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Like the musical equivalent of a Coelacanth, Sacramento’s RAD is a living, breathing, biting example of an era gone by. They carry on the fury, brevity, and humor of the mid-‘80s when punk and thrash were crossing over, but with totally modern sensibilities. A couple of months ago, I finally got to see them play L.A. (along with my friend and ace photographer Ben Clark, whose pictures from a Pyrate Punx house show are included in this blog) and followed up with some questions that follow.
RAD is Lory (vocals), Charles (guitar), Anthony (bass), and Craig (drums). I asked them a lot about their debut 7” but there’s already a cassette tape demo ready to drop as well. They play often–sometimes in basement shows with local bands as well as with old-school thrashers–so check them out when you can. But as the song goes, definitely cover your tits in the pit.
MW: “Rad” is a word that all of you use pretty often. Is it difficult to not use it when talking about your own shows, songs, or sound?
Anthony: Yes, it’s difficult because it’s so true. We are rad. I think we remind the audience of that fact at least twice every time we play. It’s quite an effective marketing tool actually. People say, “Whoa, you guys are rad!” all the time after they see us play, and pretty soon everyone believes it just out of sheer repetition. Because it’s also true, of course. We are RAD.
Charles: We originally wanted a name like “NARC” or “Bad Dudes” but settled on RAD.
Lory: Being a native Californian, I tend to say “rad” a lot. We do get to play a lot of rad shows. I think all of our songs are pretty rad. The sound we are going for… rad. The dudes that I get to play this rad music with… They’re all right, I guess.
Craig: Yeah, unfortunately the word does come up a lot. All of us spent some amount of our childhood in the ’80s so it’s just in the vocabulary.