Red

RED is an American Christian alternative rock/metal band from Pennsylvania. The band’s name represents the blood of Christ. The band was formed by twin brothers Anthony (lead guitar) and Randy (bass) Armstrong, Michael Barnes (lead vocals), and Andrew Hendrix (drums) in 2002. The band started out as a CCM cover band for local youth groups, until they grew tired of the genre, wanting to make more personal music with a nu-metal/post-grunge sound.

Later in 2004, Jasen Rauch joined the band as an additional guitarist, eventually becoming one of the main songwriters. The band started recording demos with the help of Grammy-nominated rock producer Rob Graves.

Not long after, the band was signed to Essential Records, a subdivision of Provident Label Group, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Around the same time, Hendrix decided to leave his role as drummer, later being replaced by Hayden Lamb (twin brother of Hunter Lamb, the ex-guitarist of Paramore). This led to the release of the debut album End of Silence. The album was most known for it’s singles Breathe Into Me and Already Over and was eventually nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Gospel Album in 2007.
As the band prepared for their sophomore album, Innocence & Instinct, the band was involved in a car-crash on the highway damaging their van and gear. From this, Hayden Lamb was injured, leading Joe Rickard to take over for him as the drummer.

Shortly after the release of the album in 2009, Jasen Rauch decided to leave the band, to pursue producing and songwriting, which eventually led to him becoming the lead guitarist for Breaking Benjamin.

The third album, Until We Have Faces, led to the band’s first television performance appearing on Conan, then The Tonight Show Starring Jay Leno a week later. Rickard later departed from the band after finishing the “recalibrated” version of the fourth album Release the Panic, joining the Swedish heavy metal band In Flames.

In 2015, the band released of Beauty and Rage, an album funded by PledgeMusic, having Dan Johnson of Love & Death as the studio and touring drummer. In the Fall of 2017, Red released Gone, another PledgeMusic funded album, having Rickard return as the studio drummer.

2019 saw Red go independent for the first time being funded solely by the fans via PledgeMusic. It also saw the official membership of Dan Johnson as the drummer for the band. They released their single The Evening Hate that June along with a 13+ minute music video created by the band.