It was about a year ago when Ronnie Winter from Red Jumpsuit Apparatus told me what I consider to be one of the few legitimate truths in music. In reference to a band’s first album- “Of course people like the first album the best. It’s usually the first time they’ve heard your band.” Talking to Ronnie on and off for the past five years, we’ve discussed similar cynical views on music, but this is the best one.

Looking back on what he was saying, it’s clear that he wasn’t just voicing an opinion. This statement was coming from a place that might have been somewhat tired of hearing about how Don’t You Fake It, the first Red Jumpsuit Apparatus album, was the band’s best album. Winter was tired of fielding questions and comments on the band’s sound at the present not sounding enough like the band’s debut.

It’s a year later and Red Jumpsuit is removed from their last album, Am I The Enemy. Their last release was produced by John Feldmann and released and distributed in a partnership between Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and their management company at the time, The Collective. RJA is in a different place now than they were then. Instead of having a management company act as a label too, they’re now a hundred percent do-it-yourself. In Ronnie’s own words, they’re ‘self-funded, self-managed, self-released, self-everything.’ If things go right with this new attitude for Red Jumpsuit Apparatus they get all of the credit. If things go wrong, they get get all of the blame.

Fully in charge of their own destiny, Ronnie and Jumpsuit have taken an intelligent route with their first independent release. They’ve opted to keep their artistic credibility and give their fans what they want at the same time. Ronnie writes the music, that hasn’t changed from album to album and it will continue to be the same. Where the band is going back to the days of Don’t You Fake It is with who is in the producer’s chair. After working on their debut album with David Bendeth, the band went with two different producers for their next two albums. With their brand new release, Et Tu, Brute?, the band is back working with their first producer.

“It’s a big deal to our fans, especially the old-school fans,” said Winter last week talking to Alternative Addiction about the new release. “A lot of people have commented on the change of sound over the years, but really the only thing that’s changed has been the producers. It’s always been the songs I’ve written with the band performing collectively. The only thing we actually changed from record to record was the producer. Everybody says they like the first album the best, and I’ve heard that multiple, multiple, multiple times. We had approached Dave over the years, and now we were finally able to get back together. I think it was the first time in seven or eight years that we sat down in the studio together and these songs came out.”

By definition a six song release can be claimed to be an EP. But who says that in 2013 we need to label music anything other than music? This isn’t half of an album, it isn’t an EP. It's a six song release for Red Jumpsuit that goes back to the band’s sound of almost a decade ago.

“It was eerie because I hadn’t been in a recording environment with Dave since I was 22 years old and I’m 30 now. We picked up right where we left off, but I learned a lot too” said Winter.

“When we first went in there (for Don’t You Fake It) I was known as the guy who wanted everything his way. I didn’t trust anything. I didn’t trust labels, producers, anything- especially when it came to somebody having an opinion on my songs and the band’s music. I butted heads with Dave a lot more the first time, but a lot of the things he said to me made sense way after the fact when we were playing the songs live. It’s one of those things where I was still learning lessons, years after working with Dave. This time I was already using those ideas in the song writing process even before we went in with him. I would say I was easier to work with, but you’d have to ask him. This time, we approached it coming from an admiration of Dave’s work and looking forward to working with him again. Everything came out really easily and smoothly. It’s always nice when that happens in the studio.”

Bendeth didn’t just help shape the sounds of the new Jumpsuit music, he helped Ronnie and the rest of the guys find the inspiration for a central theme to the music. Et Tu, Brute? Comes out on March 15th. Thanks to William Shakespeare, that’s the day of the Roman Calendar that everyone knows as The Ides of March- the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated. The song “You Can’t Trust Anyone These Days” relates to that. “The Crazy Ones” relates to Romeo & Juliet. It all goes back to William Shakespeare.

“The idea started with 'The Crazy Ones.' Dave and I were talking about how awesome Shakespeare was and we started talking about Hamlet and the different things we’d both read and we were just sharing a respect for it. I realized when we were looking into the release that March 15th was wide open and nobody would release anything that day because it wasn’t a Tuesday. So we thought it would be kind of cool to keep the theme with Shakespeare because we always threw out Shakespeare quotes when we were in the studio. We don’t normally have a lot of intricate meaning behind our releases, this is the only one we’ve ever actually lined up a title to match a date. We thought it would be cool.”

With Et Tu, Brute? coming out next month, we’ll see what this new version of Red Jumpsuit can do. Are they capable of being an established band with a D.I.Y. approach? That’s to be determined, but this method might be the best one for Red Jumpsuit with Ronnie’s insistence on being the boss and the force behind the music that matters so much to him. Winter can be known as a control freak with different people he’s worked with in the past. He'll claim that himself too, as long as he can take the good with the bad.

“I don’t like the word control freak because it feels like there’s a negative connotation there,” started Winter on the subject. “But if there is, I’ll accept it as long as I’m able to make sure what’s right is right. This band is a lot more than songs to me. A lot of the lyrics are about my life and the things I’ve been through. I’m very specific about how I want to be portrayed and I want people to understand the message behind the music. I’ve always wanted it to be that way but until I took control of more things I wasn’t fully able to get what I wanted.”

The negative associated with being a control freak is being stubborn and hard to work with. You can't really say that hard to work with is an assessment that can be made for Winter. The positive quality related to being a control freak is that what the person is trying to control is something that the person cares about.

“Well we definitely care,” said WInter. “People like Dave do too, some people don’t. It’s frustrating to work with someone who you know is just going through the motions. I’m not pointing out anybody, I’m just saying in general- everybody’s gone through that in their life, no matter what their career is.”

There’s being independent and then there’s doing what Red Jumpsuit is doing. They’re not actively seeking publicity or marketing, they’re just putting the music out there and seeing what comes back. It’s music, without the industry, and the thought of it succeeding is exciting for Ronnie and Jumpsuit, but not because of the accolades or the results, it’s who’s behind the music and this particular release.

“At this point, I’m relying on my family and my friends- my brother’s in the band- and they never really let you down. It seems like nothing but great things are happening. Maybe that’s because I’m deciding to perceive them that way, or maybe it's because they actually are happening that way. Either way it’s a good time for us.”