originally published: 04/02/2022
![Red Hot Shame releases "My Satellite"](https://www.newjerseystage.com/events2022/RedHotShame.jpg "Red Hot Shame releases "My Satellite"")
(EUREKA, CA) -- Red Hot Shame is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Xeff Scolari and his fluctuating lineup of Northern California based musical partners in crime. The band will release, My Satellite, on April 15, 2022 and will have several performances in support of the album across Northern California with the plan to release a My Satellite LIVE album before the year is through.
For the new Red Hot Shame album, Xeff Scolari recorded with frequent collaborators Steven Pitsenbarger (vocals, percussion), Ryan Wilson (guitar), Spencer Kennedy (bass), Rick Fugate (drums), James Terris (keys), and Mark Bennet (harmonica), a lineup that brings an energy and excitement to the band that Xeff Scolari could not accomplish alone. Together they are a creative force that launches My Satellite into another dimension! Performances feel like a wild ride where anything can happen at any moment, turning the band’s live shows into can’t miss events.
The new album My Satellite was recorded, mixed, and mastered collaboratively by the whole group at Xeff Scolari’s own Shameful Studio in late 2021. The band is full of talented multi-instrumentalists who added layers of sonic textures including horns, vintage mellotron, and even accordion. The album starts with a literal bang on the opening track “Liftoff,” and from there soars into musical outer space. Xeff Scolari puts it best as he later sings, “Hold on dear, come on, rocket!” The album’s songs range thematically from birth, death, and rebirth, to love and loss, and to everything in between.
A resident of Eureka, CA, lead vocalist and songwriter Xeff Scolari has played in several other local bands including Colorblind, Acoustic Gypsies, Sugardaddy, and Chowderhead, the last of which was on the Magnetic Oblivion Records label. Throughout 2020 he created and launched Shelter N Play, an online virtual open mic with musicians signing up to perform 15-minute sets from all over the country, a hugely valuable resource to the musical community throughout the pandemic. These also helped Xeff to further hone his own vocal and songwriting chops, and it was actually through the Shelter N Play open mics that Xeff met bassist Spencer Kennedy and guitarist Ryan Wilson, a fortuitous meeting indeed.
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Soaring through this instrumental journey is a vocal blending that is rich with decades of collaboration and friendship; Xeff Scolari has been singing together with Steven Pitsenbarger for so long that it feels like instinct. Steven Pitsenbarger was a member of the San Francisco bands RhythmChaos, and Machine Shop, and has been making music together with Xeff since the late 80s. The only core member of the band that doesn’t live near the rest, Steven collaborated on many of the songs via email, sending tracks back and forth to Xeff. Together they also have another band known as Vanity Project.
Guitarist Ryan Wilson’s inventive stylings bring the Red Hot Shamesound to life. They call his pedalboard “the spaceship” because of all the crazy sounds he is able to get out of it. He also performs with bassist and multi-instrumentalist Spencer Kennedy in another group called Stable Vices, who were regulars at Xeff’s Shelter N Play open mics. Drummer Rick Fugate has a well-known face in Eureka, playing punk songs on his accordion on the streets during Arts Alive monthly events. When he’s done there, he jumps behind the drum kit for Red Hot Shame. James Terris has been playing music with Xeff Scolari since his very first band in the late 80s and also plays keys with the touring Neil Diamond tribute band Super Diamond.
Red Hot Shame began in 2017 when it was just Xeff Scolari with a few guest tracks by some close friends like Steven Pitsenbarger and James Terris on the debut release Curiosity. In 2021, Red Hot shame released the follow up album Sounds Like, which also featured Chad Johnson.
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