Red Dress

Red Dress is a four-piece rock band allegedly hailing from San Francisco. Long shrouded in mystery, Red Dress were perhaps surprisingly discovered by ’70s arena rock mainstays King Thunder when the veteran band was amid a run of Appalachian reunion tour dates in 2018. Red Dress and King Thunder may not sound very much alike, but as Thunder frontman Tonic told Stereogum in a 2021 interview, “they don’t like being sober any more than we do.”
 
When Red Dress opened for King Thunder and Hamlin Rule on the “Fate’s Pied Wheel” tour in late 2019, the band began to take off despite not having yet released a debut album. Red Dress’s performances were captivating and invigorating, a clear sign of things to come. But for songwriter Tommy Thomerson, things were not as they seemed.
 
“He was in a really weird place,” Red Dress lead guitarist Lisa Rothrock told Brooklyn Vegan last spring. “The more eyes we had on us, the more convinced he was that someone was trying to betray him. He went so far as to place all these answering machines and cassette tape recorders all over the tour bus to catch us talking about him.”
 
“What I never understood about the tape thing was why a recording musician would think that would work,” Rothrock added, clearly still baffled all these years later. “When Bootu Inc. contacted us about doing music for the podcast, that’s when things turned around.”
 
Red Dress became the house band for the Boob Tube Boys podcast in 2021, eventually releasing two acclaimed EPs, Motion Picture Men, Vol. I and Motion Picture Men, Vol. II. The band has announced plans to unearth the previously unreleased album I Record Everything in 2025.

Band members:
 
Tommy Thomerson (guitar, vocals) grew up in “the Big Easy” or “America,” learning how to play guitar while selling bootlegged Fenders to tourists after relocating to San Francisco. Thomerson, notoriously secretive, is known for only wearing sunglasses in public and telling journalists to “leave their stupid comments in their pocket.”
 
Lisa Rothrock (guitar, vocals) graduated from Zambo School of the Arts with a degree in agrarian literature before discovering her love for the guitar. She joined Red Dress after meeting Thomerson in an acting class, first as a touring guitarist and later as a full member and co-creative force of the band.
 
Wings Barth (bass, vocals) taught himself bass after realizing he had the blunt name and deep, monotone speaking voice for the job. Perpetually sweaty and angry, Barth adds a sense of danger to Red Dress live shows, where his past debaucheries include vomiting into a drum head and setting his own shoulder hair on fire.
 
Slade Breen (drums, vocals) is really cool, wears a leather jacket, and rides a motorcycle. You have no idea.