Midnight Youth’s one-off return
Jeremy Redmore gave up his band and threw away his music career, but next year he’ll be back on stage – opening for My Chemical Romance. Chris Schulz finds out what he’s been up to.
Jeremy Redmore had disappeared. His band, the popular rock act Midnight Youth, had broken up, and his solo career, which resulted in one record, was over.
When it came to music, he thought he was done. ‘‘I was presented with an opportunity to leave the country with a woman I loved,’’ explains the singer-songwriter. ‘‘I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s be someone else. That’ll be fun’.’’
So, in 2015, Redmore turned his back on music, and moved to Canada. Life in Toronto, he says, was simple, but it was good.
He worked in a coffee shop during the day and remotely for a sports website back home at night. ‘‘Mates would call me and I’d tell them, ‘I’ve clocked life. I make enough money to be happy. I’m travelling. I’m in a great relationship. I’ve got new friends and new things to do all the time’.’’
He didn’t miss the drama of being in Midnight Youth. The four-piece rock act released two albums, had several songs become rock radio staples and performed at major festivals like Big Day Out and Rhythm & Vines over a seven-year career.
Redmore was also over the stress of managing his solo career. His album, the summery pop of 2014’s Clouds Are Alive, burnt him out when he took on multiple roles writing, producing and performing. He released it through his own record label, which contributed to the strain.
In Toronto, he could forget all that. His new friends didn’t even know he made music. He had a guitar, but he never played it. ‘‘I had dreams of going down to the park and playing music, but I never did it,’’ he says. For two years, Redmore didn’t write a single song.
But all that changed when his relationship fell apart. ‘‘In the space of a couple of months, everything in that bubble was just out of my hands, just taken away,’’ says Redmore. ‘‘Not in a dramatic way. It was very much just a tragic way. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say, to change this.’’
Alone and grieving, Redmore says song fragments started coming to him as he contemplated his next move. He began writing down lyrics, picking up his guitar and turning those snippets into songs.
‘‘To me, music has been, yes, to have fun with your mates in a band, but also to express stuff that’s a bit dark in your world,’’ he says. ‘‘I didn’t choose it, the guitar was there. I just picked it up.’’
Eventually, Redmore’s Canadian visa ran out so he returned to New Zealand. As he began picking up the pieces of a career he’d left behind, Redmore found he had enough material for another album, one that sounds unlike anything he’s released before.
Called The Brightest Flame and due out in March 2020, Redmore’s new material is rooted in loss, grief and heartbreak.
Broken into chapters, he released the first batch of songs last Friday, and will stagger the release of the rest leading up to release day. He hopes others can find solace, and perhaps a little inspiration, in what he’s been through.
‘‘I’m just a singer. I can write some words, but other people can do this too, and I think there are a lot of people out there who could make some amazing art.’’ Jeremy Redmore
‘‘It is a heartbreak album, but it’s also a healing album,’’ he says. ‘‘It was a way I could heal myself. I hope people can listen to it and find their own healing from it.
‘‘I’m just a singer. I can write some words, but other people can do this too, and I think there are a lot of people out there who could make some amazing art.’’
A new solo album isn’t the only big news in Redmore’s life, with a Midnight Youth reunion show planned for the same month as his solo album.
The band will open for an international act busy with their own reunion tour: My Chemical
Romance. Redmore, however, says Midnight Youth’s performance is strictly a one-off. Playing in front of 20,000 people was an offer he couldn’t pass up.
‘‘There are some opportunities in life that you look at and you’re like, ‘Not many people get to do this sort of thing’,’’ he says. ‘‘I can put on that mask, jump on stage and be that person again. It’ll be fun. And I’m doing it with people I went to war with. We’ll always be bonded.’’
He feels differently about performing his new solo material live. Right now, he’s not sure he can do it. Those songs still bring back those emotions.
‘‘Listening to it takes you back to that story. It could be too much,’’ he says. ‘‘I listen to this music and it still really makes me feel stuff.’’
But whatever happens next, Redmore knows that, now that he’s doing it on his terms, music will always be a part of his life.
‘‘It was a beautiful chapter in my life. This is another chapter that I’m beginning,’’ he says. ‘‘I want to be doing this for the rest of my life.’’
Midnight Youth will open for My Chemical Romance (with Jimmy Eat World and Miss June) at Auckland’s Western Springs on Wednesday, March 25. For tickets and tour information, see livenation.co.nz