The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus sing songs about beating bitches and slapping hoes. Or whatever, I don’t know, I was listening to my friend bitch about how they have nicer hair than her. Prissy bitches. At least they’re funny.
RacketJon: You ready?
RJA: Yes sir.
RacketJon: Alright. First question, the one that everyone asked me to ask, is, uh, who in the band beats women so bad that you had to write a song about it to publicly shame them?
RJA: Actually, we all prefer to beat our women. That song was a big hit with us, it was never intended for outside listening. No, I’m just kidding. No, the song, I guess, comes from our singer’s personal experience. All our songs on our record are true stories, that either occurred to our singer himself, one of us, or somebody we know. And in this case specifically it’s a story about his own childhood life.
RJ: Hmm, I see. So you really don’t beat your women?
RJA: [Laughs] Uh no. Only to a certain extent.
RJ: But equal rights, equal fights man.
RJA: Yeah That’s what I’m saying. As long as you don’t tell anyone about it.
RJ: Now what is it that you do in the band?
RJA: I play guitar and sing backup vocals.
RJ: Ooh. Do you write any of the music yourself?
RJA: Yeah, the music is written by the whole band and everything. We all do our own parts. Usually the bulk of it is written by Ronnie, and we come together writing like the overall skeletons, but that’s usually as far as it goes before all five of us get together. We all jam out on every single song. We write every single part together pretty much. It’s all collaborative.
RJ: Do you have any formal music training?
RJA: Uh, you know we all do here and there, just ‘cause as kids growing up we were all really interested in learning how instruments work and shit like that, you know. Ever since like fourth grade, when I was in fourth to like sixth grade, I was in like, orchestra, and then I was in school band for a couple weeks and then eventually I picked up the guitar and learned how to play it myself. You know like some of the other dudes all have like music school training, and our drummer went to high school for jazz drumming for four years.
RJ: Who’s your favorite metal band?
RJA: My favorite metal band? Dude, all of them. [Laughs] Um, my favorite metal band, lets see. I don’t know, like new school or old school metal?
RJ: Any. 
RJA: I like Iron Maiden.
RJ: Yeah?
RJA: Yeah.
RJ: Man, Maiden rocks out.
RJA: I don’t know… Ummm… Yeah, I like Iron Maiden. Or DragonForce. Have you looked into DragonForce?
RJ: Oh, man, absolutely.
RJA: Yeah, they’re very entertaining. DragonForce and Iron Maiden.
RJ: They have a keytar solo and you can’t do anything to but rock out. What is the worst dental experience you’ve ever had?
RJA: Oh god, the worst dental experience? Oh, um, when I was, lets see, when I was in 8th grade I had a tooth that grew over another tooth ’cause it never came out. Uh, it was like my canine tooth, and that’s actually somewhat common. And one just grew right over the other and I never really got it checked out for a long time, so eventually both teeth were fully-grown and overlapping. And I had to get the old one basically ripped out, like with a chisel and that wasn’t fun.
RJ: Were you awake for that?
RJA: Yeah I was actually. I had some shots and stuff in the gums but I was definitely completely awake.
RJ: I was awake for my wisdom teeth to get pulled out. That sucked turds out of my ass. Would you consider you guys as a band to be famous?
RJA: Uh, you know, like on our terms, no, I don’t think so, not yet. I mean maybe almost famous, but I think that’s about as far as it goes.
RJ: Have you guys had the chance to trash any hotels rooms yet?
RJA: Trash hotel rooms… I think we trash every room, dressing room, hotel room, our own room. If we’re there, it usually gets trashed by the end of the night for sure. After a couple bottles of Jaeger.
RJ: [Laughs] Does it feel weird to have prettier hair than most of the chicks I know?
RJA: [Laughs] No, I enjoy it. [again with the laughter]
RJ: You guys ever go get your hair did?
RJA: No, we all have individual flatirons. It’s a good investment to make. It’s really easy actually. It’s like you grow up, you throw on tight pants, you get a flatiron, you get a record deal before you’re thirty.
RJ: You ever borrowed a sister’s or a girlfriend’s pants?
RJA: Um no. Definitely not. Definitely wear my own girl pants
RJ: Is this originally what you wanted to do? Like when you’re like 15, “When I grow up I want to in a band?”
RJA: You know, yes, but at the same time, like it was never like a plan that seemed impossible. It’s kind of like some kid growing up and saying he wants to be the President, and then eventually getting there and things work out, but it always seemed impossible. This is definitely what I always wanted to do, but I never thought it would happen so I never really followed it and then it ended up like, I don’t know, everything just fell into place really. And we all just kind of wound up together, and were all from the same vicinity, like four miles within each other.
RJ: Where are you guys from?
RJA: We’re from a town called Middlebrook, Florida. It’s about thirty minutes southwest of Jacksonville.
RJ: Hmm. I hear it’s humid as crap there.
RJA: Yes, it’s like the armpit of the United States.
RJ: Fuck that place. I think the second most asked question to be asked (does that even make sense?) was “is the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus an apparatus that makes red jumpsuits or wears them as it does something else?”
RJA: Well to us, it means absolutely nothing and everything. It can mean whatever anybody wants it to mean at all. It can be either.
RJ: Hmm. So you guys kind of threw words together to come up with a band name?
RJA: Bingo. For this exact reason right here. We wanted a band name that means nothing.
RJ: That’s good times. Who would you consider to be the biggest spaz in the band?
RJA: Biggest spaz?
RJ: Yeah, biggest spaz.
RJA: Biggest spaz, dude, all of us. Seriously. We’re all insane, we’re all crazy. Uh, but consecutively and consistently, um I don’t know, I’d probably have to say it’s a close race between myself and our drummer John.
RJ: What’s some crazy ass shit you guys do?
RJA: Let’s see… Man really, anything. Dude, it’s just kind of more like on the spot you got to be there type of thing. And you know, we’re up for anything, down for anything all the time. We just try to make a good time out of everything and uh, I don’t know. We like taking advantage of the situations a lot.
RJ: Ever been stopped by the police?
RJA: Have we ever been caught by the police?
RJ: Yeah.
RJA: Uh… No police trouble, not yet. We played a show in Tulsa, Oklahoma about a month ago, maybe a little bit more. It was a charity event for Christmas. And um, the show actually ended up getting shut down because there wasn’t proper security. And there was only supposed to be about a 1000 kids showing up but it ended up being about 3000. And the fire marshal came and then 15 seconds after we started our first song he pretty much jumped on stage and was like trying to manhandle our singer and get us to shut the show down. So we actually stopped playing 15 seconds after our first song. We got shut down. That was the closest deal with police that we’ve had so far.
RJ: Did you guys fight back?
RJA: Say what?
RJ: Did you guys fight back? Fight the fire marshal?
RJA: No unfortunately.
RJ: That would have been awesome.
RJA: Only verbally.
RJ: Are your parents down with your career choice?
RJA: At first, no. At first like nobody was really. We kind of went on a whim, all did it ourselves, gave up family, gave up jobs and cars and girlfriends and dogs, and houses you know, and really we all just kind of came together and lived with each other and basically and did nothing but practice our music all day every day for weeks and years. And once the ball started rolling and they could see that you know they could really understand what we were trying to do. I guess they had our backs then.
RJ: If you had to make a choice between family and music what would it be?
RJA: Um, well you know what, when we did this we kind of did have to make a choice like that. And you know, we made the choice, the conscious choice that we would have to put everything on a pause, you know, or aside for a minute. Unfortunately, that is something that we had to do and we still stay in very good touch with our family members and we try to be as involved as possible. And we’re always there you know in case of emergency but we definitely had to get our priorities straight and that took butt kicking every single day of our lives into this whole music thing and it’s worked out. So now that most of it is out of the way we can get back to what really matters, which is family
RJ: Did you buy your parents something nice when you guys got the money for doing music?
RJA: Yeah, well, yeah, one thing they’ve all gotten is gold records with their name on them, so that’s pretty cool.
RJ: Um, what do you see yourself doing in ten years?
RJA: Ten years? In ten years ill be thirty years old, um, man, I guess we’ll have like, maybe we’ll be working on like our 4th record then, or something like that if we’re still together. We plan to have this as a career band, you know this is working very smoothly, we’re all friends. It’s a real thing, and it’s working in it, so there’s no reason for it not to work out like that. Hopefully we’ll still be making music and doing our thing, being content and doing whatever we want.
RJ: So you’re 20 right now?
RJA: Yeah.
RJ: And drinking Jaeger? That’s against the law, man.
RJA: Hehe. Well, it depends on when you ask me, yea. 20, then usually 26 is a lot more like it, man.
RJ: Oh ok. Um, can you waltz?
RJA: Can I waltz? Uh yeah, I can dance. I got the moves
RJ: Oh yeah?
RJA: Yeah.
RJ: Do you have a patented move?
RJA: Do I have like a what?
RJ: Do you have a patented move?
RJA: A patented move… um, uh, I don’t know, its all kind of my own thing. You know what I mean?
RJ: Now you said you guys gave up dogs when you started doing band stuff…
RJA: Yeah.
RJ: Do you have any pets now? Did you give them all up and leave them?
RJA: Yeah I have two dogs, back at my aunt’s house now, in Jacksonville. Ones named Ralphie, he’s a black cocker spaniel, and the other is a little white albino Chihuahua named Taco.
RJ: True or false: you don’t wear the band’s shirt to the band’s show.
RJA: Oh um, you know what, I’d say, fuck it, do what you want.
RJ: Uh, alright, that’s wrong, but that’s cool. And uh, have you ever used your sidekick to take pictures of your dingdong and then get it “hacked” to get some decent publicity?
RJA: No, no, but I have used my Treo to take pictures of my dingdong.
RJ: Oh, snap. [Laughs] Wow. Why? Why would anyone take pictures of their dingdongs?
RJA: I’m just kidding. Uh, I don’t know, I guess for press, right?
RJ: I guess. What a weirdo. What was the grossest thing you’ve ever seen?
RJA: The grossest thing I’ve ever seen? Uhhhmmm…What’s the grossest thing I’ve ever seen? Umm… Hang on, give me one second to think of it.
RJ: Alright.
(silence)
RJA: Damn it, this is really hard.
RJ: [waits patiently.]
RJA: The grossest thing I’ve ever seen… shit, it’s just ’cause I know I’ve got something really good and it’s hard just to come up with it off the top of my head.
RJ: The grossest thing I ever saw was a, there was a car accident off to the side of the road and I pulled over to help and uh, they pulled this guy away from the car, and I could see his jawbone through his jaw, the gash on the side of his face was so deep.
RJA: Oh my god, wow. That’s crazy. Yeah I’ve seen the same thing, you know, pass by on the road and seen like people that have been hit by cars and stuff, like actually like right after the accident recently. Like literally a couple seconds, like it actually happened right in front of us, and they’ll be like on the side in the gutter all twisted up.
RJ: Ew. And then uh, last question is, uh, what do you tell a girl with two black eyes?
RJA: What do you tell a girl with two black eyes? I don’t know, you must be doing something right?
RJ: No, the answer is nothing, you already told her twice.
RJA: [Giggles] That’s funny.
RJ: [Laughs] Yeah. Abuse is funny.
RJA: Yes it is.
RJ: Alright man, that was it.
RJA: Thanks man.
RJ: Thank you.
RJA: Have a good day.
-Interview half-assed by Jonathan Yost