Radium88 Interview
Where are you from?
Nottingham, UK
How did you get together? What’s the story behind Radium88? Where did you get that name?
We got together in the usual way, irresistible forces of gravitation followed by a series of unspeakable shed experiments. You can read the whole terrifying story on our website. As to the name, the story goes that in the town of Radium, Pennsylvania a group of 88 men women and children who belonged to some weird but harmless speculative philosophy club concluded after much thought that every other person in their town had been replaced with exact replicas. Shortly after publicizing their view they all vanished, never to be seen again. We named ourselves in the hope that they would not be forgotten.
What are your main musical influences?
Far too many to list - The Clash, Bob Dylan, New Order, Primal Scream, Public Enemy and Portishead were all formative influences, but don't give many clues as to how we sound, more an attitude of open mindedness to the music and a real sense of conviction about it. Should also mention classical music, there seems to be a bit of a Schubert/Chopin thing creeping in at the moment. A bit worrying, about that.
How would you describe your music?
Unable to decide which kind of music is best we settled on doing them all at once. I guess we've gradually developed into a sort of thoughtful eclectic melodic electronica with some live instrumentation and vocals. Would appeal to people who think Moby's OK but a bit boring.
Are you signed to any record label?
No, we're putting stuff out ourselves, simply out of impatience with waiting for anyone else to put money where mouth is. Besides, technology has now arrived at a place where you can run a decent enough studio on a manageable budget and I must say that I'd be wary of ever go back to putting our music in the hands of engineers and producers who don't quite get what we're trying to do. Plus the internet means we can go through a lot of the same digital distribution as "proper" labels so really the only important difference being independent is the size of promotion budget.
What album do you have out now? And why should anyone buy it?
Round about the time of our 3rd album Metamorphosis we realized we had an album of more melancholic chilled out tracks plus some poppier/angrier tracks that we liked a lot but would've made that album kind of messy and incoherent. So we put them together with some remixes, plus a few new ones with a similarly eclectic vibe and called it Wow! Infotainment! It's a mixture of sarcastic anti-war arabic/gospel hip-hop, old timey country acid house, dub trance, ambient mandolin music, spaghetti western soundtrack and techno punk rock.
What bands or artists are you fans of?
Surprisingly little electronic music actually, though we love Bjork, Massive Attack, Orbital, Banco de Gaia (who we're proud to have as a fan). Mainly we're inspired by anything with big tunes, some character and imagination. Sigur Ros, Arcade Fire, Delgados, Grandaddy, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Gogol Bordello, Flaming Lips, lots of world and roots music.
Are you making this your career or is this your career?
I hope this is my career. Currently, though, I'm playing cheesy cocktail jazz piano to finance the next album.
What are your goals for the future, where do you want to be in 5 years?
Still making music we believe in, hopefully for a few more people than what we currently have.
Find Radium88 @:
http://www.radium88.net
http://www.myspace.com/theradium88
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And you can request their songs at anytime on our station! We'd like to thank them for taking the time to get an interview with them.
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