For Virgin Records platinum-plus rockers The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, a busy holiday season is only getting busier in the two-month run-up to the much-anticipated February 3, 2009 release of the band’s second album, Lonely Road.
The band played early Secret Santa to their worldwide fan community by posting the new album track "Pen & Paper" as a free download at the RedJumpsuitAlliance.com website, adding a stream of the song to MySpace.com, and letting viral word of mouth do the rest.
The album’s kick-off single and video, the righteous rocker "
You Better Pray," has already been streamed nearly 350,000 times on the RJA Myspace.com page, as it builds national airplay and climbs the alternative and modern rock radio charts.
Three months’ worth of live dates have now been finalized, including year-end holiday celebrations presented by America’s greatest rock radio stations; a month of headlining dates through the south and Midwest (including a stop in their hometown Jacksonville, Florida); and a series of gigs in Southeast Asia and Australia.
On Monday, December 15th, the final MTV2: Unleashed All-Day Premiere of 2008 will be "You Better Pray." The video will run on MTV2’s online homepage and on MTV2’s cablecast throughout the day, at the top of each video hour and in front of the channel’s regular programming. Promo spots will feature teaser footage from the song’s video clip for a week prior to premiere day.
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus recorded Lonely Road, at the Valley Village, CA, studio of super-producer Howard Benson (My Chemical Romance, Hoobastank, P.O.D., Less Than Jake, Daughtry, Seether, All-American Rejects). The album follows up Don’t You Fake It, the band’s breakthrough debut, which charted for 62 weeks on Billboard’s Top 200, scanning over a million copies in the U.S. to date, and selling more than 2.1 million copies of its singles.
Consisting of lead singer Ronnie Winter, guitarist/pianist/singer Duke Kitchens, bass/singer Joey Westwood and drummer/singer Jon Wilkes, RJA’s extraordinary address of domestic violence in their first single, "Face Down," signaled the close relationship the band would keep with their fans as they grew from local sensations to platinum international hit-makers. "Everybody loves the band ‘cause they know we are real and not contrived, and know the trailer that we started jamming in when we were 15 years old," Ronnie Winter told a CrusherMagazine.com interviewer during his brief downtime at home in Florida, just following completion of the new album. "The cops had to come shut us down. I still talk to those cops when I see them on the streets. It's one whole long story that has taken eight or nine years, so our community has been with us the whole time."
Accordingly, since the release of Don’t You Fake It, RJA has also been an active force for a wide array of charitable organizations and social causes, including teen suicide prevention (including co-headlining the US Take Action Tour with My Chemical Romance and Rise Against), mental health parity and a strong commitment to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, teaming up with their label Virgin Records, to raise funds.
In addition, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus Guardian Angel Foundation has been formed as an umbrella group to support under-funded high school band programs, to promote and enhance student musical development; support individuals affected by domestic violence, to break the cycle of abuse; and contribute to research that focuses on management of acute hyperglycemia in hospitalized patients. "We've honestly always felt blessed, and the best way to give back is to…give back! Don't talk about it. Just do it. So our motto of, ‘Doing good for no good reason’ will always apply to this specific band, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus," Winter said.
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