"You Get What You Give" by New Radicals: Everything You Didn't Know

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating facts behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music, and more. We are your wizards of Wikipedia. My name is Jordan run Tug and I'm Alexago Low hanging fruit. That one, but it's got the job done. Yeah, Yeah, that was okay, And today we're going to discuss what I'm okay with Saying is one of my favorite songs of the nineties. I can't even call it a guilty pleasure. I genuinely think it's a good song. I'm talking about You Get What You Give by New Radicals, a track that takes the save the world earnestness of you two and mixes it with the soaring piano pop sensibilities of Todd Rundgren. It came out in which was kind of a weird transitional period for music, sort of the calm before the teen pop storm. Electronic beats were beginning to seriously compete with guitar ours as a dominant sound on the radio, and new metal was ascending from the depths of Hell and Yet amidst all this you get this well crafted, optimistic pop song that took shots of consumerism, the commodification of art and celebrity culture. And unlike today, when artists are more or less expected to have a political stance and stand for something, it was unusual at this particular moment for a song as unabashedly poppy as this one to be used as a soapbox. In addition to always loving this song, I was always fascinated by the fact that New Radicals vanished soon after its release. That added an element of mystery to it for me, like where did this group go? And I've always heard these stories about the main guy behind the group, Greg Alexander, as being this lost like Brian Wilson type figure who played all the instruments himself and had this tremendous gift for melody, but decided it wasn't worth dealing with all the houses of fame, which to me gave him this vaguely heroic yet also tragic quality. I don't know, I love my reclusive pop geniuses. Well, you know, I've ever really cotton, as they say to people who abandon the stage for a lifetime in the studio, which I just think is kind of uniquely part of being a musician in the twenty one century because to me, being in the studio means spending money that you don't have um and so it always makes me like a little nervous. It's not like a fund like you talk you Paul Simon used to go into the studio without anything written and just be like, well, what can we pull together? People did that, Yeah, And it's like now, if you're in a band, and I've been in many, you get one day to track basic tracks, and that you better been rehearsed, because if you're up these takes, you're on the clock and you are literally burning money. Then you can get into the hassle of doing vocals and overdubs and all that. And so it's I don't find the studio to be like a particularly calming environment. The stage is, though, you know, and I just don't what it was. Two points about that, I think, I mean in the XTC and Paul Simon, we're both you know, studio only entities. Back in the eighties when stuff was selling, and you know, the other big group probably the most famous example of the Beatles and the sixties another time when records were selling, but also I think probably at least for the Beatles, maybe a little bit of Paul Simon, it was just more of like a hassle thing to like, especially for the Beatles, where you couldn't reproduce the kind of music I wanted to make on the stage anyway, plus the fact that you didn't want to get assassined in some cases, right, yeah, no, I mean that's totally fair. But then I just yeah, there's some people who are like, well, the studio is my instrument. I'm like, okay, I'm sure there is, but like, I don't know, man, The like last thing that I hold sacred in rock and roll is like a good rock and roll show where things seem a little bit out of control and a little bit dangerous, and like I don't really subscribe to the whole rock and rule as primal theater thing, but like the best rock shows feel like that, and there's nothing like that full stop. So you know, I think that's actually really underscores a difference between what you and I appreciate of music, because I mean, I love you know, Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds is one of my all time favorite albums. Uh all the Phil Specter stuff. I mean, regardless of what you say about him as a human being. I love all that like studio construction stuff. Oh, I mean I love it. Like when I started getting into better studios and learning more about it, I really do love it. I love the like the creative panning that you can do in a studio space. And now that we're up to a Dolby at most like eight channel mixing, you can just really create these immersive physical worlds out of music. And I'm not slamming the studio. I'm just saying or saying that I don't respect it. I just it's a money pit for me. But I just, yeah, I don't know, man, there's maybe it's just because I got hit with punk rock just at the right time as a teenager. But I'm just like, Nope, bands go out on stage and bands play, and that's what bands do. I don't know, and that's the only way bands get to make money these days. Your streaming sales aren't gonna make up the cost of your studio. You've got better get on the road. Well, this is a funny moment to mention this, but today, the very day we're taping this, you've released a new album too on band check it out, everybody stop. Um, yes, yes I did, and uh if we can leverage the podcast community, it's alex Hegel dot band camp dot com and it is uh is practically easy listening music. It's just like gentle fingerpicked guitar with a lot of effects on it. So I hope people enjoy it. Jordan's do you have any other points about Greg before we jump in here? Yeah. The more I learned about this guy, Greg Alexander the kind of the mastermind behind New Radicals, the more impressed I became with him. Using pseudonyms, he pens some huge songs in the wake of the New Radicals disintegration. Music critics Stephen Thomas Erlewine described them as quote the catchiest, smartest professional mainstream pop songwriter of the only two thousand's and as we go on, well you'll hear we understand why bold statement though? Yeah? Right, Uh so I'm excited to talk more about him. Get ready to learn about what other Gargantelan hits he wrote behind the scenes his famous non feud with Marilyn Manson, although Marilyn Manson threatened to crack his head open like a watermelon, anyway, why he's earned huge props from everyone from Joni Mitchell to Bonno and Iced Tea, his re emergence for Joe Biden's presidential inauguration, and just how he ripped a part of Mall Food Court for that iconic music video. So here is everything you never knew about. You Get what You give by New Radicals. Greg Alexander was something of a pop prodigy, the voice and face of New Radicals. Was born in Gross Point, Michigan. He was raised as Jehovah's witness. Um, just like Prince Prince wasn't raised as Jehovah's witness. Prince converted after doing it war with Sly and the Family Stone bassist Larry Graham's solo project, Graham Central Station. The guy whom at the slap bass right, Yes, good base knowledge, Um, I did play it in Your's True. Alexander was inspired as a kid by the Jackson Five and especially Prince. He snuck into the R rated Purple Rain movie as a tween and describes it as a major turning point in his life. He later told the Hollywood reporters Scott Feinberg, Let's go crazy, knocked me over my head. But when I heard the beautiful ones, it was all over. It's a good one to lose your dearly beloved. At that point, I knew I was going to be running away to California, which is so cute. Good for him, we love that because Gosh, Darnett the kid had a dream. He bought his first guitar as a twelve year old and played in various bands. In he played a Battle of the band's compete against future Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie guitarist shred metal country extraordinaire John Five. I just want to say, I find it really incredible that he faced off against the future Marilyn Manson guitarists, considering the will happen with famous incident while non incident with Marilyn Manson and the lyrics to his so I also feel um confident that John five blew him out of the demn water may not in song, well, they were like four, I think John five. I love John Five. He's such a nerd. What an incredible musician. Anyway, But as a teen, Alexander had purchased a four track recorder and started making demos in his bedroom. The Sounds of Detroit nearby, which had this tremendously potent blend of punk, R and B and rock, had a marked impact on his early songs. He would later say the spirit of Detroit radio was powerful. It's such a segregated town, like legal apartheid, to the point where you can feel the soul and pain and spirit in the faces. He would take his demos to school and play them for his classmates, but in an effort to get honest feedback, he wouldn't even tell them that he was the one who had written them, which has anyone anyone who's tried to all this pull this on someone one of their loved ones, can be a dicey proposition. Yeah you don't You don't really want to hear what they actually think. He told Rolling Stones Andy Greene that this was part of his quote elusive search for the songs that make people happy, sad or better yet both at the same time, which is a brilliant description of you get what you get. Um. By sixteen, he's actually out in l A under the cover guys of visiting his aunt who lived out here, but he would later admitted to think of it as a covert research and development trip, and it apparently was very fruitful because he said he literally snuck into the Grammys where he saw all of my heroes and everything seemed within reach. Again, this is from Scott Feinberg's piece in The Hollywood Reporter. A lot of sneaking in the story, specially considering he's six. The Purple Rain stuck into the Grammys. So yeah, he's five. Must be a very very crafty man at that height to be able to make subterfuge a cornerstone of his approach to music. I always sort of saw him as like Billy Corgan's like sweet twin. Like they the bald, extremely tall, very pale. It's like the Simpsons episode where he was the good twin who was locked in the attic and he finally got out. Billy Corgan has been the evil one hall along. Um. Yeah. And so he returns home and just kind of casually divulges to his parents I'm running away to California this summer to be a rock star, and his dad says, well, make sure you're back home in September for school if it hasn't come together with that charming Michigan uh pragmatism. But he did pull it together, actually, he took his bedroom demos and at the age of just sixteen, charmed music mogul Jimmy Iovine into giving him a contract with A and M Records. He's a tough guy to please. That's pretty amazing man. He left at sixteen and was signed at sixteen. That's wild. How's that making? It makes me feel like Jordan's um and uh? But he was sixteen. Because he was sixteen, he was under age. He wasn't allowed to sign the contract, but he was given a sort of allowance by A and M for the next two years while he hung out on the beach and just wrote songs all day. How does that make you feel, alex We call that pulling a Kate bush um. But in case you get what you give, didn't give it away. Greg had an idealist streak a mile wide, and it's one that remains to this day. Once again, in the th HR piece, Scott Feinberg asked him the seemingly innocuous question, what sort of future did you envision for yourself while waiting to turn eighteen and begin your professional life? And Greg, Alexander the sweet boy, begins to tear up. That's a sad question. He says, before adding that he believed at the time that a song and a sentiment would be able to right the wrongs of the world and make people actually love each other. Oh you sweet summer child. But his optimism would be destroyed or at least severely damaged, by the business side of the music industry. Would Hunters Thompson say about the music industry, It seems like a good time to bring this quote up. I don't know if I know. Oh, you don't know that one. It's tremendous um Hunter Thompson famously said of the music industry that it is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long, plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side. What pieces that from? I don't remember. I just found it. It's probably something in the assorted papers from like the Great Shark Hunt or the concert papers. But Greg would find out the shallowness of the trench. His first two records flopped. He released his debut Michigan Rain in nine, which became a minor hit in Italy. For some reason, maybe they confused it with the Bruce Hornsby song Mandolin rain, So maybe maybe I don't just just spitball in here. There's no bad ideas and brainstorming Ran November Ran, it's my favorite rain songs. The Italians are just like, it's got rain on it must be a hit. Um, but didn't make a splash State Side, and so we switched labels, signed to Epic and released a second album in Toxic Fornication, which is second to The Red Hallet Chili Pepper's Californication as one of the worst album title puns of all time. In Toxic Fornication information toxic. That's a triple That's a triple word score. That's definitely going to get you a lot of points. And so it's it's only two. It's intoxicating and fornicating. But I don't know where the fornic where the where the where the Asian comes from? Maybe vacation, I don't know, Jamie, Jamie. Can we get Greg to grant us he's once in a decade interviews, We can ask him about that. Um. Greg later said that that record was barely promoted since this was the height of grunge, and he quote refused to look like Eddie Vetter, probably because he was bald. The album showcases his penchant for mischievously inflammatory lyrics, specifically on the song The Truth, which includes the line here it comes here, it comes here, it comes Are you ready? Here comes the Lawsuit Baby, which is a pre chorus to the chorus of him covering slow Ride by fog Hat, which is a dangerous move. Do you remember that thing with recently with car Seat Headrest, where he um interpolated a car's song into one of his records and cost his label like an enormous amount of money because he hadn't cleared it. And rick O Ka six either his estate or when he was still alive, like went after them for and they had to destroy like every pressing of vinyl that this thing had already been printed on. Yeah. I think it was like a five figure loss because they had to get rid of all the physical media that had it on that. Wow, it's like the situation with Alba and uh, you know we did it for Dancing Queenn oh k MFDM yes yes, yes, yes yeah man music industry, Yeah exactly, that's the moral of that story. Um. And after these two failed albums, he relocated to New York, where he bust in the East Village, Tompkins Square Park. I wonder if he meant some of the Jeff Buckley. Jeff Buckley, Yeah, I was thinking of all the I was thinking of all the punk rockers on from like c Squat, who would have been hanging out there. And there in lies the difference between exactly you go to Jeff Buckley, I go to crust punks. He also co wrote the song here Comes My Baby for Belinda Carlisle of the Go Goes On album Real, which is a bit of an early taste of his prolific career later in his life as a songwriter for other artists. And this relatively big score or getting a co write on a blend the Carlisle song and bolded him to keep working on material for himself. And this is what sowed the seeds for the New Radicals project. It was always designed to be a vehicle for himself, with no permanent lineup in place. It was just gonna be like revolving door of players, not unlike John Lennon's plastic on no band. And speaking of my beloved Beatles, the longtime guitarist in Paul McCartney's band, Rusty Anderson, plays guitar on You Get What You Give? He was a new radical Did you know? I did not. At the time, he was in a band called Edna Swap, which after a that I'm not familiar with. But Greg Alexander would later admit that it was mostly a case of pulling in favors with people who played with him in the past. He'd later say, Oh, yeah, Greg's down on his luck. Let's go play on his demo for the hell of it. We'll have a good laugh, have a couple of beers and maybe smoke a j or whatever him talking to the Hollywood Reporter back in the nineties, he talked to Rolling Stone about his Unorthodox band, saying it's very open. If someone's drunk mom comes on stage, it wants to play Congress with us, that's a possibility. So it's a very free form thing. I feel like that's a reference to Um. Do you ever hear what Markis Smith said about The Fall? No? Actually, I do wonder if it's a there's a reference to The Fall because The Fall they were postpunk band fronted by a guy named Marky Smith who was a notorious crank, and he fired everyone in the band for decades. They're they're like previous band member list on Wikipedia is like seventies. And he famous quote about it was I am the Fall. If it's me and your granny on bongos, it's still the Fall. I have to wonder if Greg Alexander knew that and made a reference Son King of him. Yeah, the state, it's me um. The only constant member of this loose collective was keyboard player and percussionist Danielle Brice Boix. I think that's how you say her name, bries Bo. I'm gonna just call it Danielle because there's a good chance I'm getting that name wrong. But she's a really interesting person. She got her start as a child star, appearing as the character of Stephanie Mills on the later seasons of All in the Family and the show's spinoff, Archie Bunker's Place, for which you are in a Golden Globe nomination. So Yes. The guitarist and you Get what you give plays in Paul McCartney's band and has for over twenty years now, and a keyboardist on the track was on All in the Family Incredible, We're really we're building up a world here. Plus she was in the original Broadway production of Annie, and you can hear her sing on Jay Z's Hard Knock Life Ghetto Anthem because he sampled her performance so really interesting. Person tripped my mom into letting me buy that jay Z record because I was like, yeah, his whole thing is just like, you know, sampling Broadway. Sorry, mom um. So this is more than enough for most of us to rest on our laurels for the rest of our lives. But not Danielle. She pursued a career in music after her child star days, both under her own name and also performing with Greg Alexander and his early solo albums. Like we mentioned, she co wrote the Chostar, Bedding Fields Unwritten and Pocket Full of Sunshine, and later appeared as a singer in the Oscar winning Jack Nicholson Helen Hunt movie As Good As It Gets, one of my favorite movies, and she also played on you Get What You Give, so huge props there. That's a hell of a resume. Uh. Greg Alexander's less than positive experiences on his prior albums actually had a liberating effect when it came to put in together this batch of new radical songs that would surface on their one and only album, Maybe You've Been Brainwashed too, As he told the Hollywood Reporter. He said he was quote used to making records that never got heard and basically decided to stop trying to make music that might be successful, which I find weird considering how catchy you get what you give is. But whenever. Uh. Instead, he said, he quote ripped up the few rules that applied to my first two records, and Maybe You've Been Brainwashed two was produced basically solo, he said. I wanted it to be different from every other band. That's why I produced the album myself. I didn't want any other producer to come in and make it sound I'm like some other band. Um. Just side note, I always got the impression, just before researching this that Greg Alexander was sort of an unpleasant control freak. And this is purely because of two pieces of information that I had about this guy, one of which was grossly inaccurate. One I'd mistakenly believe that he'd played every instrument on the song himself, which is not true. Uh. Combine this with the fact that he walked away from fame. I just assumed that he was a very my Way or the Highway type of guy. And he just couldn't, you know, handle the collaborations necessary for the music industry. But apparently none of this was the case. I am very wrong. Upon reading up on him for this episode, he seems quite lovely. That's actually the word he uses to describe people that he admires and interviews lovely, which I also find lovely. First of all, he truly turned his back on celebrity bs, as we'll touch on later once New Radicals ended. He didn't give a major interview until talking to the Hollywood Reporter. So it's fifteen years he didn't give a substantial sit down interview. Good for him. So that's part of the reason why Yeah, right, like he really he meant it when he this is no like, oh yeah, we'll do a reunion tour later for a bunch of money. He really meant it. He stuck to his guns. Um. And that's also why I keep leaning on that Hollywood Reporter piece so much, because there's not a lot out there but that and a profile in Billboard a few years later by Stephen J. Horowitz paint a portrait of an insanely sweet guy. Case in point, he brings an umbrella for the journalist just in case he doesn't have one because it's a rainy day. When it turns out the journalists came prepared, Greg Alexander leaves the umbrella in the park in case anyone else should get caught in the rain. That's so cute. I just find that really sweet. Um. He also apparently carries around the wad of twenty dollar bills so we can tip wait staff and porters and anyone who even goes slightly out of their way for him. I don't know, I just find this very sweet. Yeah. Um. In the Billboard piece, Horowitz writes quote at every turn, he describes the people he admires as lovely. He had is the sort of egoist familiarity of someone who doesn't care for fame. I don't know, I just wanted to share that he seems like a genuinely nice guy. Um right, yeah. I mean our last episode on music was about guns and roses, so yeah, this is what called this one of the palate cleanser. This is pretty far from AXL Rose slash. From what I've heard, is very nice. Anyway, Greg shopped around his demos and he caught the attention of a guy named Michael Rosenblatt, who is the guy who signed Madonna. So this guy knew a good thing when he heard it. I'm pretty sure that the album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed two, it was mastered straight from the demo cassette, so he basically had it fully formed, which is pretty impressive. That was what they did with Boston's debut record. He recorded it all in his basement and uh. When he was signed, they were like, okay, well you gotta performance, and you gotta do it in a regular studio now, and he was like no, So they brought a mobile recording truck to his Boston apartment. So he just retracked the record in the basement, running cables out to a mobile board to get the masters, all while lying to the label through an intermediary that he was in fact working in a real studio. So he just re recorded all the demos in his own studio, uh, and then sent them off to the label. Good for him, didn't you interview him? I sure did. Yeah, that's what I'm reading from his the interview I did with him. Yeah, he was he was fine, big into vegetarianism and roller skating. H Yeah, yeah, so there you go. But I just want to stress that it is extremely unusual for the musician to get a second chance at a label deal. Greg Alexander got three at this point. He had his first album on A and M second on Epic, both flopped, and that was getting another chance for this new Radicals project. I just think that's amazing. He was just that good. So the clear stand out on this album in progress is you Get what You Give, which was initially just a writing exercise that he set for himself with a goal of each line in the lyrics topping the one that came before it. It was co written with a guy named Rick Knowles, who, despite me not recognizing his name with my intense granular knowledge of the music industry, this man had his hands and everything and I know not a not a matchstick of knowledge about him. Nobles has co written and co produced over ninety hit singles, and his songs have sold on over two d and fifty million albums. Wow. That includes Summertime Sadness by Lona del Rey, great song White Flag by Dido, Standing Still by Jewel, the Power of Goodbye, Maven Donna, Heaven is a Place on Earth by Belinda Carlisle, Great song Uh and sinks thinking of you parentheses, I drive myself crazy, um but despite that, co write most of the lines of a personal meaning to Greg four am we ran Miracle Mile, referencing is his time living around l A's Miracle Mile area. We're flat broke, but hey, we do it in style is a reference to his lost years when he briefly dropped out of the music industry to sleep on friends couches. In fact, the whole chorus of don't give up You've got the music in you could easily be seen as an encouragement to himself after the years of rejection or at least tepid responses he was getting in the music industry. In her amazing history of the song for the A V Club, Annie Zeleski writes, on one level, you get what you give almost feels like Alexander's pep talk to himself to continue on his creative path. The song's lyrics remind dreamers who feel down on their luck that they're special and capable even if they're broken desperate. Don't let go You've got the music in you, and encourages them to hang on despite bleak times. The beginning hints as stifling religious forces and youthful abandon later. There's a plea to strive for substance, as well as no oblique reference to romantic solidarity. Even the recurring phrase we only get what we give is deceptively simple, it hints it deeper philosophical and spiritual conversations about the impact a person's life has in the world. Um, you put it out there that this is believed to be the first song to include the word friend of me, which I did slew thing. The word friend of me apparently dates back to a nineteen fifty three article by a guy named Walter Winchell, who is the He was a gossip reporter for the Nevada State Journal, And Um, I thought this was suspect for a while until I learned that the Oxford English Dictionary uses it in their definition of the word friend of me. So, folks, if you wonder where it came from, it came from a Nevada gossip columnist. That's funny that was in Nevada because he was like a big I forget I think he was. I think he was based in New York for a while. I think I think he and Ed Sullivan. Ed Sullivan got a start as like an entertainment columnists a columnists basically, and they hated each other. So then Ed ran them out of New York and he landed in Nevada, just like Meyer Landsky. As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with more too much information after these messages the politics. If you get what you give naive or apprecient, Jordan's your thoughts? Um Well, of course, the first thing I think about is the end of the song, the most famous or infamous part of the song, the spoken words kind of almost pseudo rappish part at the end um most certainly a product of the period when rap rock was on the rise. I guess you could say this was Greg Alexander's soapbox moment as he takes a stand against corporate America and the commodity ptation of art. We all know the words, but here's a quick refresher. Do you want to do? You want to do this? I can't do the rap. I didn't brush up on it. I think you're gonna have to do it. I'll just speak it. Then. You love when I speak rap lyrics? Anyway, I sayn't. I can't really call this rap, but health insurance rip off, lying f d A, big bankers, buying fake computer crashes, dining cloning while they're multiplying fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson, you're all fakes. Run to your mansions, come around, We'll kick your ass in. I do remember how he recites that last line. He's like, well, kick you I thought it was as is plural. I didn't know that until So let's start with the first part first. It may be hard to believe, but these words were actually some of those pointedly political lyrics that have found their way into a pop song and quite some time. As Greg told the Hollywood Reporter, quote, my favorite writers and artists had a human politics aspect to their work, and that was something that drove me. I felt, perhaps too early on, that it was going to be a challenge to get even a portion of that sentiment across in the song. As an experiment on you get what you give I had, but at the time was one of the more political lyrics in a long, long, long time, to the point where some of the people I was working with were horrified in a pop song. I was going after health insurance companies and corruption. The food and drug administration and the hypocrisy of the war on drugs, big bankers in Wall Street. To allude to all that stuff in a pop song was in retrospect a naively crazy proposition. That quote is from but back when he was younger and still had his boxing gloves on. He gave this quote to journalist Stewart Berman about the apathy that had seeked into the music industry, said, rock and rolls recreating the same vague a political crap as a Coca Cola commercial. I'm censoring this. I'm sorry. Uh, what do these people have to say about the real world? The whole nineties alternative rock thing was such a letdown. It was all about, oh well, whatever, never mind. Rock and roll is supposed to be a voice against oppression, not an apathetic grunt. But this mentality was not without its critics. At the time of its release, Rolling Stone writer Alison Stewart called you get what You give quote a rant against consumerism, health insurance companies, and soulless rock stars, to which Alexander responded by saying, it's a snapshot of our times. If people want to drive a car into me for it, that's their prerogative. That was a precition given the some of the people were doing to the Black Lives Matters activists. Wow, yeah, that was a quote from Believe. Well. You know, I take issue with this whole thing about being like it's so political, like Rage against the Machine. We're still an operating concerned at this point, that band was getting videos on MTV that had like Leonard Peltier in the American Indian Movement and a Mumia Abu Jamal and you know, Stolen Land, Like they were some of the most subverse of political acts because they, as we've learned from the current tide of conservatives getting red asked when they discover that the band that they like that plays in heavy minor pentatonic box riffs when they finally discovered their leftist band. I mean, I personally would not have gotten half of what I know about this country's blood soaked past if I hadn't have gotten those Rage Against the Machine records. Right, they're not a pop band. They're not a pop band, so I think that's the main thing. I mean, the band's name is Rage against the Machine. Their album cover has the monk setting himself ablaze and protests of yeah, but they were also on the airwaves. They weren't like they were Yeah, but I think you I would argue that you get what you give was more mainstream and reached more purple at the time, rage against the machine, and I think being able to slip those messages. John let And had a quote about Imagine, which I mean, for whatever is Worth is one of my least favorite John Lennon songs. Um He said, you know, I spent so much of the late sixties doing these really obtuse, angry difficult to listen to songs that you know, had these really heavy handed messages for for peace in the anti war movement, and it wasn't really getting through to the most amount of people that they could. So with Imagine, it was putting a little honey in there to make it more palatable to sneak that message in there. And I think, you know, and this may be more of a philosophical difference between you and I, even I think there is an element of you know, one could call it selling out for trying to catch mainstream trends. Another person could say you're arguably being more subversive by trying to sneak in messaging that gets in under the radar and the people that would try to stop such my thing about rage against thee where people would be like they were like d I y punk rock bands in Britain who have been doing the same for years and they're not signed with Sony, And you know, it's arguably because they had that level of exposure and they were at that level of mainstream saturation, they were able to reach a lot more people with that message. So yeah, I mean, I you know, I don't hearing those words now about the f d A and Alton Strength. I mean, it all feels pretty sort of vague, but still, I mean I think it was more of a kind of the thing that for its time in a song that just even sonically sounded like that. I mean, look at the album cover. I mean you can trast the Redge against the Machine cover with the monk with the maybe you've been brandwashed to cover looks like a sketcher's act. I mean it's like, right, you know, this guy in a bucket hat or whatever. And we'll touch on this later. Despite the flak that he may have gotten at the time for including these vaguely political concerns at the end of the song. I'd say that helped the song age well, because now in this day and age, you get crucified as an artist for not using your platform to take a stand for something. You know what I haven't heard about in a while that was like a hot button thing for the nineties was cloning. Now it's all about like lab grown meat right and impossible burners. But remember, like everybody was real up in arms about Dolly the Sheep. I don't remember people being up in arms. I always remember people being like, oh, wow, that's that's weird. Wow, So Greg Alexander had that sheep in his razor sharp cross hairs. I mean I grew up forty five minutes from m I t oh, are you a clone? Are you? Am I doing? Is? It's like this moment where you're like, I guess more, Philip K. Dick, You're like questioning your own identity. You like Jordan's looks down and and can subtly see like a bar code and codd in his skin and fluorescent ink. He's like, no. Um. On the plus side, that means we don't have to feed you as much and we can just have you cranking these out again. Well yeah, I say, hot. Why do you think I respond to all your tweets and texts at all hours? All right, and now we must come to the true meat of the song, which is this man, this willowy man threatening to I guess he's not willowy, he's thin, but this gentle Michigan boy threatening the then boogeyman of rock. You know, you take pot shots at the f d A and the big banks and sheep cloning. That's all well and good. But then the line about Courtney Love, Marilyn Manson and other various pop cultural figures. He claimed that that was a joke to offset the heaviness of the real issues he's sang about in the priorate lines. Yeah, the whole rap part at the end, there's eight lines. The first four all about the FDA and health insurance, and then the last four are Courtney Love, Beck and hats and Marilyn Manson. And so he basically did that because he wanted to raise concerns about real things and then toss in some lines about celebrity drama as an experiment to see which the media would focus on the big picture issues or the celebrity disses. And uh, I know, let you Sweet Summer Child. Greg as two guys who have spent over a decade working in in that sphere. I can tell you which one the industry was going to focus on right away. Greg has frequently spoken over the years about how these fame focused lines took precedence over the real issues, saying to notice that everybody focused on the so called celebrity bashing lyric instead of this lyric that was talking about the powers that be that are holding everybody down. That was something that I was kind of disillusioned by. Moreover, he claimed that he had no issues with any of the artists he name checked and subsequently threatened to beat their asses in. But um, you know, we like to call this the find out phase of the experiment. UM. Marilyn Manson Um probably then at the height of his powers, really um in terms of monopolizing airplay. Uh said to Kurt Loder, I'm giving an open invitation into the singer of the New Radicals because he's all strange and spiritual, and he challenged me in one of his songs. A lot of people would say, you know, don't give him the attention, because that's what he wants. But I think I'll crack his skull open if I see him, and pretty unambiguous Manson probably would. He was doing what on God? But what could he? Yeah? I mean maybe, dude is he's doing like more cocaine than God. And he's also a tall dude. But he was very Spiti's gangly gangly. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's we just turned into like an m m A style podcast of like, well, you know, Manson's got that really long reach. He could probably just keep Greg Alexander at bay with a couple of well placed jabs. But I think Alexander might have him and wait, what do you think? Yeah? But Manson also got one of his ribs removes extra flexible. Yeah, gosh, I could not. I could see this one going either ways. What about you, Joe Rogan, Jamie, could we get Joe Rogan online to talk about whether or not Marilyn Manson or the guy from New Radicals would win a fight? Thanks. Manson then added that he's not mad. He said he'd kick my ass. I just don't want to be used in the same sentence with Courtney Love. Um, it's been lost to the midst of time whether or not the two actually squared off, but there's an interesting coda involving Manson's one time girlfriend and alleged sexual assault victim, Evan rachel Wood, one of at current count sixteen people who have come forward accusing Manson of sexual assault and far worse. In August, she performed a cover of You Get What You Give in l A at the Bourbon Room as a middle finger to Manson um and apparently this was her response to Kanye including Manson at his release party for his album. Donda and Evan posted the song on Instagram with the caption from my fellow survivors who got slapped in the face this week, I love you, don't give up. But back to Greg, He thankfully kissed and made up with several of the people he name checked at the end of the song, apparently running into Beck by chance at the supermarket. In an interview, Beck said he came running up to me so apologetic and saying, I hope you weren't offended. It wasn't supposed to be personal. I was kind of pleased because he's a big guy. Beck is a slight man. Greg Alexander is six ft five. Funny. Funnily enough, Greg Alexander would actually later collaborate with the band Hanson, thus finishing out the line of that lyrics and drummer Zach Hanson later called him, you know, a bit of a character, but a cool guy. But we can't talk about you get what you give without discussing the iconic music video On the short list of my favorite videos from the nineties have to say Greg Alexander and a bunch of youths run a muck through a mall, perfectly illustrating the anti corporate message of the song. He says he chose a mall as the setting for the video because he sees it as a metaphor for society, a fake, controlled environment engineered to encourage spending. However, I find it in truesting not trying to take any shots here, that the director of the video, a guy by the name of Evan Bernard, has directed a ton of commercials for MasterCard, McDonald's, Nikes, you know, big corporations, but he also directed videos for the Beastie Boys and was mentioned in the Beastie Boys top ten hit Get It Together with the lyrics drive the Lane. Like I was Evan Bernard. I was unable to find out if he actually played basketball, but he did. Maybe he did a video a commercial for the w n b A, so maybe he's got some secret moves on the court. I don't know. Maybe part of me does appreciate somebody doing well playing gigs for corporations and taking that money and then to do it for like, you know, Tibet fundraise videos and stuff like that for the Beastie Boys. He also did the seldom seen clip for Army by Ben Folds five, one of my favorite ben fold songs. So over on the whole, i'd say, Evan Bernard, you've done good. The video was filmed over the course of a day at the Staten Island Mall. Uh, Greg Alexander and the New Radicals Drama were the only real members of the band in the video. The rest are hired actors. I very nearly made a field trip out there once I found that it was out in Staten Island, which is kind of hard to get to from. I wouldn't recommend it. Kind of a schlep. Do you want me to tell the David Johansson story? Oh yeah, Like a year into my tenure of People Magazine, I got a press release that David Johansson, who is the lead singer of the New York Dolls, was going to be playing the Carlisle, the very famous hotel on the Upper West Side where Woody Allen playss like weekly set of traditional New Orleans jazz, and but he would be doing it as buster Point Dexter, who famously had one of the most annoying hits of all time with the song Hot Hot Hot, that you have heard at every wedding in the world. David Johansson's incredible musical encyclopedia. He knows like the entire history of American blues, but he also has like calyps Oh and Roombah and like actually knows all of those songs very well, and like English music hall as well, and which is why it's so funny to me that that song hit for him. But whatever. I go to interview him, and uh, he is polite but so sour. I was like, because that episode of No Reservations has him at like a teaky bar with Anthony Bourdain and I asked him about it. He was like, the producers took me there. I don't know that place, and I was like, you're from Staten Island. You're like probably the one of the biggest New York rock icons who lives in Stafford, Staten Island, like, what do you like about Staten Island? This is there's long dry pause on the line. He goes, well, I hear the fairies nice and I recovered from that one, and then uh, and then he goes, yeah, I mean, you know, we've got lovely beaches and the some of the biggest think tanks in the country are are located here. And in my idiocy, I went really and he there's there's a withering pause online. He goes, no, but he gave a tremendous love you at the New York Dolls and People magazine. That's that's tremendous. It was a great It was a great I mean I it was a great show with the Carlisle. He told one of my favorite jokes that I started stealing in for for our shows, which was the doctor told me to keep it to one drink a day. So and they hold up in your drink and say, this one is from um. Anyway. I love the people that we've snuck into. People I remember like, yeah, I mean I got the woman I snuck in a full length, exhaustively researched profile of the woman from Covin, like the band that had a like satanic panic record. Her name is Jinks. I got John kale In Yeah. For the Velvet Underground Staput. We did some ridiculous Liam Gallagher disappointing. I think the headline on that was a disappointingly polite interview with Liam Galland my favorite was probably actually I did this thing. There's this band that I like called Matt mos Um out of Baltimore. Ye yeah, And I got a press release that their new album was going to be conducted or was going to be made from sounds that they sampled from their washing machine. And I knew the publicist and I like the publicist, so I wrote like a quick little thing about new band putting out our band putting out record entirely composed of sounds from their washing machine, and it like blew up, and they got invited onto like the Today Show, and it was like their publicists wrote me back and was like, this is the most exposure they've had in their entire career. I was like, oh, I'm really really happy I was able to do that for them. Um yeah. I reviewed Ramstein's Proud of that. I don't even know where were we on topic? I have no idea where we are now. But I didn't make the track to stat mild because I learned that the whole atrium area of the mall has changed. The fountain has been paved over, the food core it's been moved, and the elevator with the light bulbs in it that he sings it is no longer in use. So major bummer all around. But any fans in the New York metro area want to make a pilgrimage to the Staten Island Mall, please get in touch. Maybe we'll make a day of it. Yeah, pass, that's a that's a Patreon tier. That's right. Yeah, I've got a I've got a two thousand nine VW beetle I can fit three, So there we go. Anyway. The album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed two was released on October six. Uh It's title, I've read is believed to be a nod there was Jehovah witness upbringing and lapsed faith. Um not totally sure. I've never seen him speak about that directly, but it's an interesting theory. The album only peaked at number forty one in the US, but it went on to go platinum, selling a million copies, and most of this was on the strength of you get what you give, but there were some other good moments as well. On the record. It's really stylistic. We varied, and Greg Alexander's described the sound of the record to Rolling Stone as quote what happens when you have eight thousand messages flying through your heads at once? And the title track maybe You've Been Brainwashed Two features drums from the XTC song All of a Sudden from their English Settlement album, and according to XTC songwriter Andy Partridge, the sample was used without permission. Another one of these stories, and XTC and their record company received seventy thousand pounds or about a hundred thousand dollars in compensation for its use. Um. Do I ever tell you about how I discovered XTC is a real embarrassing rookie move. I was interviewing Dave Grohl for a record store day a bunch of years ago, and like I was trying to like, he's a big Odyssey and Oracle by the Zombies fan, and so I was nerding out with him about that and just other stuff that we found at record stores. And I've never heard of XTC, which I now know is a very well known band, and he him dropped them and it was very clear I had no idea what he was thinking about. And he's like, oh man, I've never heard extc um. I mean, he was cute about it, but I still like it's inhibited my ability to enjoy XTC to this day because I just think of this look of disappointment in Dave Girl's face when I just blanked him on it. So anyway, but yeah, XTC uh Andy Partridge, I assume filed some kind of suit against New radicals that's on the lower end of the mid to late nineties unauthorized sample lawsuit scale. If Bitter Sweet Symphony is the highest, and they have to turn over literally everything they made from that song. I think, yes, I think that that eventually got overturned a couple of years ago, so they got some money back. I don't think they got money back, but I think now the rights are reverted to him. I oh, good, good for them. I love but now that now that it makes like what like grand the Year or whatever, probably would have been helpful before the rise of the streamers. Huh, well love being a musician. Uh. The single Jordan tell us about the single release. Yes, the single you Get What You Give was released a few weeks after the album in November, and Greg had high hopes for it at the time. He told Billboard upon its release, I enjoyed watching it climb up the chart. I'm ready to be carted around like a piece of meat. You have to cut a deal with the machine and be thrown to the wolves. This is where the narrative voice comes in. He would come to regret the sentiment as he retired from the music industry for years, but still it really caught him off guard when the song actually caught on. He tells the story of walking down Sunset Boulevards shortly after the song's released and hearing it blasting out of a car that drove past him, and his initial reaction wasn't joy, but hey, someone stole my demo tape. And then a few minutes later another car came by blasting the song, and instead of like putting it all together, like oh yeah, it's the songs out and it's being played on the radio, he thought, oh my god, how did all these people get my demo to ape? Sweet Sweet Boy? The song ultimately topped the charts in Canada and New Zealand, and was a top five smash in the UK, only hit number thirty six on the Billboard Hot One, which surprised me given its influence. The album was very well received by the critics. Robert Chris Gout, who hates Everything by My Record, gave it an a The outlet known as The Daily Record had a really interesting take. They wrote, this anthem sounds like the water Boys at their best and has meaningful lyrics. It may sound like Bruce Springsteen, but that's no bad thing. This upbeat anthem will be played in all the good bars of the land when is being compared to Bruce a By, But the water Boys ripped two, so that's cool. And then the praises the plot it's started rolling in from on high Holland. Oates teamed up with Todd Rundgren to cover the second single from the album, Someday Will Know, and the record also got praise from George Michael and Prince Apparently, which is must have been a lovely circle moment there for old Greg because he used to cover live. Um, it's better than that Will Smith song where he's like We're gonna party like his n hold up it is God. He hate Will Smith Um but you Get what You Give in particular, earned more than its fair share of shoutouts from the musical elite. In two thousands six Iced Tea was asked on Late Night with Conan O'Brien about what he's heard besides rap music in the last few years that really grabbed him, and his only reply was you get what you give. Ten years later, seven years of music I had been made at that point and that was still an interview with Time You Two. Guitarist The Edge cited you get what you give, gentleman the Edge and gentleman the Edge with that hat that he hasn't taken off in thirty years um as one of the songs that he's most jealous of not writing. Take this with a grain of salt, because Wonder Wall was the other song, and he said he's jealous of not writing that's a great tune. Edge said of you Get what you Give, I really would love to have written that. Great spirit, great energy. He was making appearance in two thousand fifteen with Bono on the Awards Chatter podcast for th HR and he said, when I first heard that on the radio, we were in the studio working on something, and I was like, what I promptly went and wrote a song that I thought was mildly influenced by that tune, and it turned out that like within an hour of playing it, everyone was going, what are you doing? That's the same as the New Radicals. So it never saw the light of day. Bono added of Alexander, Yeah, stunning songwriter, stunning songwriter, He's amazing. And Greg, who must be said sounds very Bono like with the falsetto oz that he puts in this song, was very appreciative of the praise, telling Billboard, Wow, it's like being complimented by the Beatles, to which I say, narrator voice, it was not Um spotlight on Joni Mitchell. I'll tell you my Bonno story. This is just like this whole episode. It is gonna get padded out by our or our anecdotes are. This case is the second hand anecdote. UM family member was in Ireland on some business lunch and one of her colleagues looked across the restaurant and saw Bono eating lunch with a friend, and this woman just completely melt down. She is just a Bonno super fan be like if I saw Palmercartney across the room, like you could no longer have business discussions, could no longer eat, could could barely breathe. I me, and she's just completely freaking out, and you know, all business talk is tabled while they're just like talking about Bono across the room. Basically, Bonna gets up and goes to the bathroom, and this woman runs over and speaks to his friend and said, look, I'm sorry, I never do this, this is embarrassing. Bono is everything to me. I don't want to disturb you anymore. They already have. I'm really sorry, but could you ask him to just sign a menu, a napkin, anything? It would just mean the world to me and Bono's friends like, well, you know, I can't make him do anything. You know, he's Bonno, no no, I totally totally understand. I'll try, I'll try. Thank you, Thank you so much. She runs back to her table. Bonno leaves the bathroom, sits back down with his friend. Everybody finishes launch. Bono and his friend get up to leave. A waiter comes over to this woman's table and drops this napkin that's been signed by Bono in her lap, and she's just overjoyed, like you know, tears a welling up, She's thrilled. They asked for the check, and the waiter said, oh no, don't worry. He's been taken care of. And Mr Springsteen says, have a wonderful day. Bono's friend was Bruce Springsteen, and she was so she had her Bonno glasses on so much that she didn't even realize that she was talking to Bruce Springsteen the whole time, which I'm sure Bruce loved. And we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more too much information and just a moment. And now, as thoughts inevitably drift towards, we must speak of Joni Mitchell. She really liked the song uh, and has said so really. I said as much publicly several times over the years. In two thousand Jonie called it the only song I have liked in a long time, and referred to Greg Alexander as my kind of punky white boy. Joni has got some problematic thoughts on race, but well, I'm gloss over that. Two years later, in two thousand two, she told Rolling Stone the only thing I heard in many years that I thought had greatness in it was the New Radicals. I loved that song you Get what You Give. It was a big hit, and I said, where did they go? It turns out the guy quit. I thought, good for him. I knew he was my kind of guy. And then in the liner notes to her two thousand four compilation Artist's Choice, she praised the song again for rising above the swamp of Mick music like a flower of hope. So that's that's good and you know, Greg's and good company because in a interview with Cameron Crowe, she said the only current Ish people that she was listening to were the semi obscure R and B singer Leela James and baby Face. Wow, that's awesome. So the new Radicals are starting to take off. But in a story we have heard dozens hundreds of times before, Greg Anderson learned that feeding the music industry beast is not always a good time. He was exhausted from all the promotional duties. The interview is the DJ glad handing um all the things that you have to do as a musician that really don't have to do with music. High goal as a musician. I'm sure you have a lot to say about this. I know you. I can start. You literally wrote a song about this topic that I played with you in your band. Yeah, I mean, I'm tempted to say, like, when you're making actual money, it's part of the job. I'm sure it sucks, but like, if you had a platinum selling single out, suck it up and do the interviews you punk, Like I'm sorry, yes, I wrote a song about it, but also I make no money, Like I'm sure he had a manager, dude. To be a musician today is to like run your entire shop by yourself until you get to a certain level, Like you have to be your own book or you have to be at your own social media person. You have to be your own engineer. You finance your own records, you drive the van yourself. So I agree with what he's saying in theory, but also at the level he was operating at, I don't necessarily think he has caused to like gripe whatever. People can gripe about whatever they want, but like, you have a platinum selling single out, dude, Like, yeah, you're gonna have to do some radio promos. Suck it up. Sorry, you were signed at sixteen, like the trials of your life as a musician are minor. Well, I mean he did also he was also grinding it out from age sixteen to age seven, ever didn't have any success busking in Lapark, Oh. Signed at sixteen. Let me let me do the building one of the most iconic record executive of all time. Let me just wipe my tears with my unsold t shirts from our old band did anyone from this generation just does not get sympathy for me. I'm sorry. If you were a musician before Napster and particularly before Spotify and Pandora, like, I'm sorry you don't get sympathy from me. You have no you. You mothers have no idea what it's like out here anyway, I guess. Greg said a personal love was having the tape station breaks for an l A Area radio station saying stuff like this is Greg from the New Radicals, and you're hanging with the party pig. It was like a little flower compromising his art. Pig, I no, I'm done. You got more. In the Hollywood Reporter piece, he said that the party pig incident was quote a metaphor for all the sort of stuff that artists to this day have to do, and as bad as it seems back then, is multiplied a thousand times, So, he admits it it seems like a sad trade off for artists. It's the deal with the devil. If you want your work to be seen. It's unfortunately not just about the work, and when it becomes less about the art than the art suffers. I simply missed feeling like an artist every day and being able to write songs every day and not feel like my time was being controlled and managed to answer to corporate shareholders. I think that's a pretty yeah. Exactly. Moreover, he added, I missed my old life, which I think you know that alone is enough. Okay, like walk away if you want. That's I think there's That's kind of an unmpeachable sentiment. And the other important thing to remember is that by like I said earlier, he'd been around in the music industry for twelve years and was already just sort of done with it. In his own words, he was quote ready to retire, and so that's what he did. In the summer of Just weeks after filming a video for the band's second single, Someday Will Know, Greg Alexander released a statement on July twelve, saying that the group Quote will no longer be a recording, promoting or performing entity. He announced that he wanted to focus on his own production company and writing songs for other artists, and he went on to say, I'm going to be turning thirty next year, and I realized that traveling and getting three hours of sleep in a different hotel every night, and having to do hanging and schmoozing with radio and retail people is definitely not for me. Over the last several months, I've lost interest in fronting a one hit wonder. Those are his words. To the point that I was wearing a hat while performing so that people wouldn't see my lack of enthusiasm. Yes, the famous bucket hat masked and intersa I both love and he slashed his top, hat masked his stage fright. Moral of the story is you see somebody wearing a hat on stage there the wild card, give him a hug, do a wellness check. Yeah, exactly, gay and Jami REQUI must be in tremendous pain. The bigger the hat, the heavier the load you carry. Um. He basically said that he had played the part of the pop star, and it did, but he set out to do. He told MTV dot Com it was an experience playing the artist, but I accomplished all my goals with this record, and now I'm ready to move on and make the next step in my career. And true to his word, like we said, he stopped doing press until that two thousand fourteen the interview for The Hollywood Reporter and immersed himself in songwriting and production. And while we're here, let's do a little sidebar lightning round on bands that broke up after one really great album show go ahead, just bang them out, not necessarily hits, but account five Psychotic Reaction in nineteen sixty six. We're going chronologically. That's a great Nuggets track right there. That's how I learned that song. The United States of America, a weird kind of psychedelicy group from their self titled record, is a classic blind faith of course, although we should say all the supergroup types of stuff kind of I don't really Okay, Yeah, how do we feel about Derek and the Domino's Layla. That's the one on only album aside from their live album from seventy three. They could get Grandfather Dan, but it's another supergroup. Yeah, okay. The Modern Lover's debut in nineteen seventy six is their only real album, though they did have other demos and version stuff come out after sex Pistols. Never Mind the Bullocks. That's the quintessential example of this trope. The one undone um rock pile Seconds of Pleasure with Nick Lowe. I guess that's kind of kind of a supergroup. Sure. Uh, Joseph Kay is the only fun in Town Night one Minor Threats out of Step in nineteen they had released They released an EP after that, but yeah, whatever, Right of Spring self titled record in six I'm just impressive. You got these DC hardcore bands in here right now? I do I do my research. The Law self titled record in nineteen ninety. It's a one with there She Goes and uh Timeless Melody. It's a great song too. I think Temple of the Dogs self title record. I think this is also an age case because that was convened as a special project as an all star band to pay tribute to Uh Andrew Wood. Chris Cornell put that together Andrew Wood and singer A Mother Loved Bone and another band called Malfunction Function No disrespect to the dead. But those are truly awful band names. But it does have my favorite grunge one hit Wonder on their Baby Been Hunger Strike Numa one Hunger. Yeah, Yeah, I'm you. I interviewed Chris Cornell and I asked him about potential of I was asked I should say to ask him about the potential of tuple of Dog reuniting. Yeah, he seems sad. He shot it down pro quickly. Yeah, poor guy. That one hit me a lot harder than I thought it would because I was just like this dude seemed like he on top of the world, just like the best voice, handsome aging well like what bummer I watched that version of Nothing compares to you that he's sang and just like whaped. Anyway, that's enough about Chris corn Now. I paid tribute to him in his grave when I was in l A a a couple of weeks ago, the Hollywood Forever. Good m what else you got? Oh? I hate following up Chris Cornell with Box Car Racers self titled record in two. I mean unless some of those songs in my high school bands. Yeah, and finally, let's end with the Postal Service with give up in two thousand three. Bam fine. Nothing to say about the postal service anyway. Moving on um the aftermath. After disbanding the New Radicals, Greg Alexander found himself at a crossroads. Haven't used that one in a while. He England and settled in Nodding Hill, and at one point he recalls living with the rock revivalist The Darkness. I would give a pound of my flesh to hear the atrocious collaborations that came out of that living arrangement. He started getting calls from music industry heavy hitters, namely Lucian Grange, the Harry Potter villain named CEO of Universal Music, who Greg refers to his uncle Lucien, who gave him an open invite to write for umg artists under pseudonyms of his own. Choosing it basically gave him a chance to do what he used to do as a boy, which was playing his demos for friends without telling them he was the one who wrote them. He said, I wanted people to either like or not like a song on its own volition, of their own volition whatever. It gave me something to do, and it gave me a feeling that my music was being heard in my absence of being the person out there doing the dog and pony show. Teaming with his ex New Radicals cohorts like Rick Knowles and Danielle Brisboa, he wrote songs for hosts of British artists Ronan Keating got Life as a roller Coaster, which was a song Greg had originally written for the New Radicals follow up record that went to number one in the UK. He also wrote one of Jordan's favorite dance tracks, Murder on the Dance Floor, for Sophie Ellis beck Store that hit number two in England. Scottish rock band Texas took a song called Inner Smile to number six in the UK, and Greg even got to work with Rod Stewart on I Can't Deny It, a track from his top ten album Human. He also wrote four songs on Enricky Iglesia's two thousand three albums seven did he write hero I don't think so, Jam please tell me more. I'm surprised to hear you say that. Well the video with my Brunette Love Jennifer Love Hewitt. That did a lot for me. Um and then he lent his services to Melanie c former Spice Girl Melanie c for her single on the Horizon, and he also we mentioned you worked with Hansen, but also you mentioned indie rock OTTs rock Revivalists. Also Rand's the Kaiser Chiefs. How about that? And then somehow through this morass, Clive Davis comes calling. And when Clive calls, baby, you pick up the phone. Greg initially thought that Clive was calling to yell at him, which he might have. Clive doesn't yell, he doesn't have to. It's true. Clive had famously smoshed together a contemporary songwriters modern artists to revitalize the career of Santana with Supernatural, which hogged all of the Grammys, foisted Santana's endless guitar catterwalling onto a new unsuspecting generation, and gave us the undyinging meme of Smooth, a song I have come to loathe so so deeply. It's so good, Come on, it's not anyway. Now he's working to follow up to that, and he wanted a song. Greg, working under a fake name, teamed with Rick Knowles to write the song The Game of Love. That's a great. An early version was demoed by Macy Gray, and her version remains unreleased, and then Tina Turner took a stab at it and her rendition is included on Santana's Greatest Hits. So if you want to hear Tina Turner sing a song written by the New Radicals guy and completely slathered in old guy guitar, baby, that's your song. Um. He also has a demo of this song, and you can here on YouTube and you can really hear how it's related to you. You get what you give, and it also opens with a drumbeat that sounds very much like Raspberry Beret. The constant through lining Greg Alexander's career has been Prince, Uh, did you listen to it? But I but I said you did and it was very sweet and I opted to ignore it. Stewart Vermin Stewart Vermin in his I can tell I hurt you here and I feel bad about that, um, but I don't care about Gregg Alexander. Stuart Berman, in his stereogum piece, has an incredibly beautiful, almost hunting description that links the game of love to you get what you gig give. In this music industry, you certainly don't get what you gig, underscoring the melancholy of a pop genius who benched himself. Uh this is Berman's writing. The Game of Love includes a familiar as sending falsetto flourish, remarkably similar to the one heard near the end of You Get what You Give, like a mysterious bread crumb clue left behind by someone who doesn't want to be found. But if there's a cruel irony to hearing an anti consumerist anthem getting stripped for spare parts that get repackaged into an adult contemporary pop song, it's an outcome that Alexander all but anticipated himself end quote. The song was a smash, winning the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in two thousand three, but Alexander began to feel the same sense of dissatisfaction and frustration with the music industry that he did at the height of his New Radicals fame. He felt that the business was morphing and becoming even more corporate, and semi retired for the third time in his career. Although he was open to working with any artist who called him which was I guess laudable, he retreated from the spotlight called him enough that if somebody like bugged me Okay, that was my metric for deciding how badly did they want me to? Like, go do this. It's good to have standards, um. His only emergence was to attend a handful of industry galas at galas in hopes of meeting his heroes. He said, quote, the reason even one third of me has a foot in the door is the thrill of meeting Smokey Robinson or something like that, which I would I would agree with um. For years he lived between Europe, New York and l A and advocated for charitable causes like clean water projects, poverty alleviation, and the Robin Hood Tax to promote the taxation of offshore accounts. And then his career jumps up to a new level. Yes, he was coaxed out of retirement yet again to work on John carney mantic drama Begin Again, starring Kira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, and Adam Levine. Bono was actually the one who passed Greg's number to the director because he thought he might be a good fit to contribute songs to the soundtrack, and he thought right. The movie resonated with Greg because it examined the downside of the record business and The story follows a couple who grew apart after Adam Levine's character becomes a pop star. Greg said, there was a disillusionment of a lot of superficial aspects of the music business. I thought it had something very meaningful to say about it. So he teamed up with his longtime colleagues Danielle Brisbois and composer Nick Lashley to write several songs for the movie, including Lost Stars, which was performed by Adam Levine and Kira Knightley. He said, quote hopefully the lyrics infused the script with the notion that we're all lost stars. I'm a lost star in some respects because maybe I walked away from my larger true destiny if I had had seven albums out by now. So that's interesting and interesting bit of self reflection. Lost Stars earned him an OSCAR nomination for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards, but it lost to the Bond Song for Specter by Sam Smith The Writings on the Wall, But it got Greg back in the limelight slightly. He did the aforementioned interview for The Hollywood Reporter during the press run out for the Oscars. Like I said, as for a substantial one s, and he also performed publicly for the first time in fifteen years at Hollywood Music in Media Awards, where he's sang Lost Stars. This sets the stage, in part for the New Radicals one off reunion for Joe Biden's inauguration at January. Why did this happen? You ask? Well? Funnily enough, Greg Alexander's ties to the Biden administration date back to his predecessor. In two thousand nine, he was part of a musical collective called The Not So Silent Majority, which put together a song called Obama Rock around the time of Obama's inauguration. But the ties go even deeper for the Biden family. You Get What You Give is a favorite of President Biden's late son, Bo, who used it as a rallying cry during his terminal battle with Glioblastoma. In Biden's autobiography, promised me Dad, he wrote quote During breakfast, Bow would often make me listen, Make me listen. That's a very telling choice of words, make me listen to what I thought was his theme song, You Get What You Give by the New Radicals. Even though Bow never stopped fighting and his will to live was stronger than most. I think he knew that this day would come. The words to the song are this whole damn world can fall apart, You'll be okay, follow your heart. Bow died in and at his funeral, his sister recited the lyrics of the song and her eulogy in a slightly less touching connection with the song. Vice President Kamala Harris's husband, Doug am Hoff, also used the song during the campaign rallies as his walk on theme, not as meaningful um. After learning all this, Greg Alexander promised Biden that if he won election, he'd sing the song at his inauguration, and he ultimately made good on this offer. Yes, January one an unforgettable day, Lady Gaga saying the national anthem, Jennifer Lopez saying this land is your land, interpolating let's get loud into a moment that I'm sure terrified a good number of white boomers. Plus. There is a special hosted by Tom Hanks that featured performances from Bruce Springsteen, The Foo Fighters, John Legend, Justin, Timberlake, Demilovado, and bon Jovi, but all eyes were on the New Radicals making their return to the stage to sing their song for the first time in twenty two years or so. That's what they'd have you believe, because to get the Jonathan Frank's thing, it's a fiction. We made it all up, you rube. First of all, the New Radicals barely counted as a band, so there really wasn't this whole reuniting the classic line up. The two of them were the band, and so due to COVID related restrict actions um the two of Danielle and Greg Alexander were accompanied by musicians from the Philadelphia area rather than anyone else from the band's original lineup. And also, he had sung a version of the song at the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival at Gramman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood in February, maybe because he had those hits in Italy, whatever, albeit acapella because the volume on the guitar mic was turned off. I don't know if that counts, but for the sake of the argument, let's give it to the inauguration. Prior to the performance, Greg said, we pledged, if Joe one, we'd get together and play our little song, both in memory and in honor of our new president's patriot son bow and also with the prayer of Joe being able to bring our country together again with compassion, honesty, and justice for change. This performance, he hoped, was a tiniest beacon of light in such a dark time. American knows in its heart that things will get bright again. That's the message of the song. The world is going to pull through. The performances intercut with stage of Biden supporters displaying messages of hope. Uh, there's not really, though, quite enough of the musical performance, and Greg Alexander agreed asked the executive producer of the inauguration if they could cut the other footage so as not to disappoint anyone turning in expecting to see just the performance, at which point she humorously reminded him, Greg, this is the presidential inauguration, not a New Radicals video, which is yeah, that's a pretty withering put down. But I want to tell you what did disappoint me. They cut the bridge, but the rap. They cut, the cut the wrap bridge, the Marilyn Manson beck and has the references were gone. Cigar chomping executive is back there going. You don't haven't cut the rap, He says, it was only because he had four minutes to perform, and it was cut for length. But I don't know. I think it would have been so amazing to shout out the political issues with the banks, the FDA and clothing, all of which have been festering since middle of the inauguration. Yeah, but sadly it was cut for time. But now Jordan's shared on everyone's lips. Will we get another new Radicals album or seven to ten of them? In fact? Yet? You know what, quite possibly, though, we might have to wait for Greg Alexander to die. Uh No, don't get ideas anyways, it's very salnd Or esque. Greg Alexander says that he's recorded and mastered somewhere between seven to ten full length follow ups to Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, but unfortunately we'll probably never get to hear them. He quotes the poet Laureate sting music is its own reward, before adding in that context, it's been its own reward for me. I still scheme sometimes about the idea of maybe putting records out. Maybe after I die, I'll put them out. Every year told Rolling Stone that he said countless offers from labels promising him quote small fortunes to get New Radicals back together, but he never legitimately considered doing it, and you know what, it's probably for the best City didn't. In a great piece he wrote for g Q, the journalist al Shipley writes, by breaking up and almost immediately hitting it big New Radicals save themselves the perhaps inevitable fate of struggling to produce a follow up and getting dropped from their label. Like so many of their contemporaries. They never jumped at opportunities to play on cruise ships with Sugar Ray or tweet their way back into relevance like Eves City, and as we touched on earlier, the same political concerns that alienated some of Greg Alexander's contemporaries arguably added to the song's shelf life. In his piece for Stereogum that we Keep quoting, Stuart Berman writes, quote the album's key concerns financial insecurity, environmental degradation, media addiction, corporate dominance, and especially top of mind for a lapse, Jehovah's witness, like Alexander's spiritual emptiness, have only become more oppressive in the intervening years. It's easy to look back at the late nineties is a more innocent time, a pre nine eleven era where geopolitical turmoil didn't feel so viscerally omnipresent in the everyday lives of most North Americans and social media didn't exist to amplifier anxieties. In retrospect, maybe you've been brainwashed. Two's proto woke prognostications, where the original Twitter news alerts really interrupting the happiest days of our lives to inform us we're all to them. That's a great, great insight. But in the end, most importantly, you get what you give us. Still a great song, and that's arguably what matters most. Alexander continue to advocate for the power of music, and interview with Rolling Stone, recently saying, at the end of the day, people hear you on the radio on the drive home after they just got their heart broke, and they have a feel fear song maybe and that's what really matters. Yeah. I like this song. I think it's as inspiring and um, the thing I don't like about it is the rap as the Bridge. I just think it's so you like the Biden version released the Biden the Biden Edit. Yeah, No, I like this song. I think it's it's a great thing to tell people. Don't give up. You've got the music in you. And it's not just named at musicians. Like everybody's got a reason. Everybody's got some kind of music in them that they should be letting out. It's a good thing to hear. And uh, I support anyone with an unending amount of scorn for the record industry. So good on you. Greg Alexander come on the show and I don't know, walk us through more sordid stories of your time in the trenches. Anyway, Thanks folks for listening. This has been too much information. I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan runt Talk. We'll catch you next time. Too Much Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runt Talk. The supervising producer is Mike John's. 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