We talked to the legendary Planet Rock presenter Darren Redick about his upcoming album with Perfect Beasts
Interview by Angelina Pelova
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. This is what the brand-new band Perfect Beasts did when their guitar player John Mitchell found himself unable to play due to a broken shoulder and ribs. Instead of cancelling the gig, they went ahead with their debut album launch, but as a playback. Unorthodox, and perhaps less than ideal, yet everyone had a good time, heard the music, with an added bonus: the band members’ commentary on the first few tracks. Lemonade!
On Halloween, we had the pleasure of talking just before the event at The Butler in Reading to Darren Redick, the Perfect Beasts’ bass player, who also happens to be one of the well-known and well-loved radio presenters of Planet Rock.
DR: Thank you for reaching out; I really appreciate it! We are a new band; we’re getting started; trying to get traction and momentum, so everything is helpful and is much appreciated.
AP: You are very welcome. Let’s start with what the band is like?
DR (whispering humorously): Don’t call us prog! We’re trying not to do that.
AP: OK, so what is it? Is it hard rock?
DP: I’d say it is more like technical rock; that’s how I would like to think of it. Funny thing about it is, I’m a big prog rock fan; the drummer’s a big prog rock fan; the singer is a big prog rock guy, and the guitarist says he’s not but he is; he says ‘No, I like jazz’. We wanted to be a bit more universal than that. It’s such a captive and slightly niche audience, the prog rock crowd. We love them, don’t misunderstand, but we wanted to cast our net a bit wider than that and get on the radio. I’m a radio guy; that’s my goal: to get my band on the radio. We could write 20-minute epics; I am sure we could do that, but let’s kind of aim in the direction of not so much sounding like bands like Rush or Genesis, so we’re in that middle area, you know, where we can have maybe a couple of radio hits and then we can kind of follow our news in other places on the rest of the album.
AP: Hopefully working at Planet Rock will help you with that?
DR: Well, it doesn’t quite work that way. However, big thanks to Joe Elliot from Def Leppard! I sent him the album, because obviously he is on Planet Rock, and I asked him, very gently, very cautiously because, you know, I don’t want to upset The Rock God; I said, ‘Would you mind having a listen to this and telling me what you think?’ He loved it. He loved it! He gave us a great review and he said he was happy for us to promote that. His words were, ‘This album deserves to be heard’. He’s got a very diverse taste but he knows what he’s listening to; he’s a fan of music. He’s a great guy. I wouldn’t say I know him well but over the 14-15 years that he’s been at Planet Rock, we have had conversations and we’ve met on numerous occasions, and he’s a good guy. He’s actually a genuinely good person which makes me happy to be able to say, and I’m happy that he likes the music that we’ve produced.
AP: So, what other bands did you play in before?
DR: Well, nothing notable really. I started playing in bands when I was 12 when I was back in the States; we just played at the high school battle of the bands and stuff. I think the first song I ever played in a band was aged 15 and we played, ironically, Joe Walsh’s ‘Life’s Been Good’, but the whole idea of ‘life’s been good’ is that you’ve lived some life and now you’re looking back on it! We were 15! We hadn’t lived any life yet, but we liked the song. At that point I was playing keyboards and I had this analogue Pro1 and I spend hours, days, trying to get this performed to sound like the middle part where it sounds like somebody’s clicking – only to I realise that Joe Walsh did that on the guitar! So, there you go. But I learned what a filter in an envelope and an oscillator was, so, you know, all good learning! Beyond that, it was just bands with my friends; we recorded some stuff here and there. Maybe at some point I’ll bring those songs out. There’s been pub bands in the last few years. As much as I like playing in pubs, after a while you’re like, maybe we can push the envelope a little harder on this and do some original stuff. And so, Nick, who is the Perfect Beast guitarist, was also in my pub band. We thought, why don’t we do something, so we’ve made an album.
The album is out at the end of January, 27th. You can pre-order it now through BandCamp. That’s how you can buy physical copies and digital copies.
AP: So, do you want to tell us a little bit about the band?
DR: I really do!
AP: Where does the name come from?
DR: Oh, this is a funny story! OK, let me start with the name, coz the name came well before the band. I remember I was driving on the A30 towards Sunningdale’s train station which is where I lived. I think I was listening to Absolute Radio and that was Don Henley with ‘Building The Perfect Beasts’. Perfect Beasts: that’s a perfect name for a band! So, I made a mental note of that. When we started putting the band together, I wondered if that’s possible: there’s no band called Perfect Beast! So, there it is, the Universe said ‘Yes’!
The idea for the band actually came from our drummer Steve. We were at the Steelhouse Festival; we knew each other already. We were just enjoying whoever was on stage and he said, ‘Hey man, why don’t we write 10 songs and play festivals; do a couple of the cover kind of things!’ I liked the simplicity of the idea and we started. He wanted to do a 3-piece. I would love to do a power trio; thing is, I can’t sing, not really. I have tried. I can carry a tune but I can’t sing; I think there’s a big difference between the two things. I’m good at backing vocals, but don’t make me sing something; nobody needs that in their life!
So now we had a band, where do we start? John Mitchell and I had written two and a half songs a few years ago that were just sort of sitting there. That was a starting point; we could use those because they hadn’t been released. They were just demos but they were good songs. Those two songs were ‘Heavy As The Head’ and ‘Bad Things Happen’. ‘Bad Things Happen’ was the first one actually; it got a slap bass which was an exercise I used just to practice, a bit of slapping and popping, because that’s not my natural way of playing, but that song is based around that. ‘Heavy As The Head’ is heavy bass chords: you know, as the bass player, a lot of my songs are written on bass. And then from there, Nick joined and he had a few songs. I had a couple more that I was working on. That’s how it developed.
AP: And you’ve got very big plans; stadium!
DR: Yes, we absolutely do actually because, after all, go large or go home! I’m a little late to the party at my age, I realise that. I’m not as sexy as I used to be (still pretty sexy, ha ha, but not quite as much as I was). Late to the party, but this is not a vanity project; it’s not something that I’m doing off the back of my day job in radio. Now is the time; I finally assembled a group of people that I work really well with and I really like a lot and I like what they do and how they do it. I’m looking at the next ten years and, in that time, hopefully getting at least 3 or 2 more albums out after this one. This one took a long time to make because you got to get all of the really boring functional background stuff going with regards to distribution and things.
AP: And you are doing this yourself?
DR: For the time being, yes, or until, you know, Warner Bros says, ‘Hey, we want to throw a lot of money at you!’ It also takes time to get on festivals line-ups. I mean, by the time the album was actually finished, we were already late for 2026 to get on there but 2027 is what we’re looking at. But in the meantime, in 2026 we’re going to do at least a few weeks of what I’m gonna call tours; a series of dates throughout the country.
AP: Have you got any ideas of bands you want to play with?
DR: I think the bands that we would be a good fit with opening for is the sort of the same area as Mr Big and Living Color: again, technical rock, not prog. You know, you can’t think Mr Big without thinking of Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan who are just absolute shredders. I’m not a shredder but my guitar Nick is (he doesn’t like that word actually but he’s adept); he knows all the notes, even knows the notes up above the 12th fret, the dusty ones. Or if, you know, Muse want to pick us up! But, then, we are leaning more towards prog, aren’t we. Yes, they are all prog bands. You know who I really like at the moment, that I am listening to more than anyone, is Skindred who are very much not prog. And Nova Twins and Skunk Anansie actually. I don’t know if we would be the right band to play on the same stage with them but you look at Alter Bridge’s new festival that they’re doing in 2026: they’ve got Skindred on the bill; you wouldn’t necessarily think Alter Bridge and Skindred but there they are. And Skindred are brilliant live! Benji, their singer is amazing as a front man and he’s a hilarious person as well, so anytime spent with those guys would be great. Hey, Rush has just announced a tour and are doing a shorter set, so I am like, Getty, call me!
AP: So, are you going to release singles little by little?
DR: Yes. Our first single is out now. It’s called ‘Three Is A Crowd’ and it’s a straight ahead rocker. Nick and John Mitchell wrote that together. I only play on that; I didn’t have anything to do with that other than learning and playing it, but it’s a bit of a banger. That’s the one that Joe Elliot has played on Planet Rock three times now, and Gary Foster has played it a couple of times as well on the Prog Report.
We have another single scheduled to come out on December 5th called ‘Non-Stop To The Moon’ which actually has very little to do with the Moon. I did write that one. Remember I said John and I wrote two and a half songs? That was the half song that we’d written most of the music for, but it had no lyrics. I was again driving (I get my best ideas when I’m driving, I guess); I came up with the chorus for that and then everything else kind of dropped into place. I think that’s an interesting song because, without sounding too beard-stroking and oh aren’t I clever, but I was quite impressed with myself that I actually thought of something that’s as deep as this. The song is about where we are in time now compared to where we were in the post-war era because in the 1950s there was this great sense of optimism: we’re going to build infrastructure; we’re going to make lots better for everyone; we’re going to make things that last a lifetime; your fridge is going
to be in a lifetime guarantee! Hey, let’s go to the Moon! Everybody was super inspired and there was an optimistic time. Since then, it’s all kind of been a bit on the downward slide, so the whole idea is that we need to go back to the Moon so that everybody can be more optimistic again. So, it’s not really about going to the Moon; it’s more about finding our mojo again as inhabitants of the Earth. Like I said, that’s kind of deep actually. It’s got a big sing along chorus.
If we put out a third single, I think that will be ‘Heavy As The Head’ which features Leoni Jane Kennedy on backing vocals. She’s quite prominent in the song. That one is just about getting older; it’s not quite as interesting. Some of my lyrics can be a bit vague; that one’s a little bit more vague but it’s got a very nice melody and a nice sing along chorus again as well as a cool bass, like all of my songs.
AP: Is there anything else you want to say that I missed; other that you’re going to take the UK by storm?
DR: Well, you know, that’s always the goal, isn’t it. I don’t want to appear arrogant or anything but I do often think that a lot of rock music is very formulaic. You hear bands that sound like other bands all the time and that was kind of what inspired me as well: can I walk that line between sounding familiar to people and not scary but also still having that creativity, that little special sauce that makes people kind of tilt their head and go, oh that’s not what I thought it was going to be? I can’t name specific bands but they’re third and fourth generation bands of other bands. I can think of at least 3 bands that sound a lot like AC/DC, or UFO, and they’re all great bands and they own festivals and people enjoy them. I’m not here to judge that but that’s not what I want for my band. I want to be a little bit quirky, but not so quirky that people think it’s too weird or prog again.
You float the music out there and then it’s not yours anymore; it’s everybody; it’s in the public domain and, sure, people will still find references to different other bands. I don’t think I’ve ripped off too many people on this album but even if I did, I wouldn’t say, would I!
The Perfect Beasts debut album is out on 27 January 2026. You can pre-order it here.
