Scarlet Rush Wins Annual Rockfest Competition

Music has the power to unite people in a way that few other things can. No one knows that better than Scarlet Rush.

The all-girl band hasn't been together for very long, but they don’t perform like it. The band won the annual Rockfest at the March 24. The band also performed during the first annual earlier this month.

Jenny Aciu, Robin Mainardi, Brianna Ransaw, and Lauren Picone said they just go with the flow when they start playing a song. For them, music is about more than just the notes.

“We’re so lucky to have the chance to play together,” Mainardi said. “There’s just something that happens when the music starts.”

Aciu, Ransaw, and Picone are Wayne residents. Mainardi lives in Kinnelon.

In an earlier incarnation, the band was an all-boy band. Then, one by one, the boys left. Each time a guy left, one of the girls replaced him. Brian Jones, owner of Good Vibrations Music, has been working with the girls. is helping the band to develop its own sound. Jones developed the Music Mashup

“They have a unique vibe when they play. There’s some kind of energy they put out that’s real organic. It’s fresh,” Jones said. “They’re having a lot of fun when they play. It’s soulful.”

He said the girls’ individual personalities come out when the band performs.

At a recent lesson with Jones, the girls were all smiles when they were playing. The way they moved with their instruments and felt the beat of each song. They were clearly having fun.

The girls said the real fun it getting to perform in front of an audience.

“When you get up there on stage and you see people’s reaction to what we’ve made, that’s very satisfying,” Aciu said. “It’s absolutely incredible.”

The girls don’t get nervous about performing on stage either.

“We don’t play to win,” said Ransaw, the lead singer. “We just want to go up on stage and have a good time.”

The girls were jamming backstage at the Rockfest. They would start playing with other musicians they didn’t even know.

“That’s what so great about music,” Ransaw said. “We were all just hanging out and we all had something in common with each other.”

The girls said that music has completely taken over their lives since they started playing together. Each one said the experience has been a positive one.

“I don’t know where I’d be without music,” Mainardi said.

The girls only play cover songs now, but Jones wants them to start writing their own music soon.

“Now they’ve got something going on, they’ve been playing shows now,” Jones said. “When they play, it gets better. And they’re just scratching the surface.”