Downey band RMB has already made it

DOWNEY — RMB stands for many things: the Randell Milan Band, Read More Books and/or Rock Meets Blues but mainly RMB stands for three beings, Randell Milan, Jose “Pudge” Pascal and Carlos Soto.

Milan, 27, and Soto 28, have known each other since high school, where they both attended Downey High School.

However, it wasn’t until they discovered that they were both attending Cerritos College did they seek a musical venture together.

Pascal, 30, is a Norwalk native who met Milan at an open mic night at a cafe in Norwalk.

“After I played, Jose was the only one who came up to me and talked in really motivated and specific terms, they were musician terms and I was like ‘oh that’s my vernacular, my lingo,’” said Milan.

Upon their first meeting, Pascal invited Milan to play music together that same night. Pascal and Milan hit it off and eventually Soto joined the mix about a year later when he was invited to audition.

“His ‘audition’ was that he learned the entirety of the songs on my SoundCloud in an afternoon, he came ready and he played every song perfectly and I remember going home that day and thinking, ‘If I can’t get this group together then I don’t think I’m ever going to get a band together because these are the guys, this is it,” said Milan.

RMB’s first rehearsal together was in January of 2016 and they have been playing and writing music together since then.

“We may never be on the radio, we may never have a million dollars but we made it already, we made it seven years ago,” said Soto.

From left: Randell Milan, guitar and lead vocals, Carlos Soto, drums, and Jose “Pudge” Pascal, bass, make up rock band, RMB, which they formed in 2016. Photo by Bianca Martinez

“I think what happened with us is and I think this is the most important part if your going to be in a band is that it doesn’t matter your skill level, your resources, you guys all have to be on the same page and all have to be passionate about the same thing and with us we all got really lucky that we just love making music,” said Pascal.

Funky bass riffs courtesy of Pascal, Milan’s strong bluesy vocals and Soto’s ability to compliment and tie it all together with his percussion gives their albums the potential of being a soundtrack to a life of vice, Camaro-driving and dark sunglasses-wearing in the best way possible.

Songwriting in RMB is an open and collaborative process, with each member bringing either a riff or a lyric that can be shopped and molded into something collectively.

“There is a merit in any art with technical proficiency, I mean especially with music, you can play all sorts of amazing things but I think one of the things that’s important to the collaborative process and important to how we started writing music was that we started separating the idea that we don’t fall in love with our own ideas and we became this one organism essentially where we all kind of have our individual essence and we all just kind of throw it in to the song and we let it take shape,” said Pascal.

The trio are signed to Red Eye Records, based out of Harmony Studios in Anaheim.

RMB currently has two albums and several singles that can be streamed on Spotify, and are currently and actively recording a third studio album.

The “goofball rock n rollers” promote RMB on Facebook and Instagram by posting irreverent skits and comical photos of themselves.

Although RMB are not a cover band and all compositions are their own, their cover of “Dayman,” a gag song featured in the show “Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” gave the group social media recognition.

RMB’s cover of “Dayman” was originally posted on Facebook in 2017 and has since garnered two million views on the social media site. The cover is one of RMB’s most streamed songs on Spotify with a total of 2,209,832 streams.