Red Velvet Letdown finds a way forward

A few weeks after Red Velvet Letdown guitarist Michael Christian died in August 2024, his bandmates regrouped to play a long-planned concert at Spacebar.

Initially envisioned as a celebration of the 1990s-era Columbus scene, RVL invited groups featuring the likes of Tera Stockdale (Trachete) and Kyle Siegrist (Second Street Butchers) to join the lineup for the evening. “We basically wanted mid-90s Stache’s at Spacebar,” said Red Velvet Letdown bassist TJ Steppe, who joined drummer Kent Grosswiler, singer Ace Mayes, and guitarist Jeff Greene for a mid-October interview. (Guitarist Mitch America rounds out the group’s current lineup.) “So, it was a whole bunch of people who had known Michael as long as we had. … And instead of all of us feeling our glory days one more time, it very much became a grieving show.”

Even at the height of this sorrow, however, the members of RVL never considered calling it quits. Instead, the musicians took the mindset they adopted for that mournful late August concert at Spacebar – “I was hellbent on going out there and giving it the kind of show that, as cliche as it sounds, [Michael] would have wanted us to,” Steppe said – and expanded it into the moves they’ve made in the months since. Most recently, this has included the pressing of a new seven-inch vinyl, which features a trio of songs on which Christian played, and which the band will celebrate with a release show at Spacebar on Saturday, Oct. 25.

“Stewardship is this word I keep coming back to,” said Steppe, who hailed that expansive imprint Chrisian left on the scene as a musician, a songwriter, a teacher, and a sound technician. “We have his last batch of songs, his last recordings, and I feel a stewardship toward those. … We have a responsibility to those who are fans, who are friends, who are family. This city loved that dude on almost more of an across-the-board scale than anybody I’ve ever known. Everybody in every corner of the music scene loved that cat, and we hold the final chapter of his creativity. And that’s a heavy weight.”

When Christian passed, Red Velvet Letdown had completed nearly eight tracks toward a new full-length. Rather than pressing ahead, the musicians opted to pivot, moving to cement and honor those songs on which the late guitarist featured. The trio of tunes that appear on the new seven-inch were “the three main songs that [Michael] brought to the table,” said Grosswiler, who compared the act of mixing, mastering, and pressing the tracks to vinyl with fulfilling Christian’s last will and testament. “I think these three songs are the best representation of what he brought to the band,” Grosswiler continued. “And they’re definitely the best representation of our sound with him.”

The vinyl release kicks off with “Geronimo,” a surging rocker built on crunchy, glam-indebted guitar riffs and rhythmic, hard-hitting drums (Steppe rightfully noted RVL’s focus on the and roll part of the rock and roll equation). Ostensibly the tale of a paratrooper reckoning with their past, the track takes on new dimensions landing a year after Christian’s death, particularly as Mayes sings about existing in a haze, struggling to find answers, and the sense of being in a prolonged freefall, uncertain if and when he might again experience stable ground.

Elsewhere, the musicians turn out sleazy rockers that land somewhere between the New York Dolls and Hanoi Rocks (“Shotgun”) and swaggering blues-rock road graders centered on narrators who read as intimately familiar with life’s gutters (“Train Yard”). “A lot of the songs … touch on this idea of struggling with or overcoming drug addiction or alcoholism,” Mayes said. “And ‘Train Yard’ is in that vein.”

As Red Velvet Letdown worked to preserve the previous version of the band with this vinyl release, the bandmates have simultaneously taken steps toward a new future. Aware they could never replace what Christian brought to the group – “He was a unique voice that isn’t going to be replicated,” Steppe said – the musicians instead focused on finding somebody with a bit of groove in their playing style and whose personality could integrate seamlessly with the other four members. “We’re not chasing a record contract at this point. We’re not trying to latch onto a tour,” Steppe said. “We’re doing this for the fucking fun of it. And if it’s not fun, then why are we doing it?”

In former 12 Gauge guitarist Greene, RVL found someone who checked both of these boxes – a fact that became evident in early rehearsals with the guitarist, who would spend time in between songs noodling on Thin Lizzy and AC/DC riffs. “Even though Michael and I do different things, I think the spirit is very much in the same direction,” Greene said. “And that’s a very good feeling when I hear it.”

Moving forward, the band plans to eventually release the other five songs on which Christian appears, while continuing to amass new material with RVL 2.0. “I would love to see us a year, a year and a half out from now, playing almost none of the songs I see as the first chapter of the band,” Steppe said. “Obviously, we’re not going to abandon any of these great songs, but I’d love to have a full set worth of stuff written with Jeff, and I would love to see a different set than what we’ve been playing the last three years.”

But even if this weekend’s performance at Spacebar draws from a similar batch of songs as Red Velvet Letdown’s concert at the venue last August, the feeling within the space will feel miles removed from that night.

“It’s going to be a lot different than our first show without him,” said Grosswiler, who spoke fondly of the years he got to make music with Christian following a long stretch in which life circumstances left the two at a distance. “Even just over the past few weeks, where my head and my heart have been going with this is like, wow, man. I’m grateful I got to be a part of his last seven years. … And to not only have seven years of being tight again, but to be able to create something awesome together. And I’ve been trying to hold on to that as opposed to, you know, being fetal with grief. I’ve had too much of that in my life. I’m trying to lean into something more celebratory.”