No doubt 2020 was a series of ups and downs. My fellow Radical, John Griffin, and I formed the band in 2019 and released our album New Revolution which has the Vernon Reid from the band Living Colour playing lead on the track "Medicate".
On the “up” side, we were immediately invited to play a music fest outside of Chicago and had the privilege of playing the iconic Cutting Room in New York City. We had a kick-ass 2020 scheduled including playing SXSW, playing fests with Jefferson Starship, Puddle of Mudd, Molly Hatchet and Blackfoot, and starting a tour.
Then the apocalypse hit and canceled everything.
But like life, the music industry is volatile and unpredictable. So we dug in and got busy.
We released a song and video called “Rich Man Wanna Be King” which provides a scathing lampoon of former President Trump. It’s already racked up 190,000 YouTube views and climbing. We collaborated with an incredible husband/wife team called Che-Val on a wicked cover version of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”. And we released a podcast called “Music & A Brew” where we crack open a cold one with musical artists. Our first one was with world-class drummer Kenny Aronoff (Mellencamp, Fogerty, McCartney, Smashing Pumpkins) and our next one is with Todd Sucherman (Styx).
And we spent a lot of time engaging with our fans and building our fan base on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
I guess you can say we did what we set out to do when we formed the band. Create. Be industrious. Write. Engage. Stay connected. Instead of doing it on the road we had more time in our homes and studios.
And there is so much to write about. When you distill it down to the basics and just take a look around, you’ll see that it’s so dynamic and malleable. Things develop and change right in front of your eyes every second. The challenge and opportunity is to capture that energy and decide what you want to do with it. It’s literally an open book with so much to write about. The challenging part is how to capture it all and put it into lyrics and music. But that’s also the most rewarding part.
Like we tell our fans. Stay safe. Stay healthy. And stay Radical.
And we spent a lot of time engaging with our fans and building our fan base on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
I guess you can say we did what we set out to do when we formed the band. Create. Be industrious. Write. Engage. Stay connected. Instead of doing it on the road we had more time in our homes and studios.
And there is so much to write about. When you distill it down to the basics and just take a look around, you’ll see that it’s so dynamic and malleable. Things develop and change right in front of your eyes every second. The challenge and opportunity is to capture that energy and decide what you want to do with it. It’s literally an open book with so much to write about. The challenging part is how to capture it all and put it into lyrics and music. But that’s also the most rewarding part.
Like we tell our fans. Stay safe. Stay healthy. And stay Radical.
While practicing social distancing, listen to our latest song, "White Rabbit":
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