When your album goes gold, you're practically swimming in money. Like Red Jumpsuit Apparatus frontman Ronnie Winter, you can buy a big house in Middleburg, Fla., with room for pets, girlfriends, video games and a horseshoe set - basically, every rock star hopeful's dream. "It's given us the ability to hang out and play music all day," says Winter, a confident master of Axl Rose croons and James Hetfield howls. His alt-rock band soared above the mainstream with its anti-domestic violence single "Face Down," from the 2006 album Don't You Fake It. The follow-up, Lonely Road, drops Feb. 3. "We're actually recording today," Winter says, calling from his home studio. "I'm about to record vocals in the next hour for a B-side in the deluxe edition (of Lonely Road). It's called "Mother's Heart." What's "Mother's Heart" about? Do you often write about yourself and others around you? More than a million copies of Don't Fake It have been sold. How did news like that influence how you wrote Lonely Road? Tell us about the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus Guardian Angel Foundation. How's that going?
Now, we have the ability to open up phase two, which is to help underfunded high school music programs. It's one of the reasons we filmed our new video in a school. We'll be selecting schools necessary to have free money, and then we're going to do a show there and help them raise money.
It's a song about supporting someone choosing to be sober ... that previously had drug and alcohol addictions that were very detrimental. It's taking the perspective of the family. A lot of people and addicts that I've met don't realize they're hurting other people. Sorry to go deep on you for a minute.
It's 100 percent related to me or somebody else I know. Every song is a true story. It's like "Lonely Road." The title track is another true story: It's my grandpa talking to me about the fact that my parents weren't getting back together. It's kind of like part two (to "Face Down"). It (says), "Life's not always going to be awesome, but you're going to have to live it and be well in it." It's the answer back to "Face Down."
I don't think it really did at all, personally. Some of these songs on the album aren't brand new. I wrote "Godspeed" when I was 17. It's the biggest journey on the record - it's just me singing with an orchestra, really.
It's the single most gratifying thing, the band agrees, that we've done thus far in our career. I wouldn't be able to do it without the rest of the guys.
Does your school have a band?
They're one of the bands we're helping, actually. I started playing tuba (at Middleburg High School) in seventh grade through 11th grade. And then my senior year, I marched in the drumline with the tenors.
Where did you get the idea to start the foundation? Do you have a personal connection to one of the charities?
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence contacted us about "Face Down" and we hooked up with them, and we saw how awesome that was, and how we were really affecting people's lives - no matter what critics or haters said. "Face Down" was our first (hit); every one of our songs has a moral and story ... so we started the foundation and made it an umbrella corporation to help more people.
DON'T MISS: Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 20th Century Theatre in Oakley. $13.50-$15.
