Whatever Happened To New Radicals? The band Behind 'Get What You Give'
0:00 - Introduction/Early Years
5:52 - New Radcials/Get What You Give
10:40 - New Radicals retirement/reunion
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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.
Back in 1998, New Radicals scored a worldwide hit with “You Get What You Give,” While the band may have formed just a year prior to the album’s release and, broken up a year after the they got big, they are a classic example of a one-hit wonder. Yet, they’ve still proven influential, even in recent times. Let’s talk about the history New Radicals.
The main catalyst for the New Radicals was frontman Gregg Alexander, who was born Gregg Aiuto in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, an eastern suburb close o Detroit. Growing up in at one point a conservative Jehovah’s Witness household, Alexander had what he’d consider a “low-grade dysfunctional” family. Alexander would tell Spin his parents changed religions one a monthly basis. Due to his proximity to Motown, the genre played a significant part in his childhood, and he and his mother would drive around the metro Detroit area listening to local artists on AM radio.
Besides the Motown sound, rock and roll also played a part in Alexander’s musical exposure. Using the family piano, he’d attempt to learn songs, namely “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney and Wings, and “Cathy’s Clown” by the Everly Brothers. By his own admission, he’d eventually gravitated toward and I quote “instinctually writing [his] own melodies because [he] couldn’t learn other people’s”, and began composing original songs with his sister Caroline. Once he reached his early teens, he’d take up guitar and drums, and that’s when his pursuit of music turned serious. He’d join his older brother, Steven Aiuto, alongside fellow classmates George Snow and John Mabarak in a high school outfit called The Circus, who’d go on to perform in the 1984 Battle of the Bands.
But as Alexander told the Hollywood Reporter in 2014, the songs of Prince would lead him to an epiphany, and he’d experience it by sneaking into a showing of the movie Purple Rain while underage.
“The game-changer for me was seeing Prince in Purple Rain at 13 or 14.”
“‘Let’s Go Crazy’ knocked me over my head, but then when I heard ‘The Beautiful Ones’ it was all over. At that point I knew I was gonna be running away to California,” he’d say.
Alexander had initially visited his aunt in Los Angeles, where he’d observed, and I quote, “that post-’60s spirit that was still alive in the mid-’80s.” He’d find his surroundings easy to make the most of, visiting the open-mic scene and even sneaking into a Grammy Award ceremony, making note of all the artists present that he looked up to. But by age 16, over the summer, he’d sought to leave Detroit and reside in California permanently, recalling,
“I said to my parents, ‘I’m running away to California to be a rock star.’ My mom knew I was serious, but my dad said, ‘Well, make sure you’re back home in September for school if it hasn’t come together.”
Making his way back to Los Angeles, Alexander was eventually able to live between Compton, Studio City and North Hollywood, in large part due to what he felt was certain generosity among the African Americans there, saying,
“It was the black community that really took me in.” “Thank God for that, or else I would have been sleeping on the streets”.
Alexander also carried a bunch of demo tapes with him that he’d accumulated from studio sessions back home, and would frequently shop them around Sunset Boulevard. This effort would pay off tremendously for him, as he’d eventually play those demos for producer Rick Nowels, who, in turn, led him to record executive Jimmy Iovine. Iovine, for his part, had a production deal with A&M Records, and was willing to offer Alexander a recording deal with the label, but not before he turned 18. In the meantime, Iovine provided Alexander with an allowance, and the aspiring singer-songwriter would spend the next two years focusing exclusively on songwriting, particularly through bus rides and spending time on the beach.
Following through on his word, Iovine signed Alexander to A&M Records. When it came time for Alexander to name his debut album, he’d initially proposed its title be Save Me From Myself, but he’d change it just before the release,