MANILA, Philippines?Is Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (RJA) really just another emo band?

In person, Ronnie Winter (lead vocals), Duke Kitchens (guitar, piano), Joey Westwood (bass) and Jon Wilkes (drums) won?t presume you like them or know them from Adam. Instead they will ask: ?Oh, there are people who know us here??

Formed in Florida in 2003, the band?whose name was chosen by blindfolded members from a wall of random words ? bided its time by first recording an untitled, three-song demo in mid-2004. This was followed by an EP, ?Kins and Carroll,? that same year.

In 2006, the band signed to Virgin Records, which released its debut album ?Don?t You Fake It.? Before the year was over, the album had sold 500,000 copies.

The members of RJA believe their music drips with so much emotion (hence the ?emo? tag). And they proudly consider themselves belonging to the great rock ?n? roll universe?regardless of what the rest of the world thinks.

Is there any kind of pressure at all, given the kind of success you had with the first album?

Joey Westwood (JW): I don?t think so. I think we?re just happy to make a second record.

Duke Kitchens (DK): I don?t think there?s any pressure at all, because some of the songs were already ideas that we had while we were touring, and we were playing it. If anything it?s been really fun.

Do you read reviews of your albums online?

Ronnie Winter (RW): I don?t really read iTunes because anybody, even if you didn?t buy the album, can do a review of it. So, that doesn?t make any sense to me. But with magazine reviews, we had a great one on Alternative Press, which is probably the biggest rock ?n? roll magazine for our age group. Everybody reads AP.

Because the consensus is that there seems to be less grit and grime in the second album, ?Lonely Road,? than the first one.

RW: Yes, that?s 100 percent accurate, but you just have to remember where we were in our lives when we wrote our first album. We had no money ? We were very desperate.

Would you call the second album a move from desperation to inspiration?

RW: Well, yes, because it?s not going to be the same. Because we?re not going to make up songs. We?re going to write about what?s going on, what?s relevant.

From the first album, the song ?Guardian Angel? had a tendency to be overplayed, do you think there?s such a thing? It?s become a wedding song for many people in this country.

RW: In the band, that?s not a bad thing to hear. That just means people like your stuff. I don?t think you can overplay a song. If you really like a song, it will be good forever.

JW: I actually read an interview of U2, and the band said one of the greatest things of its entire career is that people have used its songs for the most important moments in their lives, like weddings. That?s cool.

It?s been said that you have this whole emo-package down pat.

JW and RW: We?re definitely an emotional band, always have been, always will be. As far as the emo scene is concerned, I don?t think we have the visual image at all. We?re a rock ?n? roll band with emotional lyrics.

And what do you say to people who think otherwise?

RW: They?re wrong.

If you could perform any song by another artist, what would it be?

JW: Anything by the Foo Fighters.
ML: The same thing!
RW: Probably any Peter Gabriel song off the ?So? record.
JWi: Some Red Hot Chili Peppers so I can groove real hard.
DK: ?Only in Dreams? by Weezer.

(The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus continues its Ayala Malls-sponsored tour tonight, at 6 p.m. in Market! Market!; tomorrow, 6 p.m. in Glorietta; and March 8, 6 p.m. at TriNoma.)