Red Orkestra Survive Europe... Barely

Life on the road can be dangerous. Any number of unforeseen disasters can befall a band, especially when they're traveling in a foreign country. Sometimes, record labels should know about these events. Other times, it's probably best that they never find out.

Red Orkestra principal singer/songwriter Johnny Charmer just returned from a European tour that nearly cost him his life. Fading Ways Records personnel learned of the mishap when they were cc'd on this email chat with their star export. They were much happier when they had no idea what happened.

"On our way through the Italian Alps, on the way to Switzerland, the brakes in our van decided they weren't up to the task of the descent down from the highest point in the range," Charmer recalls.

"We barely made it to the bottom safely... [W]e ended up choosing to take a longer route through the valleys instead of crossing over more mountains. This turned out be a VERY wise decision as by the time we reached Basel the brakes could barely stop us at low speeds on flat terrain. Had we kept with our original route I don't think we would have come down from the next alp alive… in fact I'm sure of it. The Alps are a bad place not to have brakes!"

Calamity aside, Charmer — who was touring solo — reports that it was a successful trip for his Red Orkestra. He was in Europe for the second time in less than eight months; this time to promote the release of their latest EP, Enola.

"I've had the name Enola in my mind for some time," Charmer says via email. "I just wasn't sure how best to use it, and the EP seemed an appropriate place for it.

"It's a name that serves as a reminder of the terrible things that humans are capable of doing to each other (the Enola Gay was the American B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II), and it also represents isolation (spell it backwards). It's a serious name for a collection of serious songs."

Sobering lyrics have always been a trademark of the Red Orkestra package and, with this latest disc, Charmer says the introspective songs have gotten even more personal. It's an aesthetic that's often proved difficult for the band during overseas tours, especially in countries where music with English lyrics is a rarity.

"The Germans have a great appreciation for indie music and are wonderful supporters," Charmer continues. "I found that Italians, generally, didn't speak English as much as people in the other countries, and as such that was a tougher market for us (my lyrics are the cornerstone of my songs and if someone can't understand them they're really missing out on a huge part of the experience)... [I]f you turn on the radio there, you hear songs sung in Italian, whereas in Germany, or Holland, or Sweden, the radio stations play mostly English language songs."

Charmer is back on Canadian soil and he and the rest of the Red Orkestra lineup — Stephen Parkinson (guitar, pedal steel, ukulele, backing vocals), George Bettencourt (bass, guitar) and Vince Wardell (drums) — are working on a new full-length and preparing for the domestic release of Enola. The EP will be available from the Red Orkestra website on Friday, and the band have a show planned for the same night at the Duke Of Wellington as part of the GO Music Festival in Waterloo, Ont.