A Dumbarton band has released their latest single inspired by the stories of the guitarist’s gran who lived opposite a prison.
Red Hearted Vibrations have released Dead Girl Walking which follows their debut album Storms On The Wildfire Mountain and departure of keyboardist Scott Brown last year.
It’s the first single from the band this year, who say there’s been a “really good” response to their new track.
The group is made up of childhood friends Craig White and Steven Nelson, alongside Craig’s brother Euan, Steven’s sister Laura, and Ewan
Driver.
Co-founder Craig said: “There has been quite a good reception to the song and the video that went along with it.
“The video was shot in Inveraray jail, so it will be somewhere that is familiar to the people of West Dunbartonshire and the west coast of Scotland.
“The music video suited the song.”
The song was written by guitarist Ewan, based on stories told to him as a child by his gran, who was raised looking onto HMP Barlinnie – a large male offender’s prison in Glasgow.
The song is told from the perspective of a prisoner facing their impending peril on death row.
Craig explained: “He wrote it on a tale his gran told him when she stayed in a flat in Riddrie across from Barlinnie.
“She was convinced that when the lights flickered in the jail, that was when people were hung. When we were jamming it, we added the harmonica to give it that Longest Yard and Walk the Line kind of feel to it.”
The song is a new sound to the band’s repertoire, but Red Hearted Vibrations ensured the song continues to deliver the sound that people have come to expect from them.
Craig said: “It is a different sound. For the last few singles over the past three to four years, we were a six-piece band using things like keyboards and pianos.
“It was an anthemic rock sound with synths and big production which is great.
“We do love that and we still play those songs to this day.
“But with this one, it was a case of stripping it back and doing less to get more.
“Rather than going out and doing too many guitar solos and overdubs, we just wanted to do something easier for ourselves to get out as a five-piece again.
“We wanted to really focus on that rock sound.
“It was a case of doing what we needed to do and making it sound big from what we had.
“The sound is like White Stripes meets Queens of the Stone Age and Led Zeppelin.”
