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Listen to the new single from
Radford
"Stay With Me"
Listen
For More on Radford
visit
www.radfordband.com
Download Radford's brand new
EP online now!
"Black Out the Sun"
Listen To Clips from
this Interview:
Hear Jonny Talk about the inspiration behind the song
"Anything"
Hear Jonny Talk about his favorite song that he's written.
Hear Jonny Talk about the song "Fall At Your Feet".
Hear Jonny Talk about his move from England to the US.
Hear Jonny Talk about why he picked the history behind the band
name "Radford".
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On, February 16th, 2006 I had a chance to sit down with Jonathan Mead,
the lead singer and creative force behind the band Radford. After
years of enjoying Radford's music it was quite surreal to spend some
time inside the head of someone who's written so many brilliant songs.
In our brief conversation, Jonny talked
about his brand new EP, his song writing process, the meanings behind
some of his most memorable songs, his musical inspirations, and his
future plans.
Note: For select interview questions,
click on the audio icon
to hear a portion of the interview.
Alternative
Addiction: Hi Jonny, it’s good to finally be able to talk to you!
Radford: Yes, you too, its been a long time coming.
AA: So How’s everything going in the studio?
Radford: It’s going good, everything’s taken a lot longer than we had
anticipated, but I’m really pleased with the results. In the end it’s
worth taking the time…it’s funny for me because I’m so used to doing
demos as sort of a pre-production thing or doing a full record, so this
is the first time I’ve found myself trying to do something that’s good
enough to put out there on a smaller budget with slightly less
resources, but it’s coming out good.
AA: So is it kind of a different approach since
you are doing it this time with an independent mindset?
Radford: Yeah, it is and its different for me because the guys that I
found to take on the road with me in 2004, having done the last record
really on my own, I really wanted to get them involved for them to feel
like they are a strong part of it, and that has been a really strong
part of it and one that I have really enjoyed. Doing the last record was
kinda fun that way, but a really lonely process. So it’s kinda fun
having people coming in and out of the studio, and contributing.
AA: I really
like the song you sent us, “Stay With Me”.
Radford: Oh, cool.
AA: Can you tell me a little about that song,
is it a song that you wrote recently, or a song that you have been
kicking around for a while?
Radford: Yeah, you know I have this process that I go through and it
seems like I go through it every record. I start off writing stuff and
then, whatever the saying is…I’m my own worst critic, so I really start
thinking, “Oh no, this one’s not good enough.” It’s a really tough
process, I’ll write five songs and maybe out of those I’ll keep just
one. It’s funny on the last record, the song ‘Easier’ was out of a batch
of like ten songs, and it was the only one that I kept. So I keep going
along like that until I have enough for any kind of record.
For that (song), it was one like really recently like October of last
year. It’s funny the first record, we had a whole records worth material
and in the end, right before we went into record it, I said to everyone
that I was not 100% happy with it, and that I was (only) happy with
maybe 2 or 3 of the songs. Then, over Christmas of that year, I went off
and in the span of maybe a week and a half, wrote the rest of the
record. And that is kinda what I’ll tend to do. I’ll write songs here
and there, and then I’ll look at the other songs I am writing and say
“it’s not bad”.
I always wanted to have a record that is strong from start to finish.
Which I think just comes from listening to all the records that I
enjoyed growing up, and key records to me were like that, so I never
wanted to be like “Well, I have 2 or 3 songs covered so I’ll just fill
up the rest of the record with whatever else.” I’ve always wanted to
make each track able to stand on its own, and as a result it often takes
a while to get there, but in the end I think its worth it to have that
to look back on and not be able to say “Eh, well I just threw that song
on because I needed one extra song.”
AA: So you’ve released records now for
Universal and RCA, at this point are you looking to push this to get
signed again or are you just looking to do the Indie thing for a while?
Radford: I don’t know, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it what I
want out of this EP, and going through both of my (past) records,
they’ve been sort of political experiences, they’ve really lived and
died by the politics of that label, and that is a really hard thing to
sit back and watch. Honestly, I sit in the studio and I’m just like
“God, do I really have that in me again, to go through that again.” To
feel that I have put all this into a record and just because somebody is
arguing with somebody else at the label, the record doesn’t get a shot,
or because somebody is really friendly with somebody something else is
getting a shot. It’s just a really political scenario. To me, its like
that is where the fun of creating music has always ceased, as soon as it
goes to that level, and that arena of the label, and the politics of the
label, that is where the fun of it stops.
Obviously, I want to be able to get my music out to as many people as
possible, and have as many avenues open as possible but its such a tough
process to go through the major label thing, I just don’t know if I’ve
got it in me again. So I just kinda wonder, do I just take it for what
its worth and do the record, and just let it be what its gonna be. Or do
I go into with the gusto and think “well hopefully something will
change.” You definitely have to be at the right situation and its kind
tough now because everyone is merging, so you really only have like 3 or
4 labels in essence. I think there is definitely still a couple of
labels that really still do things the right way, and give every band a
shot. I’ve always gone into it with that being all I ever really asked
of the label, just to give my records a true shot, and if they don’t
take off, they don’t take off, and that is fine. But what’s been hard
about the last two situations is that’s not really the case. They’ve
kind gotten snuffed out before they even got a chance to survive.
AA: So tell me about the song “Anything” from
your last record, what was the inspiration behind it?
Radford: “It’s funny that was the only song on the last record…I think
the only song either record up until this EP…that I’ve co-written with
somebody. I wrote it with a friend of mine and it was funny, it purely
came about in the most unlabored way. I didn’t really drink a lot of
that time, but that night in particular me and this friend of mind had
really had a lot to drink, and somewhere around 2 in the morning we
started writing this song. And we did it in a really interesting we, we
would each go off and write a couple of lines, and sit there and see
which one worked best.
At the time I was going through a really horrendous break up from a
relationship, it just really wasn’t a good way for a relationship to
end. I had all that kinda flying around and it was being in the mindset
of being in the relationship and willing to do anything to work it out,
and in the result of it not being able to be worked out, just doing
anything to be able to make it end on the right note, and end with as
little hard feelings as possible. That’s really the way it went down,
but that was definitely my mindset. I’d do anything to be able to fix
everything, at least if we are going to go our separate ways that we can
do it with respect and some sort of friendship for each other.
It really came easily too, lyric-wise. Lyrics are strange for me, it’s
like sometimes they’ll come really easily, sometimes they’ll be more
labored, and that one literally wrote its self really quickly.
AA: Well you can tell just from the lyrics
there is a lot of emotion, so its clear you were going through
something, because you were really pouring yourself out.
Radford: Yeah, there have been a couple of songs like that, like Fly off
the first record, literally in like 10 minutes it was totally done.
AA: So what is your favorite song that you have
written, from your past records or from this album?
Radford: That’s a tough one, I’d have to say probably ‘Fly’, for a
couple of reasons. One of which is it was just a really interesting time
in my life, the band at the time was literally teetering, and it was
before we got signed, and we were just starting to showcase for labels,
and the band was teetering on self-destruction. Everyone was talking
about going off and doing other things. And that’s really what that song
is about, there was one guy in the band who was thinking about leaving
the band, and I was just saying to him I didn’t think he was making the
right move, but it was just a really emotional time, a lot of highs and
lows. We were showcasing for labels and we’d have some that were amazing
and the people from the label would be really into it and really
excited.
I remember we did two showcases in one day and it was the first time we
had ever played Fly and the first one was like really great, the guy
from the label was really into it. We played Fly, and at that time we
hadn’t practiced it as a band, and so I just played it by myself
acoustically, and he was really into it. The next showcase we did for
another label, literally right after, back to back…and the guy sat and
read the paper for the entire showcase.
It was a really amazing time, and I was still kinda naive about the
industry, but in a good way. I was really hopeful and really excited
about getting signed and kinda had that feeling, that I think a lot of
people have, “If I can just get signed”…little did I know that was like
the least hard part.
So that was one reason, and another reason was while we were making the
record, the guys that did all the strings on it were the same guys that
did all the stings on (The Verve album), ‘Urban Hymns,’ and because we
were in a time crunch we couldn’t go to England where he was recording
them. But he recorded them at Abby Road, and I remember when he sent
them back, that was like the first song we heard with proper strings,
and he had written this really amazing string part. I remember we just
turned up really loud in the studio, and our A&R guy from RCA was there
and it was just really emotional.
And also because its one song I’ve done that’s been covered by somebody
else. John Waite covered it, and when he covered it, it was really
interesting to hear somebody else.
AA: Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that, was
that something that you gave to him to cover?
Radford: Our A&R guy, Bruce Flohr who used to be at RCA, he had a
relationship with John Waite and John came into the office one day to
listen to a bunch of stuff and Bruce played him a bunch of stuff, and
then he played ‘Fly’, and I remember John telling me he literally lost
it in Bruce’s office, and that it really spoke to him.
He was so nice about it, he called me…because he didn’t have to call me
to ask me if he could cover it, but he called asked if it would be okay,
and he was just such a nice guy about it. It’s funny because I always
here his version when I go to the pharmacy, like I think I have heard it
8 or 9 times there.
AA: Yeah, I think I heard it inside a
McDonald’s
Radford: Yeah! Probably, that wouldn’t surprise me.
AA: I really liked
the song you did on the “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” soundtrack, the song
“Fall At Your Feet”. Was that a song you wrote before the debut record
was written?
Radford: It was about a year before we signed, and we started working
with a friend of mine who had just started working as an A&R guy for
Glenn Ballard. So we started working with Glenn, and so we went in and
did some songs with Glenn, who had just started a label on Capitol, and
he wanted to make a record with us and put it out and it didn’t really
pan out that way, but that was one of the songs that we started demoing,
and at the time there was a couple sound tracks coming out, people had
heard the songs that we had done kinda of being passed around capitol,
and someone grabbed it.
It was funny because there is actually two different versions of it, the
version that is in the movie, is actually the demo, and the version on
the soundtrack is our actual proper recorded version. It was funny we
finished the album recorded version and they said “Well, its kinda too
late (to put it in the movie) because we’ve locked the picture, but we
can put it in the soundtrack because that hasn’t been done yet.” So, the
few times that I have been watching HBO and 3 in the morning and
“Teaching Mrs. Tingle” comes on, I sort of cringe because the demo
version is sort of terrible.
The proper version that is on the soundtrack I love, and its one of the
few songs, and maybe its because its not on the record, we recorded it
to put it on the record, but we had ‘Fly’ and ‘How Does It Feel?’
finishing out the record, and I was kinda like ‘Eh, another sort of
piano-ey ballad’ that might be overkill on the record, so we didn’t put
it on there. But its one of the few songs, when I listen to it, it gets
to about the middle of the record and there’s a part after the bridge
that still gives me goose bumps, I don’t why, I presume maybe because I
haven’t listened to it that much, or we haven’t played it, but when I
listen to that bridge it always gives me goose bumps.
AA: Do you write songs about personal
experiences, while you are going through them, or just kinda looking
back on them retrospectively?
Radford: At any given time I can have about 15 songs written, and I’ll
have lyrics for about one of them. I’m so lazy about my lyric writing; I
always leave it until the end. Unless I’m kind of going through the
experience at the time, kinda like Fly, same with Anything, Fake A
Smile, Therapy, those all came pretty quickly. But then there are a
whole bunch of songs that are written after the fact, the new song “Stay
With Me” that was written about a girl I was dating who had attempted to
take her life. It was a really intense thing, and I had never written
about her in a song for some reason, and that was a good 8 or 9 years
ago. For some reason I started thinking about her one night and I
started writing the lyrics.
So it’s a bit of both, sometimes I’ll be going through something and
I’ll really need to get it out of me, and some songs are about personal
experiences. My dad passed away when I was 14 so I have some stuff
written about that, and sometimes its just after the fact. It all
depends when I write the song if I am going through something suits the
particular mood of the song.
I’ve never really been a big fan of writing in an abstract fashion, like
socially conscious lyrics, to me songs that I’ve always loved and have
spoken the most to me, where the ones where you can tell the person has
lived and breathed that experience, and that to me is a really important
aspect of song writing.
AA: Have you ever written songs specifically
for other people to use?
Radford: Yeah, about a year ago I started writing songs with this girl,
Kay Hanley, and we started writing stuff together and it was when I was
in the middle of promoting ‘Sleepwalker’ and I had some song ideas and
so we started writing together and one of the song ideas has been cut by
a Spanish artist, which is really bizarre.
I also wrote a song with this girl, Scarlett Palmers, she’s an actress
on the show ‘Reba, Universal hooked me up with her, they were interested
in signing her, even though it didn’t happen.
I’ve just been saying lately I wanna get this EP finished and then just
kinda see where the chips fall. Maybe then its time to focus more on
writing for other people and sort of hang up the Radford coat, and focus
on the song writing process because that is the part that I really
enjoy. I’d like to be able to just do a song, and send it off, and then
whatever happens to it, happens to it, instead of being so emotionally
invested in it.
AA: Well I certainly hope you don’t stop making
music, because I enjoy your music, and I know there are a ton of people
on this website that do as well. So I read in your bio that you
came over to LA from Britain in ’93, was that a family move, or did you
move by yourself, and was that for musical reasons?
Radford: Yeah, all through college I’d been playing in a band pretty
much all with the same guys, I had started playing in a band in high
school and we were all in college in London together and so we were all
playing together and started doing these demos for Island Records in
England. It was all going well for a while, and then we all started
arguing and it was all just a really horrible end.
I just remember saying at the time that I’d look at my friends, and I’d
look at me and my life in England and I could see myself slowly slipping
into this comfortable rut of working during the week, and going to the
pub on Friday, and going to the pub on Saturday and going to Football on
Saturday and that sort of stuff.
I was just like wanting a change and to get out of that, so that was
when I started thinking about moving somewhere else I was trying to
decide should I move to New York or move to LA and I had been to LA
about two years before with my sister and a friend of mine and we had
traveled around California a bit, and I kind of felt comfortable with
that.
It was literally to just kind of shake things up and at the time, the
music in England I wasn’t really clicking with what was going on
musically in England at the time, I had always been more of a fan of
what was going on here in the 90’s and in England, I never really got
the ‘Brit pop’, and it really wasn’t my cup of tea, so I just started
thinking maybe I should just move out here.
It was a tough thing because I came here and I really didn’t know
anybody, and it took me a while to kind of find my bearings, but it was
a move for music and just a move to do something new.
AA: What made you decide to use your middle
name, Radford, for the name of the band?
Radford: Well it started sort of before I put the band together when I
was trying to figure out how I could go around and hook up with people
and form a band. I had became friends with this guy who had recently
left a band that was on Warner Bros. and he started helping figure
out…this is what you need to do, and to sort of look for people, and he
was a great source of help. And he knew somebody who had a studio and so
I went in and did a four song demo to shop around, and at the time it
was just me and I didn’t want to put Jonny Mead on the demo, I wanted
to…not necessarily give it a band name, but just give it something that
if I was going to be a solo artist, I didn’t want it to be ‘The Jonny
Mead Experience’. So one day we were talking about it and this guy Chad
that I had been working with was kinda like, “What about using Radford”?
And its funny because throughout my schooling I got incredibly teased
for my middle name…
AA: Really?
Radford: Yeah, it’s funny, everyone thought it was particularly bizarre
and so everyone would sort of make fun of it. So at first I was like
“Eh!” I’ve always been a little bit ashamed of it from the teasing and
whatever, and then it slowly started to grow on me. And then when we put
the band together, I kinda hooked up with everybody else, we started to
think…well I had a bit of momentum starting, that was when I just met
with Glenn Ballard and I was kind like “Well…maybe we should keep that
going incase people have already heard of it,” and it just really ended
up sort of sticking.
Then after the first record, I really wanted to call it something
different because I was playing with the other guys from the first
record, so I thought I should call it something else. But the people at
Universal were keen on keeping it as Radford so again its like “Eh”
…pretty lackadaisical about it.
Part of it is, I think if you ask any musician, the hardest thing on the
planet is to come up with a band name. It’s so difficult to come up with
something that’s good, and that hasn’t been taken, its just absolutely
impossible. So ‘Radford’ has always been convenient since it’s been a
part of my name.
AA: So are you going to release this EP under
the name ‘Radford’ or are you going to try something else?
Radford: I don’t know, I’ve been talking about it with the other guys,
and Cain, he’s the drummer, he’s the only guy that is still in it that
was on the first record, and for the guys in the band its sort of a
weird change, and we’ve tossed around some ideas but as of right now
we’re leaning towards putting it out as Radford. Mainly just so that its
easy for fans of the last two records to track down and find it. We have
about a week to decide before we have to print up the cover of the EP,
so if we can’t come up with anything in a week it will be coming out as
Radford.
AA: So you said you were a fan of the early
90’s rock scene, would you consider some of those bands inspiration, or
you were just sort of a fan?
Radford: Yeah, I think so, you know my music taste when I was young was
really bad…but we won’t delve into that at all, because I was a fan of
some really terrible bands. When I really discovered music in England
there was the whole “Shoe Gazing” thing going on, and I loved bands like
My Bloody Valentine. And then in the 90s I started listening to bands
over here, bands like, well I think every rock musician was influenced
at some point by Nirvana.
I’ve always kind of held onto the textures of music from bands like My
Bloody Valentine, but also the rock of those 90s bands that I’ve held on
to as well. The rock bands from America at that point were really
influential in “toughening up” my sound to where it got to.
AA: Are you planning on playing any shows after
the EP comes out?
Radford: Yeah, I think we want to. Everyone’s in sort of a weird
position, being that we are all self sufficient, its kind of difficult
because everyone is off playing with other people. Two of the guys have
just joined Jewel’s band, so they’re going out on the road. But
apparently they have sort of a loose schedule so, there are lots of
pockets where we’ll go out and play. I think we’ll definitely do a bunch
of shows in LA, just because its super easy for us.
That’s definitely been one of my disappointments on my last two records
was not being able to go out and play as many places as we wanted to. It
was unfortunate because we found our self in a position on both labels
where they were really radio driven labels and so wherever there was
some enthusiasm in radio we’d shoot off and play there. That kinda left
a lot of holes in the states where we would have liked to have played
but never got to.
I’d love to get to a point where I could get something sorted out with
an Indie label instead of a major, because that’s more of the strategy
of an Indie label then a major label, because we had such a blast
whenever we did go out on tour, and its so much fun, and to me that’s
still the best way to win people over, and that’s really what its all
about.
AA: Well thank you so much for your time; it’s
been really great talking with you.
Radford: No problem. Thanks so much Chad for all the support of Radford
over the years, you guys have stuck by me and I really appreciate it.
AA: No problem, good luck on the rest of your
time in the studio, and I’m sure we’ll be in touch soon!
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