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 acquired a major independent distributor in the process.
"We really kept everything in-house, you might say," explains frontman, Uni Pereira. "The guitarist, 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 E.P. and received stellar reviews with airplay on over 80 college radio and internet stations, and three songs 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, with two new singles charting on two different radio formats. "Photographic Memory" is heating up the airwaves of pop and alternative stations and "Going To Hell," with its harder, darker edge, has caught fire on rock stations across the country, having been featured in both an ESPN segment and an independent film. RCR has also crossed-over into the Latin market, leading to a performance of their tequila-fueled anthem "The Gulp of Mexico" on Telemundo's 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 the sponsor of their own "Make Our Video" contest, open only to students, for their free give-away single "I Was Brooklyn When Brooklyn Wasn't Cool." The group does all this while actively participating with their fan organization, The Rats Pack.
This hardworking foursome is currently touring the beautiful Caribbean, taping their upcoming travel series, "Rockin' the Islands, Starring Red Carpet Rats." As they continuously move forward 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!"
