Note: Reading Rainbow has changed their band name to Bleeding Rainbow since this interview

Philadelphia couple Sarah Everton & Robbie Garcia emerged from the ashes of their former band, Forensic Teens, to begin their new musical project Reading Rainbow in 2008. Since then, they’ve been crafting some of the better garage-style indie we’ve had the pleasure to listen to. More specifically, their earnest melodic harmonies and warm, minimalist backing jams yielded a fun and worthwhile listen with 2010’s Prism Eyes. Before the duo embarks on another trip to SXSW and a West Coast tour, Sarah graciously answered a few q’s for us.

Apes on Tape: First off, have you ever made any attempt to contact Lavar Burton (the host of Reading Rainbow)? Is that a dream of yours?

Sarah Everton: No, but the guy who wrote the theme song for the TV show actually contacted us and told us how much he loved our music!  Very cool.

AOT: Besides for you obviously moving to drums, did you guys make any intentional changes moving from Forensic Teens to Reading Rainbows? Or was it more just the natural progression of making music together?

SE: It was a natural transition, but very different in sound.  Forensic Teens was really spastic with keyboards and yelling.  Changing to minimal drums, heavy guitars, and beautiful melodies felt really good.

AOT: I’m not too familiar with the Philadelphia music scene, could you cue us in on what’s going on over there and what rad bands might be emerging? Any particular styles really popular?

SE: Philadelphia has a ton of bands and there are a lot of different scenes happening.  Our current faves include the thrashy no wave Swimmers Ear, psychedelic drone of Acid Kicks, and the straight up punk as hell Slutever.

AOT: I know you employed a Tascam 388 earlier in the recording process. Are you guys still sticking to analog or have you moved more towards digital these days? What kind of recording setup in general are you using too?

SE: Yea, back in the day we were insistent on doing everything ourselves.  Recording on the Tascam 388 allowed us to get some gnarly blown out sounds. In early February we recorded a couple new songs with our friend Al Ashraf at the community college he teaches at.  They have an amazing studio with some really great equipment.  It was our first time recording all digital and we are extremely happy with the results.  Al has helped mix both of our previous albums, so he knows what type of sound we are going for.

AOT: I read one of your major interests is mysticism. Care to elaborate on that a bit, maybe how it works its way into your music?

SE: I think we are both fascinated with the idea of tripping balls.

AOT: You’re headed to SXSW pretty quickly here. How did that go for you last year? And do you have much different expectations this time around?

SE: Last year was amazing.  I think we learned a lot from that trip.  Especially not letting yourself get burned out, and that Austin has every type of allergen in existence. Because we’ll be touring for almost a month after it, we’ll have to take really good care of ourselves.  The best thing about last year was meeting Todd from HoZac.  This year we are super optimistic about what waits for us there.

AOT: Also, you’ve got a tour of the Northwest and West Coast coming up. Have you been before? Excited to share your music with those parts?

SE: This is actually our 2nd time out to the West Coast.  We did a short US tour back in the summer of 2009.  Can’t wait to get out on the road.

AOT: It sounds like Rob’s engineering job has been accommodating so far with the whole band deal. But is that becoming more of an issue as you begin to tour more actively?

SE: Oh yea, especially with this latest tour we were wondering how they were gonna take it.  So far so good.  Ultimately though, music is our life.

AOT: I also heard Rob is a big fan of hot sauce. It happens to be my personal Kryptonite. Does he have any particular favorites?

SE: We both like it spicy nicey!! I think our top 3 sauces are Cholula, Bufalo chipolte, and Sriracha sauce.

READING RAINBOW always on my mind from amanda finn on Vimeo.