Formation and early releases Founding mainstay vocalist and songwriter, Trash McSweeney formed the Red Paintings in
Geelong in 1998 with Alisha Fountain on bass guitar, Nathan Hewitt on synthesiser and sampling, Luke Rossiello on synthesiser and Phil Smythwaite on violin. He later provided varying descriptions of why he named the band, including "I experienced a seizure at a friend's house... I saw things that really affected me, actual visuals in my head." He claimed he had
synaesthesia. According to McSweeney, in 2006, Hitler was a "personal catalyst" and his band were a "bowl of Fruit Loops" and he was abducted by aliens, when younger. The group were briefly based in Melbourne before relocating to
Brisbane. McSweeney explained why he left Melbourne, "A lot of people want to have a standard format band – get up there, play rock'n'roll, look good, have chicks fall over them, take cocaine..." but "For me, it was never about that." In Brisbane, he was joined by an entirely new line-up, They released a single, "I'll Sell You Suicide", which was entered for Triple J's
Unearthed competition to represent Brisbane in 2004. The title track from the
Walls EP entered
Triple J's
Net 50 chart at no. 3 and charted for fifteen weeks. Their next EP was
Destroy the Robots, released in May 2006. It achieved some commercial success in Australia but with mixed reviews from music critics. The EP reached no. 86 on the
ARIA singles chart. Jade Pham of
Rave Magazine described one of their shows: "art-rock weirdos the Red Paintings seem comparatively normal in this line-up; dressed in warped Geisha style while two painters either side of stage use people as canvas, and frontman [McSweeney] shoots the crowd with toy laser guns." The tour was documented in the live, video album,
Seizure & Synethesia, released on DVD in 2007. Also in 2007, the Australian band released another EP,
Feed the Wolf .
Obscured Sounds writer determined, "Like a Frans Hals painting, the result is epic and highly interpretable, revealing human emotions to the most authentic of perceptions contained in turbulent themes of religion, morality, and romanticism." During June–July 2007 the band undertook their Animal Rebellion Tour to promote the EP.
The Revolution Is Never Coming According to the band's website and their then-label, Asphalt Records, in 2003 they were "currently working on their new 14 track album",
The Revolution Is Never Coming. They issued a single from the album, "We Belong in the Sea" (March 2008). and toured as the opening act on two tours by
Mindless Self Indulgence. In 2017 they released the single, "Deleted Romantic". == Members ==