Red Collar rocks through long, successful year

Jonathan Truesdale will be having a Rick Allen moment during Red Collar’s [1] show Saturday at the Trotter Building.

The drummer for Durham’s Red Collar, Truesdale broke his arm at the end of October while in New York for the College Music Journal Marathon—in some sense, the Big Apple’s answer to South by Southwest, which Red Collar also played in March. But after going through one questionably successful show sans drummer (mind you, Red Collar is the type of band that demands percussion), Truesdale gave it the one-armed try.

“I felt like I had to [play]—I don’t want to make it sound like something heroic because it wasn’t,” he said. “But we wanted to play every one of our shows.”

Truesdale’s commitment to play at CMJ evinces the core of Red Collar’s psyche. This is a true-to-form rock band, nothing pretentious about it. Although not quite punk in sound, Red Collar brings that kind of energy. It’s not perfect, mistakes happen, but it’s rooted in the now. And more than anything, it’s earnest.

“We just thought that was the way you were supposed to play music,” guitarist Mike Jackson said. “That’s our approach: f— it. Let’s just go and have a good time and focus on right now.”

After forming in the fall of 2005, Red Collar spent time earning its keep the old-fashioned way—persistent, energetic performances. Fast forward to the present and Red Collar is standing mighty in the local music scene. The band has spent this year making personal sacrifices while supporting their first full-length album, Pilgrim, released in February. Red Collar spent the summer touring, sometimes playing to crowds as small as 10, but delivering passionate performances no less.

To be sure, it wasn’t glamorous. The band spent nights sleeping in their van, and Truesdale recounted the experience of having phone conversations with his girlfriend that weren’t always easy. So coming home has been a welcome change of pace.

And the Triangle has enabled Red Collar to thrive, benefiting from the communal spirit and the rich history.

“You can be true to yourself and make the music you want and have the music career you want. It’s nice to have seen that be done in this area before,” Jackson said. “At the same time, we’re going to do it in our own way, and the music’s not the same. All the bands are really connected, but there’s no one sound.”

With Truesdale’s injury, the band has postponed its December mini-tour, and he said he suspects this might be their last show of the year. It’s fitting, then, that it will be for the crowd that helped push them to their current success.

“I want to bring it,” he said. “I want to end strong.”