RED CARPET RATS

Red Carpet Rats are undoubtedly one of the music industry’s hardest working bands. This Nashville-based four man rock collective not only wrote every song on their radio-friendly debut release, “The Year of the Rat,” they also produced it, initiated a digital marketing campaign, formed and staffed their own label, and booked a 75-date Caribbean tour, filming their own TV show in the process.

The Red Carpet Rats story began taking shape when singer Uni Pereira placed an ad in a northeastern music magazine looking for a “guitar player who can sing harmony.” McCabe, who had a development deal with a recording studio near Boston, responded to the ad and they clicked instantly. Agreeing on the importance of well-crafted songs, the two began to make regular trips to Nashville to hone their writing skills. They soon opted to relocate and completed the line-up, with drummer Tige Bucchino, who had come from San Antonio with thoughts of being in a country band, and Doc Singles, who drove from North Carolina to audition for the bass position. The band, who took their name from a piece of graffiti art, wasted no time creating edgy, gripping tunes with four-part harmonies and catchy pop melodies.

“Uni suggested that we all move in together, enabling us to get to know each other so well that we knew what to expect from one another. I figured it worked for Aerosmith, so why not,” explains McCabe. As well as co-writing all of the songs on the album with Uni, he also handled production duties. The Massachusetts native has been playing guitar since he was only three years old and performed his first paying gig at nine. “My dad was a DJ and I knew every song in his collection, and actually wrote my first song at five. But I was drawn to melodies. I didn’t really pay attention to lyrics.”

For frontman Uni Pereira, who is driven to be the consummate showman, the opposite is true. “I was about 7 or 8 when I started writing down little poems, or lyrics, as it were. Just writing about the standard stuff for a kid that age . . . friends, playing games, getting into trouble. Ya’ know, throw in a bit about girls and it’s close to the same things I write about now!” A published writer who has worked as a DJ for a U.K. based radio station, Uni is also somewhat of a scholar of popular music history, stating, “If there’s a music biography or documentary out there on a legendary band or singer, I’ve probably checked it out . . . twice!” He and McCabe have also recently secured a deal writing for Universal Music Group’s Master Source music catalog, the industry's leading provider of original music for film, TV, and multimedia.

Although he hides it well, Doc Singles, is RCR’s resident geek. The classically trained bassist has a degree in lasers and electro-optics. Doc has also been busy collaborating with Uni to develop and prepare a Red Carpet Rats comic book series to be published by Viper Comics. “I never dreamed I’d get the opportunity to mesh my interests of music and comic books, and quite frankly, didn’t know I had it in me,” he states.

Tige Bucchino is the craftsman. “I’m big on building things,” he says. “Over time, I’ve constructed studios, consoles, staging, and anything else RCR has needed. I like to think I bring the proficiency of a technician to my drumming for the band, while most importantly, just playing whatever the particular song needs.”

“We really kept everything in-house, you might say,” explains Uni. “McCabe and I wrote all the songs together on a laptop right in my bedroom. I handled the lyrics and he supplied the melodies. Then we worked out the arrangements and rehearsed it with the whole band in the living room until we felt all the elements were there.”

They knew they were ahead of the game when they released five songs on their “Rug Burns” E.P. and received stellar reviews with airplay on over 80 college radio and internet stations, as early versions of “Photographic Memory,” “Creeping In,” and “Written in the Scars” all reached #1 on Live365.com. However, the culmination of their hard work was their first full-length CD, “The Year of the Rat” which was mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Kevin Beamish (Elton John, Henry Rollins), and mastered by Randy LeRoy (Relient K).

“Ultimately we were disappointed with much of what we heard from the label executives we met with, in that we were looking for more of a partner than an employer. So McCabe and I decided to start our own label to release the record, which lead to signing with a subsidiary of UMG’s Fontana Distribution,” Uni states. “The fundamentals of running a business are universal,” adds McCabe. “So we took the reins and built this whole operation from the ground up, making Chauffeur Records a full service independent record label.”

“Chauffeur Records is doing everything right,” according to New Music Weekly magazine. And Red Carpet Rats has proven that their sound has no boundaries. Lead track “Going To Hell,” has already reached the Top 10 on WZIN 104.3 FM “The Buzz” in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and has recently been picked up by ESPN for inclusion in their X Games series. The rocking “Hard Living” was recently used in an episode of the BAD GIRLS CLUB on the Oxygen network. Their tequila-fueled anthem “The Gulp of Mexico,” has helped Red Carpet Rats cross-over into the Latin market with a live performance on the Telemundo show Spanish TV.

Not stopping with the music, Red Carpet Rats has signed on as official “spokesband” for the Tennessee chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America. The band also participates as part of Musicians On Call, a nonprofit organization which brings live music to healthcare facilities. With an eye on education, RCR is also sponsoring their own “Make Our Video” contest, open only to students. The group does all this while actively participating with their fan organization, The Rats Pack.

This hardworking foursome look forward to the next step in their musical evolution, and, to borrow a line from the band’s ode to the grind, “Hard Living,” . . . Red Carpet Rats will surely keep busy “taking everything that life has to offer!”