Middleburg, FL · post-hardcore · emo

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

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Jacksonville post-hardcore whose one inescapable single has kept the whole catalogue in rotation for two decades — 'Face Down' still hits its mark.

Ronnie Winter and childhood friend Duke Kitchens began writing songs together in an AP Music Theory class in 2001, and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus took shape officially in 2003 once other members joined, in Middleburg, Florida, near Jacksonville. The name came from the group voting on random words scrawled on a wall. Their original drummer and bassist left before playing a single show, one for the military, one for college, and Winter briefly covered drums before switching to vocals alone.

The band built a following through Myspace and a self-released EP recorded at Vision Sound studios in nearby Orange Park, spending eighteen months writing before playing out live. That work caught the attention of Virgin Records executive Jason Flom in 2005, leading to a deal and the 2006 debut, Don't You Fake It.

The record produced 'Face Down,' a song about domestic abuse that became one of the most widely heard singles of the mid-2000s emo and post-hardcore wave, alongside 'Your Guardian Angel.' It went gold within the year, and its songs spread further through placements in the video games Saints Row 2 and MX vs. ATV: Untamed and the film Never Back Down. In 2007 the band headlined the Take Action Tour with My Chemical Romance and Rise Against.

Fronted throughout by Ronnie Winter, the band pairs melodic, radio-shaped choruses with screamed passages and chugging guitars. They have continued to record and tour independently since leaving the major-label system, releasing six studio albums in total, and their live sets still lean heavily on that first record. The current lineup also includes K Enagonio, Joey Westwood, Josh Burke, Randy Winter, John Espy and Nadeem Salam.

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post-hardcoreemo