Radkey interview: Deadly Sugar Free Gummy Bears

Image: Radkey

If you're looking to start one of the hottest punk bands around right now, get yourself some Radke family genes, a killer metal and punk rock CD collection and sling your brother a bass. 

Atleast that's what it took Radkey, three home-schooled brothers from Missouri with a Dad who just happened to deal in the kind of wax that inspires your children to bag their first support slot with funk-metal flag bearers Fishbone.

It all started when Dee came to Isaiah to lend a bass to play in a local covers band. Next, Solomon wanted in and Radkey gained a drummer. It's quite the story for a three brothers pinpointed in a state steeped in jazz and blues history, but everything needs change right? And Radkey are the ideal candidates for that.

They recorded their debut album Dark Black Makeup with Ross Orton, the same guy who produced Arctic Monkeys, so as you can imagine they're a pretty big deal.

It's a meandering 13 tracks of hook heavy skate punk that changes its spots and stripes like an acid induced chameleon. With such a solid debut at their disposal, we spoke to the band's bassist Isaiah Radke while they currently navigate the UK. 

Have you as brothers always had a natural inclination towards punk and have your music tastes always been in tune with one another?

I'd definitely say that we naturally lean towards harder faster stuff. Like, when we started the band we decided that we weren't going to just pick a sound.

We'd start jamming and just go with whatever happened. We've always been really into pretty much the same music. We'd listen to some different bands and stuff, but it was all pretty much the same vibe. We're in to all kinds of stuff.

You've already toured around the US and Europe, how was that experience? 

It's been the best. It's really crazy to think about how we started off in our shitty little green jam room upstairs in our house, and then next thing you know we're doing festivals, going to Europe and seeing so many things that we've never seen before.

It's been so cool. Especially as home-schooled kids from Missouri.

The video for 'Glore' is by far the most epic video we've seen in a while, could you expand upon what prompted a concept that brings Monster Munch to life and captures the beheading of Jar Jar Binks?  

So stoked about that video! We had a talk with our buddy Nicos Livesey from the amazing band Throne who made it, and he basically asked for a massive list of things that we love and hate.

Everything from food, drinks, characters, cartoons and movies. It's always been a dream of ours to see Jar Jar get it that bad. It really is a dream come true. 

When listening to your debut album Dark Black Makeup, just when you think you can pin your finger on where it belongs, a sonic shift causes you to reconsider. Was it always your intention to create a record that has this effect? 

It was. That was our main thing when we started the band. We didn't want to get bored by sticking with one sound. It was really important that we didn't repeat ourselves with this, and we really wanted to show our full range of song writing.

We love so many different kinds of music and we're really glad that we got to do everything that we wanted to do with this. It makes playing live shows so much more fun.

You recorded Dark Black Makeup with Ross Orton, what was the biggest thing you took from that experience? 

We learned so much from recording with Ross. When we did our first session with him in San Francisco we did 'Love Spills', 'Le Song' and 'Evil Doer'. Working on those tracks really really pushed our song writing skills to another level.

We didn't know that we could sound like how we did on those songs. So it really opened our minds to different kinds of vibes that we could create. 

'Dark Black Makeup' is a lot more broader and ambitious than any of your EPs, which is the most experimental track on the album you couldn't imagine ever producing during the early days? 

'Hunger Pain' easily. That's definitely the most experimental song on the record. We'd never had a real slow song before, and we never wanted one because they'll usually kill a live set if most people don't know the song.

People start talking through it and shit and it's really annoying. What we love about 'Hunger Pain' is that it's only slow and groovy like twice, and in between those verses, there's a really loud conversation ending chorus, so it really works out for us. We love playing that song. 

Your love for Gummy Bears clearly runs deep. Did you ever see the story about sugar free gummy bears not being safe for humans, and have you ever eaten the demonic confectionery in question?

We did hear about those! I actually wanted to try it just to see what it was all about, but we never did. That would've definitely be an interesting part of a tour. Deadly Sugar Free Gummy Bears. DSFGB.

Thanks Isaiah!

Find the remainder of Radkey's Uk tour dates

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