“I believe God put me on this earth to do music and nothing else.
When I was three, they asked at church if anyone wanted to sing. My mama said I jumped out of her lap, ran down the aisle, grabbed the microphone, and sang ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ From that moment on, I wanted to be on a stage.
I started piano lessons at 4 and played 3 to 4 hours a day for years. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master something—I had that by 12.
But I burned out and tried to quit. My mom wouldn’t let me. She said, ‘If you quit now, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.’ She was right.
I was born with an incurable immune deficiency. Every three weeks, I take an IV of donated plasma just to have a synthetic immune system.
When I was 12, my parents sat me down and talked to me about my mortality. A batch of my medicine had hepatitis C in it. Other kids died. When someone tells you that at 12, it changes everything.
I became obsessed with time. Time mattered more than money, more than anything material. All I cared about was fitting everything I wanted to do into whatever time I had. That would later come out in my music.
I moved to Mobile for the praise-and-worship scene, went to the University of Mobile, and played in a praise band, traveling to sing in churches.
But I married young, had kids, and told myself the music dream was over. For about ten years, I pushed it down. Karaoke was my outlet.
It made me miserable. My first wife and I grew apart.
After the divorce, I went to see live music again. I hadn’t been downtown in years and saw Jennifer Hartswick at Brickyard. I stood in the middle of the room with my hands in my pockets, looking around. I would give anything to be on that stage. I felt like I was in a bubble, observing my own life.
I stood there thinking, I would give anything to be on that stage. I felt like I was outside my own life, just watching it happen.
Something shifted. I went from wishing to deciding. I was going to make this happen.
That was 2018. I was working at Ditch Witch—still do. My dad worked there for 51 years. I love my job. It feeds my family and lets me play music.
I bought a guitar, started writing again, and played my first gig at the Sand Bar. I studied the scene and met the people doing it right. Mobile is the best place you can be for music right now.
In the beginning, I played acoustic as Greg Padilla. Red was an old college nickname, but it’s a great stage name and shaped who I wanted to be.
I grew up on Motown—Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, James Brown. That fire. That feeling that something was coming through the music.
I also loved punk because it was straight energy.
If I ever had a band, I wanted horns up front and people with something to prove. I wanted us to sound like Mobile. This city has flown under six different flags, and you can hear the history in everything—the culture, the people, Mardi Gras. It’s all layered together.
That band is Red and the Revelers. We started playing together in late 2019.
I booked us at Brickyard the night Collective Soul was playing the Civic Center. After their show, Will Turpin, the band’s bass player, came in. During our break, he walked up and said, ‘I have to record you. Here’s my number.’
Working with him on our album, Real Big Deal, changed everything. That’s when I realized this might actually be something real.
My song ‘I’ll Never Make It’—that wasn’t what people said to me. That’s what I used to say to myself. Every doubt, every time I thought I wasn’t good enough. In this industry, you have to make yourself believe before anyone else will.
When I step on stage, it’s like flipping a switch. I’m not playing for the crowd, I’m playing for me. I don’t feel pain or think about anything else. I’m completely in that moment.
And then I try to push that out.
I imagine the energy starting at the bottom of my feet, moving up through my body, and out into the room. The way I sing, the way I move—I’m trying to send that energy out so somebody else can feel it too.
From that first night at Brickyard to now, it feels like a lifetime. I went from being a guy standing in the crowd wishing to be on stage to someone building something real. I’ve got phone numbers of people I grew up listening to.
But none of that matters as much as this: if I can change one person’s life with my music, that’s enough. I don’t care if I end up broke. There’s nothing I could compare to that.
Music can take two people from completely different worlds—people who might not even like each other—and for a few minutes, none of that matters.
We’re just there, feeling the same thing.”
Greg (Red)
Red and the Revelers vinyl release show for Real Big Deal is tonight (April 10) at Soul Kitchen in Mobile.
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