Ronnie Winter, the lead singer for Florida pop-rock band The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, never gave much thought to the so-called "sophomore jinx."
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Winter had certainly heard of the theory that musicians' second albums are somehow fated to fail but never thought it would apply to his band.
Hs still doesn't, but Winter does admit the band hasn't had near as much fun with its second album, "The Lonely Road," released in February, as it did with its 2006 debut.
"There's definitely this weird kind of cloud that shrouds the second album," says Winter during a telephone interview from a club in North Dakota. The band will play here Wednesday at the Chameleon Club on an unlikely bill headlined by the band Hollywood Undead.
RJA's second album certainly hasn't enjoyed the success of its first album, "Don't You Fake It." Propelled by the surprise success of the single "Face Down," the debut went on to sell more than a million copies.
The follow-up has not matched the expectations engendered by that promising beginning. It has produced no hit singles, none seem to be on the horizon and the album has been the subject of some scathing reviews that border on the unfair.
"Who knows," says Winter, sounding both defiant and defensive, "maybe nobody will want to listen to anything else we do. We're just going to write and play what we feel in our hearts."
The band also has had to deal with the departure of guitarist Elias Reedy, though Winter downplays the significance of his defection, pointing out that the core of RJA consists of himself and guitarist Duke Kitchen, who together founded the band in 2003.
"We had one guy who decided he didn't want to be there and we didn't really want him, so now he's out of the band," Winter says. "No big deal."
He says the band has replaced Reedy with guitarist Matt Carter, who previously played with RJA but left before the recording of the first album.
"He's awesome," Winter says of Carter. "He's a shredder and he's in the band. We're not Van Halen but we are a guitar-driven rock 'n' roll band. That is who we are."
RJA takes something of a kitchen-sink approach on "The Lonely Road" as the highly produced songs, a mixture of rockers and ballads, feature layers of multi-tracked guitars and vocals.
It sometimes get a little much, as if the production, which gives the album an impressive sonic sheen, is being used to mask the songs' deficiencies. But it all sounds great and there's no questioning the band's sincerity.
There's a strong spiritual undercurrent flowing throughout the album, not surprising for a band that doesn't mask its Christian beliefs, though it doesn't use them as a calling card either.
"I can sit down with a beer in my hand and talk to somebody about God," says Winter, whose wife tours with him. "I don't care if you're gay or if you have a drug problem. God doesn't care because God loves everybody. That's what the Bible says and that's what I believe."
Winter might need some of that faith as his band fights through its own version of the "sophomore jinx" and looks forward to the rest of its career.
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Wednesday, 6 p.m.
$20 advance, $22 show day
All ages to enter, 21 to drink
Chameleon Club, 223 N. Water St.
393-7133
www.chameleonclub.net
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