''Don't You Fake It'' is the debut studio album by American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...
band
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Middleburg, Florida, in 2003. The band's current members include Ronnie Winter (lead vocals), Joey Westwood (bass), Josh Burke (lead guitar), Randy Winter (rhythm guitar), ...
. The title is taken from a line in the opening track, "In Fate's Hands". The album garnered mixed reviews from critics. ''Don't You Fake It'' debuted at number 25 on the ''Billboard'' 200 and spawned three singles: " Face Down", "False Pretense" and " Your Guardian Angel". To promote the record, the band toured across North America with appearances at music festivals.
Recording
In January 2006,
AbsolutePunk
''AbsolutePunk'' was a website, online community, and alternative music news source founded by Jason Tate (the most recent CEO). The website mainly focused on artists who are relatively unknown to mainstream audiences, but it was known to featu ...
reported that the band was in the process of recording their debut album.
Release
On March 4, 2006, "Face Down" was posted on the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus'
Myspace
Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...
profile. A music video was released for the song three days later. In May 2006, they appeared at
The Bamboozle
The Bamboozle was an annual three-day music festival which was held in New Jersey from 2003 to 2012, and was scheduled for a 2023 revival in Atlantic City by its founder. Every year, new bands competed for spots during the two days. The event ...
festival. ''Don't You Fake It'' was made available for streaming via
AOL
AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc.
The service traces its history to an online ...
on July 17, 2006, before being released a day later. They went on a headlining US tour in August and September 2006, where they were supported by Monty Are I, and then appeared at the Bamboozle Left festival. On January 26, 2007, the music video for "False Pretense" was posted online. In February and March 2007, the band headlined that year's
Take Action Tour
The Take Action Tour is an annual spring tour that not only hosts several bands, but also tries to get people alerted about the issues with teen suicide, and ultimately tries to prevent it. The tour was created by both Sub City and Hopeless Recor ...
. "False Pretense" impacted radio on March 13, 2007. The album was re-released on March 20. Following this, they appeared at
The Bamboozle
The Bamboozle was an annual three-day music festival which was held in New Jersey from 2003 to 2012, and was scheduled for a 2023 revival in Atlantic City by its founder. Every year, new bands competed for spots during the two days. The event ...
festival. From late June to late August, the band went on the 2007 edition of
Warped Tour
The Warped Tour is a Concert tour, touring Rock music, rock music festival that toured the United States and Canada each summer from 1995 until 2019, and returned in 2025 for its 30th anniversary. By 2015, Warped was the largest traveling music ...
. "Your Guardian Angel" was released to radio on August 7. In October and November, the band went on a US tour with
Amber Pacific
Amber Pacific is an American pop-punk band that formed in 2002 in Federal Way, Washington. The band has released five full-length albums, '' The Possibility and the Promise'' in 2005, '' Truth in Sincerity'' in 2007, ''Virtues'' in 2010, ''The ...
and New Years Day. In April 2008, the band went on an acoustic US tour, dubbed Unplugged and Unaffected. In early May, the band appeared at the 2008 edition of the Bamboozle festival.
Remaster
In 2014, the band released "Don't You Fake It (Alliance Edition)", a remaster of the album. The remaster, as told by the band, was specifically done for an iTunes release, but is also available on other platforms. The tracklisting is mostly identical to the original album, but swaps some tracks' positions, removes "Damn Regret", and adds "Disconnected" from the Deluxe Edition as well as "The Grimm Goodbye" from certain releases of the original album.
Reception
Critical response
A writer for
Alternative Addiction
''Alternative Addiction'' was an American daily Internet publication devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus was on Alternative rock. It was in operation from 1999 to 2020.
History
The website was ...
called the band's overall musicianship "a mouth-watering hybrid of the best traits associated with bands like
Underoath
Underoath (styled as Underøath or UnderOath) is an American rock band from Tampa, Florida. It was founded by lead vocalist Dallas Taylor and guitarist Luke Morton in 1997 in Ocala, Florida; subsequently, its additional members were from Tamp ...
,
Story of the Year
Story of the Year is an American rock band formed in St. Louis, Missouri, Story of the Year at Allmusic.comAccessed May 17, 2007. in 1995 under the name 67 North. The band eventually changed their name to Big Blue Monkey in 1998, and then subs ...
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
praised the single "Face Down" as a highlight and commended both "Cat and Mouse" and "Your Guardian Angel" for breaking up the "steadfast urgency" throughout the album, but felt the overall sound was too reminiscent of contemporaries like
Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Mesa, Arizona, in 1993. The band is composed of lead vocalist and lead guitarist Jim Adkins, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch, and drummer Zach ...
and
The Used
The Used is an American rock band from Orem, Utah, formed in 2000. The group consists of vocalist Bert McCracken, bassist Jeph Howard, drummer Dan Whitesides, and guitarist Joey Bradford. Former members include Quinn Allman, Branden Steinec ...
, concluding that "it's all not quite enough to wash out the generic taste left in one's mouth by the end. The band may not be faking anything, but even earnestness isn't always enough." ''
IGN
''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
''s Chad Grischow said that there was "more promise than substance on their debut", giving praise to Ronnie Winter's vocal performance and the tracks for containing "a powerful rock punch with hard-crashing guitar riffs and driving beats supporting solid emo hooks", but said that it "fits a little too comfortably among the hundreds of other pop-punk and emo releases of the summer. It is certainly not the worst of them, but it is hardly the best either." He concluded that "in the overcrowded state of the genre their debut fails to make a splash."
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number 25 on the ''Billboard'' 200 and moved 25,000 copies in its first week. By August 2006, the album had sold over 100,000 copies, and has sold 852,000 copies as of August 2008. It was eventually certified
Platinum
Platinum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a density, dense, malleable, ductility, ductile, highly unreactive, precious metal, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name origina ...
in May 2016.
Track listing
*Tracks 1, 4, 6, 10, 11, 12 and 14 originally appear on ''The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus''.
**Tracks 1 and 11 have alternate names.
***"In Fate's Hand"'s alternate name is "Ass Shaker".
***"Your Guardian Angel"'s alternate name is "The Acoustic Song".
DVD
* Making the Album – Behind the Scenes
* " Face Down" (music video)
* "False Pretense" (music video)
* Behind the Scenes – "False Pretense"
* On the Road with RJA
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''Don't You Fake It''.
;The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
* Ronnie Winter –
lead vocals
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...
,
acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
,
piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
* Elias Reidy –
lead guitar
Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...
, backing vocals
* Duke Kitchens –
rhythm guitar
In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...
* Joey Westwood –
bass guitar
The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...
* Jon Wilkes –
drums
The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...
,
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...
;Additional musicians
* Randy Winter – drums, sequencers on "In Fate's Hands" and "Justify"
* Dan Korneff – strings
;Production
*
David Bendeth
David Jonathan Bendeth (born 17 June 1954) is an English multi-platinum award-winning record producer. He was also the frontman of The Bendeth Band.
Early life
David Bendeth was born on 17 June 1954 in Stoke Newington, Hackney, London, England ...
– producer, mixing
* Isaiah Abolin – assistant engineer
* Anthony Fontana – assistant engineer
* Ted Young – assistant engineer
* John Bender –
digital editing
In mass communication, digital media is any communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronic d ...
, engineer
* Kato Khandwala – digital editing, engineer
* Dan Korneff – digital editing, mixing on "The Grimm Goodbye"
*
Ted Jensen
Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' '' Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''.
Early life ...
– mastering at Sterling Sound, NYC
;Artwork
* Sean Mosher-Smith – creative direction
* Dzark Design Bureau – design
* Myriam Santos-Kayda – photography