Radical Dads, who are basically Alt Citizen BFFs at this point (they played our summer jam back in June) were gracious enough to grant us with an interview as well. The band, made up of Lindsay Baker (vocals/guitar), Robbie Guertin (drums), and Chris Diken (guitar) made the crappy, humid trek to visit us in Clinton Hill recently. If you haven’t listened to their album Rapid Reality, it’s out now on Uninhabitable Mansions. Its lyrics are all partial odes to the ample geographical regions and climates of California, where Baker lived for six years. Rapid Reality also comes across as a road trip album for the Golden State. “Hi Desert” leads you through the desolate, almost creepy landscape of the high desert ghost towns, and the guitar on “Marine Layer” leaves you with the taste of salt air on your tongue. The album’s simultaneous languidness and directness cast enough of a charm to make you seasick from all the changing landscapes––but the good kind of seasick.
It’s only fitting that a band with the name Radical Dads would be a trio who doesn’t take themselves too seriously and embodies the term “charming and disarming.” Seriously, if you haven’t signed up for their bookish mailing list, do so now to see what I mean.
I’m sure you’re sick of hearing this but “Radical Dads” – where does that name come from?
Robbie: We were just going through a bunch of names.
Chris: Has a band ever had an interesting name story?
Lindsay: Guided By Voices. I like their story. I dunno, maybe it’s just folklore.
Robbie: So we were walking down the sidewalk, there was dumpsters everywhere, and Chris said it. It was like, [snaps fingers] “that’s it!”
Everybody wants to be a radical dad or a cool mom. Cool Moms would be like a sister band to you guys.
Robbie: Or arch nemesis band!
[laughs]Lindsay: It just sounded great. Rolled off the tongue basically.
Are you guys dads?
Chris: Yeah, all of us.
[laughs]I’m asking because when you played the Alt Citizen party there was a little kid running around.
Robbie: Oh yeah, that’s our friend’s [kid].
He was just there for the show.
Robbie: Yeah. [laughs] All of our dads have been taking [the name] very seriously though. They’re like, “Thank you!”
So you just got back from touring Japan. Had you been there before?
Robbie: Well I had been there with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. I met this guy in this other band called Asian Kung-Fu Generation; they are huge in Japan. I kept in touch with him and was sort of like, “We might be coming over, if we got there would you help us with a show?” He was like, “Oh I’ll bring you over.” He ended up adding us to this tour they were on anyway and just had us open [for them]. It was amazing.
So how was the reception over there?
Lindsay: It was really good! The record label that that guy runs put out both our records in Japan. It’s a double CD with extra bonus tracks, so some people had already heard it. We had been on some compilations in Japan before that but little stuff here and there. Every once in a while someone emailed from Japan like, “Wow!” So yeah, it was good.
What was the coolest thing that happened there? Or was there any culture shock?
Robbie: Just being in Japan was amazing. The way that they do shows there is just totally different.
Chris: It was somewhat shocking.
Robbie: Yeah, the shows start at six and the entire crowd files in at six. The room is full from then on. If you have three or four bands playing, nobody goes away between sets. They don’t drink during shows.
They don’t drink during shows?!
Lindsay: Yeah, and they dance!
Robbie: Yeah, they clap. We started hamming it up a bit. The crowds are just awesome.
Chris: The shows are over at like, nine o’clock which is really perfect for us. [laughs]
Robbie: Except then they take us out for dinner––these amazing dinners and hang out with the bands. Just very, very attentive. In America, everyone’s doing you a favor by letting you play. In Japan, [they’re] very respectful; both the audience and the other bands playing. It’s very positive.
I grew up in California, so a lot of Rapid Reality‘s lyrics sound very familiar. Especially “Marine Layer” and “Hi Desert.” Is that all just you, Lindsay?
Lindsay: Yeah, I lived in LA for about six years. I feel like California is a state that exists in the future somehow. But also in this sort of, old-timey future – a future envisioned from the 1950s or something.
Robbie: Japan is like the future envisioned in the 1980s.
[laughs]Lindsay: But I think all the very interesting geography of California really made an impression on me. I grew up in Ohio. I didn’t even realize what nature was, you know? You just go to southern California and you’re bombarded with landmarks and weird lakes; deserts. I lived near the Tar Pits, so I was really obsessed with the Tar Pits [laughs].
So how did you all end up meeting?
Chris: We met in college. Robbie and I went to the same school, Lindsay went to a school nearby. So we played in sort of similar guitar-based rock bands back then. Then we all sort of left to separate geographical locations and came together in New York and decided to play.
Robbie: They started playing together and I got jealous [laughs]. I was like, ‘I’ll do anything, I’ll play drums!’
The news updates on your website are amazing. Is that all by you?
Chris: Yep.
Robbie: Those are the emails that we send out for shows. They’ve all been outsourced.
Lindsay: [laughs] To Chris!
I feel like a lot of the time — with most bands — it’s like: here’s what’s happening, here’s a link, go to this. Yours are actually fun to read.
Chris: Thank you. Most band emails don’t actually pertain to you when you receive them if you already have the album somewhere where you can’t go to the show. So how do you be relevant to people? My goal is to just make it entertaining so that you’re happy to receive the email from us even if it doesn’t pertain to you. There’s nothing to do, you’re just enjoying an email you’re receiving.
You’re definitely achieving that. The one on how to purchase Rapid Reality was great.
Robbie: There’s a certain cliché for music promotion––a certain way to promote your stuff. We’re a self-aware band. There’s a certain way to promote yourself in a cool way and not fall in with obvious tropes or traps.
I think a lot of your influences are obvious in a way, like ’90s indie rock. But what is something that influences you? It doesn’t necessarily have to be music.
Lindsay: I would say Buckminster Fuller and Sun Ra. And Oliver Sacks! [It’s] the trifecta.
Robbie: [There are] definitely a lot of things we were all psyched about. Modest Mouse and Built to Spill … that period. I feel like we get thrown into that ’90s ring, but also it’s funny because we have a lot of those influences but a lot aren’t exactly what people think they are.
Lindsay: I mean, we were in our formative years in the ’90s, so that’s why it’s there. We’re not doing it intentionally, it’s not like it’s a put on or anything. [Motions to Chris] What about you?
Chris: Oh I don’t have influences.
[laughs]Chris: Alfred and Albert Hitchcock. I don’t know, I like James Joyce.
Robbie: We also like a lot of comics and stuff.
Lindsay: Yeah, whenever we have a chance to do some sort of album art. We’re like, “Hey, what artist are we so psyched about? Who would we love to work with?” Then we write them a really flattering email. But it’s really genuine and sincere — letting them know how much we love them, how they influence our lives. We’ve had some success with that.
The Rapid Reality album cover is really cool. The image of the girl with chunks of her gone…
Lindsay: Yeah that was Dana Schutz, she actually works in Gowanus. She’s a pretty big deal in the contemporary painting world. She was very receptive to help us out. But that was a painting that existed before.
Who did the album art for Skateboard Bulldog?
Lindsay: That’s Matt Furie, he’s a comics guy. He also just did a children’s book called Night Riders. It’s a very trippy children’s book.
Chris: Can we ask you questions now?
Interview by Alex Martinez. Follow her on Twitter at @xxalexm.
Photos by Nasa Hadizadeh. Follow her on Twitter at @nasahdzdh
