Live music and touring have been on lockdown and fans as well as artists are going through withdrawals. We wanted to come up with something fun to help bridge that distance between fans and artists right now. What we came up with is something called The Lockdown Lowdown and it’s a Q&A session with fun questions for artists to answer. They’re not your typical interview questions, so it gives you a peek inside of the artists themselves. We’re big music nerds here at I’m Music Magazine and we love learning things like this about the artists that we love. We’re pretty sure that you’ll get a kick out of these, so we hope you’ll take the time to read them. In this installment, we sat down for a fun Q&A session with The Simple Radicals.
1. How have you been doing during the pandemic and how are you spending your time?
We also continue to push our album, “New Revolution” which has the guitar-God Vernon Reid from the band Living Colour playing lead on the track “Medicate”. We released a song and video called “Rich Man Wanna Be King” which provides a scathing lampoon of ex- President Trump. It’s already racked up 190,000 views and climbing. We’re releasing a pop-psychedelic version of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” on March 5th which folks can be the first to hear by pre-saving. And, we have a podcast show called “Music & A Brew” where we crack open a cold one with musical artists. Our first show was with world-class drummer Kenny Aronoff. Our next show is with Todd Sucherman, the drummer for the band Styx.
2. Have you been working on new music?
Absolutely. We’re in the studio working on a new track as we speak and have three more tracks we’ll be releasing over the next several months.
3. 5 albums that changed your life
1) UFO “Lights Out”
2) Led Zeppelin IV
3) Pearl Jam “Ten”
4) Tom Petty “Full Moon Fever”
5) Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon”
4. 5 artists that influenced you as a musician.
1) Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam
2) Tom Petty
3) Cheap Trick
4) Foo Fighters
5) Pink Floyd
5. Your 5 favorite live albums
1) Led Zeppelin “Song Remains the Same”
2) Lynyrd Skynyrd “One More From The Road”
3) The Rolling Stones “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out”
4) The Allman Brothers Band “At Fillmore East”
6. Life on the road; 5 of the craziest/funniest/scariest tour stories
There’s too many to list but the weirdest one was we were playing a festival in the Chicago area and the band that went on before us was dressed in a horrific combination of Kiss meets The Cure meets…I’m not sure. The crowd just stood there in total shock at this sight. Nobody moved. We had to follow that act and somehow turn it around. Thankfully we did. And without any makeup!
7. 5 favorite movies
1) Field of Dreams
2) This is Spinal Tap
3) Animal House
4) Anchorman
5) Fast Times at Ridgemont High
8. Best and worst advice you ever heard.
Best advice I’ve been given is to always remain optimistic and be patient. We all tend to want things and results now. But we have to be patient and be determined to get things right vs. just getting things. This advice was actually the inspiration for our song “The Optimist”. Worst advice is never listen to anyone’s advice. I don’t believe that at all.
9. Strangest thing you ever autographed
I was asked at a gig to autograph a black guitar pick with a black sharpie. Let’s just say
10. If music was over today and you had to go into professional wrestling, what would your wrestling name be?
Oh that’s easy. The Simple Radical.
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