December 9, 2019

Meet One I Red in Chula Vista

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to One I Red .

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Mike Costello (bass and keys) and long time friend, school mate and bandmate Ian Parker (drums) got together to start a new project. We had known Fonso Payumo (guitar) from the local music scene. The year was 2009 and the three of us were jamming and creating songs together. We needed a singer, so Fonso posted on Myspace looking for singers to audition, yes Myspace! Nikkie Stars (vocals/lyrics), saw his post and responded, “Are you looking for male or female vocalists, do you have a preference?”. At the time she was adding and following musicians from all over San Diego. “I was just trying to get myself connected to other artists and musicians in San Diego. I didnt know anyone in the scene and I really wanted to sing with a band.” Fonso replied and said they were open to either male or female singers. “They gave me 4 links to youtube videos of their songs and told me to pick one and write my ideas/lyrics for them. I loved all of their songs! I thought to myself, I have to be in this band, they sounded like U2 meets Incubus to me and I love both those bands!” “She came to practice with a notebook, and we were like oh okay!” “I did come in with a notebook, and I had lyrics for 3 songs ready. The 4th one I winged off of some random phrases in my notebook. I came in like I was on a job interview! Haha! And I wanted the job!” “I couldnt picture us a with a girl singer but when Nikkie sang with us. It just worked out so well.” There was an instant chemistry between the 4 of us. It was on April 1st we made it official…and it was not an april fools joke!

We started practicing twice a week, and finally booked our first show later that year. We played at Brick by Brick. “It was my first time ever, ever, ever singing on stage at an actual venue.” (-Nikkie) after that we just kept booking shows all throughout San Diego. We put out a demo and about a year later a full length album, “Exposed” recorded at Sushi Fish, we have recently released a second full length album, “Sea of Stones” recorded at Phaser Control this April (2019). We are eager to get our 3rd album out in 2020 and just keep going. We love what we do. Its our therapy, our passion, its a part of is individually, we’re a little family, its what we do and if we can do it forever, we will. Some people play golf (okay Ian does that too), but you know, some people like to go to baseball games, go on hikes, and scrapbook, we play music. Niether of us can imagine life without playing music. So here we are today, still playing, still booking, a little bit older, wiser, and feeling good!

You can hear our music from both albums, Exposed and Sea of Stones, on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and other streaming sites. We hope everyone enjoys it!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Its been smooth as far as writing. We never fall into a weird writers block or anything. We are constantly coming up with new material. It just depends on if all of those songs stay with us or just become a jam we might get back to later. Challenges would be our schedules, though they arent huge challenges, we always find a time to get back to practice together. Life does happen afterall. We have kids, wives, partners, jobs, families, health, travel, and other projects but we always make time for One I Red.

One I Red – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our music is literally extensions of ourselves meshed together. We all have our own influences and ideas and give each other complete freedom to try them. We all write our own parts, noone is telling the other what to play or write, noone is directing us. We dont even discuss what we are “aiming” for. Our writing process really is just jamming and bouncing off each other, and we record them sometimes. If someone has a a riff idea, they just play it at practice and then everyone else comes up with their complimenting parts. If we like it, we give it a fake name to remember it by and add it to our white board haha! Some of those names have survived all the way to the album. We have come a long way and have grown as individual musicians but have managed to keep moving along together.

Whats sets us apart from others, can be said that we are not looking to fit into a specific sound or box. Not that everyone else is, but when we are asked what kind of music we play, we have a hard time explaining. Its really not a topic we even discuss amongst each other. There is never a discussion of “hey lets make this song sound punk or bluesy” we really mean it when we say we dont talk about what we are going to create, we just play. “Even the topics of our songs are whatever comes to mind in the moment. I just start singing what the song makes me feel like, I let the music tell me what the song will be about.”-Nikkie. Thats what we are all doing, feeling the music. Its really fun! We all have influences coming from different genres that you can hear that in our music. We prefer the listener to decide for themselves. Our approach is laidback, organic and a true reflection of us as a band. We are proud of that.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to us is being able to put out music that we are all proud of, that stays true to us, and if there are people who enjoy it and appreciate it, just that alone is success! Of course, we would love to do this all day, every day, quit our jobs and play shows all over the world but to know it reached someones ears and made them enjoy what they are listening to, something we created, thats the ultimate success, big or small. We hope to provoke the listener to feel something, to relate to and find the urge to listen on their drive home, when they are feeling happy or sad and to help heal or celebrate. Sometimes we say we do this for selfish reasons because its so satisfying but when we hear someone really likes our music, that has been the best feeling next to playing live and getting lost in the moment on stage. So, a big thank you to those people!

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