From Alternative Press - March 1999

Here's how to know if the New Radicals are the group for you. Get their latest MCA CD, Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too (we'd put a comma in there, but, heck, maybe we're brainwashed), and open up the pullout lyric booklet inside, Notice that the lyrics are--a-ha!--upside down. Get it??? We're all brainwashed into expecting that the lyrics will face in the same direction as the cover photo. Now, did you find that: a) striking, witty commentary on today's society or b) a shallow, obvious attempt to get you to "think" that instead made you roll your eyes and groan?

Pick "a" and you're probaly Gregg Alexander's kind of fan. "We're not a concept band like Rush," says Alexander, who for all intents and purposes is the New Radicals, having written every song on the lyrically dense album. "It's really more of a feeling. Right now a lot of people are disenchanted with what's going on around them, and people are afraid to talk about it. We don't want to be afraid of sharing our opinions on what's going on in society in regards to sexism, racism and corporate ownership of the media." Even if those opinions strike with the subtlety of a falling anvil.

The 27 year old Alexander is the man responsible for the '70s-inflected funky dance tune "You Get What You Give," which itself is best known for forcefully dissing most of today's alt-rock head of state. Lyrically, Alexander's got a craving for socialist-leaning, anarchic statements `a la Chumbawamba, which you don't see much of in American pop these days. But does the world need a socially aware dance-pop band fronted by a white guy out of Grosse Pointe, Michigan (the "poor" section, as Alexander insists on reminding interviewers)?

Aw, hell, who really cares? The music's pretty catchy, and Alexander's got his heart in the right place, so give the man some credit for trying--he's tried just abut everything else already. By age 12, Alexander had an electric guitar, then he saved up enough to buy a 4-track recorder when he was 15. ("I would spend obscene amounts of hours in my bedroom, recording songs and playing all of the instruments," he recalls). Alexander ran away from home at age 16 to get away from what he considered a neglectful family (his father, a plumber, and his mother, a Jehovah's Witness, "looked at our report cards like once every 18 months") and to amass some "Different life experiences. I wanted to get out of the Midwest and be living in a situation so that when the s*** hit the fan, my parents weren't a phone call away." After stints in London, Los Angeles and New York (Alexander claims to have criss-crossed America 12 times), in 1989 he released Michigan Rain, and three years later out came another easily missed album, Intoxifornication.

So what's different now? Well, for one thing, MTV has finally started to listen--The New Radicals' heavily rotated video for "You Get.." features kids taking over a shopping mall, and there is an irrepressible excitement about much of their music. "My life experiences have taught me a lot of things," Alexander explains, "and that's why this album sounds different than my other stuff. You live and you learn."

And, if you're lucky, you teach a little bit. That seems to be the real message behind both Alexander and the New Radicals. "I care passionately about the things I talk about," he says, "but I'm not Mr. Goody Two-Shoes. There are so many disgusting things going on before our eyes; it's almost as if we as a society have decided to not even care. I'm not stupid enough to think that the world revolves around this band, but if it gets people talking about issues... that'll be good enough."

~ Randee Dawn ~

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