. But I’m sure as you’ve heard, he really has a desire to sing rock music, as well. Not that he doesn’t enjoy doing the classical and opera stuff – he loves that – but…

This is kind of more of his creative output, is that fair to say?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He only listens to heavy stuff. Like, at the moment, he’s listening to a lot of Alice in Chains, and Van Halen, and Aerosmith. We have the exact same taste in music and we influenced each other, in that sense. He has a flair for doing rock music. RTÉ did a special on that choir he was in, the Palestrina Choir, about twenty years ago. He’s only about ten years of age, and he’s sitting there and it’s just him on the camera, and they’re asking, “What music do you like?”, and the fella beside him is saying, “Oh, I like classical music; like Brahms, and Beethoven, and Mozart,” and all that, and then it goes to my brother Tommy, and he goes, “Oh, I like classical music but I also like rock!” [Laughs] It’s funny, he’s supposed to be here to try and sell the choir and he’s there, only a young lad, going, “Yeah, I like rock, as well!” We still have that, we got it converted from VHS to DVD, and we look at it and go, “That would be great for a little documentary, to add that in.” That’s where we are now, just for recording stuff. We haven’t gigged yet because I need a second guitarist, because on all the songs, there are two guitars, and I’ve done both myself, but, for a live setting, I’m going to need a second guitarist, to teach them how to do it, and a bass player, as Andre is based in Brazil, so he’s not able to come over all the way, for a gig here and there! [Laughs]

So, it’s an international project, in a way?

Kind of, yeah. But it’s the way I wanted it, you know what I mean? Because he’s a savage bassist and Alex is a savage on drums. But Andre could easily tab it. If I were to hire someone, he could just put down the sheet music for it, no problem at all. And Alex is available, as long as it doesn’t collide with the other projects that he’s working on. [Laughs]

Do you mind if I ask you, were you trained in guitar or was it self-taught? Generally, how did you learn? Did you play in bands as a teenager or what was your history, prior to this project?

In First Year [of secondary school], it was. I was twelve years old when I started playing guitar. It was September. I did it in Sancta Maria College in Ballyroan, Rathfarnham. I think my first guitar teacher was the singer for The Coronas. I think it was a year or two before they were famous. I only did a few lessons with him, then, a year and a half later, The Coronas are out and I see the pictures, I go, “I think that’s your man! I think that’s the fella!” [Laughs]

[Mimes holding a phone] “Can we do an opening slot?” [Laughs]

Yeah, yeah! I think it was him! This is going back about twenty years, nearly. But it was a class setting and, not to sound big-headed, but…everyone was a beginner in the class, but I was kind of ahead of everyone. I was kind of shooting ahead of everyone, and I didn’t like the slow pace. I was asking, “Can you teach me how to play ‘Paradise City?’”, “Can you teach me to play this?” Now, in fairness, he taught me how to read tablature and play the “More Than a Feeling” riff and “Sweet Home Alabama,” but as the classes slowed down, I was like, “Once I know how to read tab now, I don’t think I need to do these, anymore.” I think I only did three lessons, to begin with, and then I just taught myself. I was able to download tabs online, and then I went to buy books. I thought books were better because you can read the rhythms in the books. I kind of took a gap for a few years, in my late teens. When you finish school, you go off with the lads doing all this and that. I kind of lost track of it for a bit, but the desire was still, obviously, always there. I always revisited it every now and then. The only gigs I ever did were one-on-one acoustic sets with Tommy. Somebody would hear…like, a friend of my mother would hear, “Oh, we’re doing something in the church. Can your sons come in?”, and that was really it. We’d do an Oasis cover or something. This was back when we were, like, seventeen. I was seventeen; he was, like, fifteen or something. We got a slot on some TV show. It was called Glas Vegas, back in…it was, like, 2008 or something like that, and it was spoken in Irish. So, we chose to do that song “Hallelujah,” and we got in for the audition to do it, and I think it was your one Leona Lewis from The X-Factor, she did “Hallelujah,” and we were like, “Oh, Jaysus Christ! This is bad!” [Laughs] “We’re going to look like we’re jumping on the bandwagon, here.”

Was it done as Gaeilge or was it in English?

No, in English, but the judges and presenter were speaking as Gaeilge, but they did it in a way where they would ask us the questions in English and then we would answer them, and, the way they shot it, they’d then ask the questions again as Gaeilge. So, obviously, in editing, it would look like they were asking us in Irish and we were answering in English, as if we knew what they were saying! But then they turned around to us on the day and said, “Ah, you’ve only got ninety seconds,” and we were like, “This song has, like, seven verses, alone!” I think we only did, like, one or two verses, and we did it very well, but we didn’t get on. We didn’t actually get onto TV, then. But they sent us a DVD of it, so we have that to look back at and laugh every now and then.

[Laughs] You have your archive footage all built up!

Yeah. And my cousin Vinnie – savage drummer – we did a lot of jamming in his gaff, over the years, and another fella from school, named Gareth Davis, me and him played guitar and we’d jam. We made some good stuff together, like, but it’s just very sporadic. And that was really it. Never did any full band things; I more kind of just had melodies in my head and wanted to get them out, and now I’m getting around to it. So, that’s really where I was for any kind of setting. At the moment, I actually do have a guitar teacher for the last year, Troy Stetina. He’s got many books for sale online. Unreal guitarist, great teacher. It’s more than just doing a general guitar teacher go-to, […] he knows everything. I even played him “Superhuman.” I sent it to him before the session. We do it on Skype – he lives in New Mexico – and I sent it to him and he listened to it for the first time and, right after he listened to it, he played the whole song back for me! I was like, “Jesus Christ! This guy!” [Laughs] He’s unreal, yeah! He’s worth every penny! That’s only about a year now, because in any walk of life, you want to be the best in it.

Do you think, with Longstryde, it’s making you want to expand your skills further, or is it coincidental timing?

Coincidental timing, I think. Everything’s kind of just falling into place. It’s like it was meant to happen now, whereas, I had these songs as a teenager, but they didn’t happen then but they’re happening now. So, I think this is meant to be the band for it. I never saw myself to be in my thirties, starting doing this, but I don’t think you’re ever too old. That’s an old thing people used to say. [Laughs]

Better late than never, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah! But I would like to expand. We have more songs that we’re working on. We have five songs recorded, like full ones, and then I have other ones that just have drum tracks and, maybe, choruses and then, maybe, just one verse and intro. Maybe a guitar solo. But a lot of my time in the last few months has just been consumed by putting things together, the assets together for “Superhuman.” I didn’t think I was going to be involved with all of this, but when all the options were presented to me to give it the best chance, I jumped at it. I was like, “Oh, yeah! Let’s give it a go!”

That’s perfect. I just have one, final thing I’ll ask before you go. […] Now that [“Superhuman”] is out, what do you plan for the future of the band? What would you like to do? Would you like to do shows? What’s the aim, I guess?

Eh, I’d like to put a full band together. I’m a very meticulous person; I need to make sure I get the right guys in for it. I tried to find some guys on BandMix, and any of the guys I contacted, I never get a response. So, first thing first, I need to get a band together and then we gotta rehearse, and then do gigs, and keep going with it. I’ve enough songs to do an album and a half. I’d like to release a full album, get it on a CD, just to have something tangible, even if it’s just a record or CD. […] There’s no signs of stopping. Tommy’s well on board, as well, to keep going for it. Gigs would be great, festivals would be great, tours would be great. You can call it daydreaming, “Oh, imagine this. Imagine it’s in a movie or something.” GTA VI is coming out, and I go, “Jaysus, that would be good…!”

[Laughs] Get it on the soundtrack?

Yeah! “That would be good on the soundtrack, it would be!” [Laughs] That would be deadly!

Actually, let me ask you something because you mentioned GTA [as an influence]. Would it have been Vice City? Which game would it have been? Because the soundtracks are very [different].

Yeah, it was Vice City!

That’s a good one!

Yeah, San Andreas was very good, as well. Some belters in that. Even the rap songs in San Andreas were good, like. I wouldn’t really be a rap fan, but that was the good era of it.

GTA III, not so much. [Laughs]

Yeah, there’s a few belters. The Scarface soundtrack, that was, basically.

That’s true, actually!

There was…what was I going to say to you, as well? Oh, when you were asking about what was going on before this. Remember I was saying it was just pure laziness that we weren’t really doing anything about it, until recently? There was another kind of shift that went on, where I was always listening to songs that were playing on the radio, and I’m not going to name names because I’ve stopped it now, but I mean any of the big names that are out now, any popstar you can name, I was hearing them on the radio, going, “What the fuck? How do people like this? What is this?”, and friends of mine would like them, and I’d be like, [In a self-mocking voice] “It’s rock ‘n’ roll all the way! Oh, did you ever hear Led Zeppelin? No?”, and all that. And I kind of made a sudden shift where I stopped judging these other people and these other artists and stopped criticising it, because I could criticise and judge these other things, and whoever’s listening to me could turn around to me and say, “Well, at least they’re doing something. You’re not doing anything.” No one ever said that to me, but I just made a big switch in my head. I didn’t even notice it. I just stopped giving out, and I actually started enjoying these new popstars now and all that. I think when I just stopped concerning myself with what everybody else was doing, what they were doing, and comparing and giving out about it, and judging and wondering, “How does everybody like this crap?”, I actually like it, myself. I don’t know if it’s a maturity thing or whatever, but I think that was a vital change that kind of gave me a kickstart to go, “Shut up, Richie. Just get to work, yourself,” and that’s what really gave me the jolt to really get going, and I don’t concern myself with what else is going on, now. Miley Cyrus, for example, I never thought I’d ever be saying that I enjoy listening to some of her tunes when they come on the radio. Dua Lipa, as well. I never even heard of her until some of her songs came out recently enough, and I was like, “That’s actually a good song!” because it’s got real drums. Songs now, they don’t have that hip-hop or trap beat anymore, so they’re kind of getting real again and things are looking to head in the right direction.

Longstryde’s debut single, “Superhuman,” is on all streaming platforms now and their follow-up single, “Wishing Well,” releases on September 13^th. You can keep up with the band on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.