Have you heard of the band with three colors in it? You can try to guess, but I’m still gonna tell you. San Francisco’s local alternative indie band The Reds, Pinks & Purples, led by Glenn Donaldson, infuses hints of 70’s jangly pop into instrumental sessions with lyrics that leave you feeling the same way you might feel after listening to Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence album. Hella sad, maybe even questioning your life's choices, but in the end hopeful and maybe even in love (it could be one-sided though).

I had the opportunity to virtually chat with Glenn ahead of their NEW album titled Unwishing Well. Our chat consisted of an array of topics including deep feelings (the good, the bad and the so so), “lab experiments,” finding inspiration via long walks (10k steps BABY!), Lana Del Rey, quieting your inner critic, and love letters to creatives that feel limited/uninspired.

I came out of this conversation feeling hopeful about my future and I hope that if you are as clueless about your’s as I am mine that this will at least bring you some ease and distraction! So buckle in, besties!

Since your debut in 2018, The Reds, Pinks & Purples has become the Bay Area’s secret jangly-pop indie group. As a new fan and listener, it’s incredible to see that you’re a part of probably more than 10 side projects and have released records with Vacant Gardens and Painted Shrines. How does The Reds, Pinks & Purples vary from all your other projects?

It's different in several ways. With this band, I kind of thought more about what the role of music is in people's lives. Asking what can we communicate through music. I figured the kind of thing I haven't done is create a personal connection between myself, the message in the music, and what people are hearing me sing. And so that was sort of the guiding force. I slowly got better at recording and thought, "What if I made songs that could be on the radio?"

I look at my music that way: as being little lab experiments, you know, where I focus on learning different techniques, instruments, and wacky ideas about sound, and how to capture sound and its concepts. I was inspired by the music that I got into when I first was into music, like REM, you know, pretty popular music. I wanted to, like, bring those things together.

Do you remember the moment you felt drawn to enter the world of music?

Yeah, music to me is a communications tool. l like what music did for me when I was growing up. It was a place to escape from the things I was experiencing and the conservative suburb I grew up in. At the time, I felt like I didn't fit in with the crowd, and it was sort of a way to kind of get through adolescence. Then, as I got older, I was like, "Well, what does music still mean for me?" It became this kind of neutral space where people can experience emotions together. That's, like, positive and good. I wanted to make music that could be useful to people for that because it was useful to me when I had my moments of teenage angst or despair, or pain as an adult, or even thoughts of loss. I always felt that people in music were protective of their real feelings, and I just wanted to kind of rip that off and let it be more exposed.

I imagine it must be overwhelming to have ideas constantly turning through your head. How do you maintain consistency when writing new music for The Reds, Pinks & Purples?

Yeah, I keep waiting for me to just be over it and be like, "I'm not gonna do this for a while." But every time I do that, I get a bunch of ideas. I think because the songs, the type of melodies, and the instrumental stuff are so close to my personal view of music, it's really easy for me to write songs. Before, I felt like there was some distance between me and the projects I was collaborating on because I was with someone. And you don't want to put too much of yourself into something if you're trying to collaborate. But now since it's just me as kind of the guiding force, it's incredibly easy for me to crank stuff out. I also wanted to make a splash and thought, if I put my nose to the grindstone and made a bunch of albums, we could get good shows and have fun. 

I saw you play a Noise Pop show earlier this month at Great American Music Hall, alongside the iconic 90’s love band The Softies and indie band Snail Mail. What's it like being in a setting where you get to play with a full band onstage?

Well, with the recordings, I kind of do them all myself at home. So I do a lot of editing and I'm conscious of, like, the lyrics and the singing and try to suit it best to what I'm doing vocally. But then with the band, I just kind of show them the bones of the song and they interpret it. We talk about it a little bit, but mostly they just do whatever they can play, so it's exciting to hear it. They're all better musicians, and I am so happy to hear them play my songs. It's so fun for me because I'm just like, "Oh my god, they're doing all this cool stuff I would not pick for myself and or can't do." I'm also not a natural performer, so I do get nervous performing, but having a band that has fun and gets behind the songs is just so exciting. I'm incredibly lucky.

Looking at the music that you make now, do you think that any current artists are influencing your music lately, or is there maybe an artist that you feel like you unknowingly draw inspiration from?

I kind of pay attention to the music world all the time, so I'm always pulling stuff in. As for current artists, I’ve been paying attention to Lana Del Rey. I just really love her and how vulnerable and vivid the stories are in her songs. I mean, even though our music is different, there's something similar there. She's presenting this personality that's kind of like her, but it’s a hyper-realized version of herself.

And that's what I'm trying to do too. So it's like, the songs aren't me. They're just the extent of me, like an onstage version. She also uses classic song structures from, like Phil Spector and Bob Dylan. She's aware of the history of that kind of songwriting, and I’m like that in many ways.

I also totally enjoy the local music scene here in San Francisco. I like to keep tabs on what others are doing. I just love the lyrics from the band Cindy. There’s also Katiana Mashikian, who plays in a band called April Magazine and they always have cool atmospheres in their songs that I feel influenced by.

Most of your song titles range from being super existential like “What Will Heaven Be Like” to just being relatable “Slow Torture of An Hourly Wage”. What's that process like when you come up with a song? Do you automatically know, "Hey, I want to title it this" or is it something that just kind of happens?

Yeah, actually, I’ll walk around the Inner Richmond and even through Golden Gate Park and just be zoning out. Maybe I'm stoned, maybe I'm not. Then some interaction I had with someone from, like, 10 years ago will pop into my head. If it's like embarrassing or something, I'll just go, "Oh, that's a bummer." Then I just twist it into something kind of funny and try to push the envelope of seeing what could be a song topic. What could be in a title, you know? It’s almost like creating a thesis statement. I start to hear a melody in the title and then I'll just picture the song and then I'll go and write the song to the idea.

Inner Richmond photograph for RPP's 2021 Uncommon Weather album.

I read in an interview that you like to make music at home. What do you like the most about getting to make music in your Inner Richmond home?

I mean, I've done a lot of home recording over the years. I've also done some studio stuff, too, but I guess I finally kind of figured out the sound that I wanted to make with the equipment that I had. It was sort of like that thing where you limit yourself and then that suddenly becomes the defining aspect. I just thought, okay, instead of thinking this is going to be bigger at some point, I just cut it off here and don't judge it.

I do like having a simple palette. Because once you get in the studio, you get the influence of an engineer and you have money involved. And you get self-conscious about making it perfect. Thinking, "I have to be perfect because we're spending all this money on this studio." And it just became, like, a journey to self-acceptance. You know...just throw that all out and think, "I’ll do my best to make it good."

What advice would you give creatives who feel unmotivated to make music due to resources?

The limitations that you have are your strengths. Even if you just have junk microphones or whatever, you'll figure it out, but you have to kind of be on a mission. As long as you have some kind of agenda that you're bringing, that's really the thing that matters because people will sense that mission you're on if you really are devoted to the idea.

I saw this great little clip on YouTube about Jean-Michel Basquiat. They were talking about his artistic method, and I could totally relate to it. Basquiat sourced material from a couple books on, like, symbols and then worked really fast at cranking stuff out, you know, not really judging it. Just doing whatever he wanted to do in art, but he was conscious of African-Americans not being represented in fine art circles. So you have to have some kind of, I don't know, philosophy behind what you're doing. Put yourself on a mission.

If you could give yourself or your younger self any musical advice, what would you tell yourself?

Geez, I don't know where to begin with that one, actually. A lot of things. But I made so many mistakes in music and life. You know, I even have a song about it called “Mistakes Too Many To Name.” [Laughs] But I would say just don't be so self conscious, and just do the things that that you want to do...that you love. Part of me is still self conscious and insecure, but you just reach a certain point where you're like, well, I'm not gonna listen to that part of my personality anymore. I'm just gonna try to, like, coexist with the negative me and just sort of try to coast with the positive direction more, you know? It's never gonna be where you think it should be.

It's all about the moments where you can, like, meet someone online and have a nice conversation or go to practice and everyone's laughing at some mistake that we made. The running narrative in your head of maybe you're not on the right path, just let it ramble on, just don't worry about it. If you just do one thing every day towards reaching whatever you want, you'll get somewhere eventually, you know?

If you’d like to see more of The Reds, Pinks & Purples, head on over to their Bandcamp, Spotify, and Instagram! Their new album Unwishing Well is out NOW via Slumberland Records and Tough Love Records.