Interview from JAM!

New Radical Gregg Alexander may have the most cynical rap since '60s comic Lenny Bruce, but he's got the mouth to back it up. His hit single "You Get What You Give" attacks everyone's favorite rock stars, but that wasn't the real point, says Alexander, who has a million points to make.

"The lyric was not about those artists," he says on the phone while touring Germany. "They're just figureheads, it was an experiment. I knew the song was gonna be a hit. I wanted to see if celebrity culture and obsession would translate into rock journalism. The lyric before the one that mentions Beck and Courtney Love is 'Health insurance rip-off lying/ FDA big bankers buying/ Fake computer crashes dying/ Cloning while they're multiplying.' That is a human lyric, followed by 'You're all fakes, run to your mansions/ Come around, we'll kick your ass in.' As we expected, the media went after the celebrity bait and didn't address the political issues. Whereas real people that we met on the street all asked about the political lyrics. That told us that the problem doesn't lie with people, they're sick of the lies."

Alexander may posit himself as an angry rebel with a cause, but while a couple of cuts on New Radicals' Maybe you've been braiwashed too' (most notably the title track) do deal with social issues, other songs are as sappy as the Partridge Family. Even the Todd Rundgren-ish hit spouts the clichés "you've got the music in you" and "you only get what you give," and the songs "Technicolor Lover," "Flowers" and "Jehovah Made This Whole Joint For You" are full of exuberant vibrations and positive, uplifting lyrics.

"I quote clichés in songs because I believe the songs have an intellectual subtext. That's been missing in music for years. [There's been an] inability to escape that hip vagueness of most lyrics. I wanted the music to communicate something, not be this desperate attempt at being hip or recreating Japanese kimonos in my videos to be in with the cool crowd. We went for the jugular with big grandiose statements and hitting the thrill button in rock 'n' roll."

The son of a plumber from the ritzy Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, Alexander says his inspiration comes from a life spent observing people, avoiding television, and, well... "Just the wonder and magic of being on this Earth," he says, without a hint of irony. "You can't pine about injustice all the time. But Americans need to be aware of the state of the world. Some Americans have no problem going on vacation and eating at McDonald's every day in a foreign city.

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