New Orleans’ The Radiators played their last official shows in June of 2011 after a run of 33-1/3 years with the same lineup – a fact that, if it isn’t a rock ‘n’ roll record, must be damn close. The Rads – drummer Frank Bua, Jr.; bassist Reggie Scanlan; guitarist Camile Baudoin; guitarist/vocalist Dave Malone; and keyboardist/vocalist Ed Volker – built up a loyal following of Fishheads over their 3-decade-plus run, known for ladling out a sonic gumbo that combined their own originals with covers of everyone’s work from unsung blues heroes to Bob Dylan.
The announcement that The Radiators would play a pair of reunion shows in January of 2013 launched much speculation about was down the road for the band. Our conversations with Dave Malone and Reggie Scanlan on the eve of the reunion shows provided some insight into both The Radiators’ past and their future.
Breakup
It was no secret to anyone that it was Ed Volker’s decision to retire in November of 2010 that spelled the end of The Radiators. As it is with the end of any long-time relationship, the news was received with sadness by those on the outside – but the parties involved knew some sort of change was bound to happen. Both Dave Malone and Reggie Scanlan were open in their descriptions of where The Radiators found themselves as a band at that point – apart from Volker’s announcement.
Dave Malone: It was Ed that wanted to leave the band – and where he’s the principal songwriter, plays all the keyboards and sings more than half the songs … well … it’s kind of up to him, you know? (laughs)
I don’t fault Ed one bit for pulling the plug. He’d just had it with the road – and at that point in his life needed to able to just be at home more.
Reggie Scanlan: It was kind of a surprise, but at the same time, I was geared up for it – nothing lasts forever.
I mean, I knew it was going to end; I just didn’t know what the circumstances would be. So when Ed made the announcement, it was still somewhat of a surprise. But we’d gotten to a point … well … the band really didn’t rehearse that much. You could kind of get the feeling like people were kinda getting tired of it. We didn’t rehearse; we weren’t really doing anything to build a new audience – we were just kind of gliding along, you know? To me, that’s not really pursuing music.
Dave Malone: I did not envision the end of The Radiators. But … honestly? The last couple years of the band we were all so sick of airports and the traveling. You know, the 2-1/2 hours on stage – those were great, but all the other bullshit had finally gotten to us. The truth is, we were kinda on cruise control, anyway … we weren’t putting the creative effort into learning new songs – we were just playing gigs.
Reggie Scanlan: Personally, I felt kind of frustrated. To me, a band is kind of analogous to having a conversation: unless you work at that and go out – do other things and play with other people – and bring new ideas to the table, you’re going to run out of things to talk about. And that’s when bands break up: the conversation ends; there’s nothing more to talk about musically or they’re not rehearsing or there’s not a lot of new material coming in. When that happens you need to be doing something else.
And that’s kind of what was happening; I was actually happy that it was ending the way it was. I didn’t want it to end like some kind if a joke, just limping along. We ended it when we wanted to – and we still sounded like a band.
Ed’s Laboratory
The “cruise control” feeling described by Malone and Scanlan was no doubt made harder by having experienced the band’s years of great creativity. Both of them have fond memories of what is was like to dwell in a place where musical experimentation was encouraged – and have nothing but praise for the genius of Ed Volker.
Dave Malone: I don’t think people realize what an amazing and prolific songwriter Ed Volker is. He’s taken this opportunity to actually catalog all the songs from the late 70s to the present that he’s written – and it’s thousands … it really is.
Reggie Scanlan: The Radiators gave me the perfect laboratory to work in for 33 years and develop my bass playing. Everybody was free to do what they wanted as long as it didn’t step on anybody else’s toes musically. Any ideas I had, I could try them. Ed would bring a song in and tell me, “You’re the bass player – come up with a bass line.” It was a great opportunity.
Dave Malone: I’m the only person that’s heard a lot of the songs Ed’s written. I’ve always told him not to exclude anything as he wouldn’t know what I might hear in a song – and then rewrite or change it up to make it into a Radiators song. That was my modus operandi from Day One: the songs that we co-wrote we didn’t really co-write sitting in a room face-to-face. Ed would e-mail me a piece of a song or a sketch of a song or sometimes an almost-through song and I would see something in it that would work for the band and change it around enough so it became a Radiators song. And then he and I would work it out; flesh it out; and then we would bring it to the other guys – so they never heard all these other songs, either.
Ed’s a songwriter like no other – he’s got thousands and thousands of really great songs that we never did because either we didn’t feel like they were right for the band or we were just too busy at the time. By the time we got back to them, Ed had written a whole new batch of songs.
I’ve come to realize post-Rads how spoiled I was with having that many songs to choose from, you know? I’m a songwriter too, but not to the degree of Ed – I’m not driven to write like he is. I’m a guy who writes songs every now and then – and enjoy and love it when I do. Ed’s pretty astonishing in the songwriting capacity.
Last Dance At Tipitina’s
New Orleans’ famed Tipitina’s was a natural setting for The Radiators’ final shows captured on The Last Watusi. In fact, according to Scanlan and Malone, Tipitina’s was the only possible setting for the Rads’ big good-bye. We talked about the planning that went into choosing the songs for the 3-night run and the energy that the band felt from the stage.
Dave Malone: Tipitina’s was a natural for those final shows – it’s been our personal center of the universe since the beginning.
Reggie Scanlan: There was really no other place we could have played those final shows – it had to be Tipitina’s.
Dave Malone: At that point in time, we’d quit playing a bunch of songs – some of them just came and went – but we probably had an active song list of at least 500 songs. That’s why we could go to an area for a multi-night run: promoters loved us, because our fans knew they could come out for three nights in a row, two sets per night, and there would never be any repeat songs if we chose to do it that way. I never made a conscious effort to say, “Oh, we played this one last night so we can’t play it tonight” – that’s just absurd.
There are so many songs that aren’t on The Last Watusi that you may see some day – maybe on a DVD. Unfortunately, neither Ed nor I were in very good voice the week of The Last Watusi, so we listen to it and hear our voices sounding a little off, you know? But that’s just the nature of the beast; we decided before we ever did it that we were not going to do any fixing or re-recording of stuff … it was going to be warts and all, as is – so there you go.
We wanted a disc from each night to represent the feeling and the flavor of each of the three shows. There was no way we could fit everything onto three CDs, but we got a lot of the favorites, including some covers.
Reggie Scanlan: I’ll tell you something about covers: when The Radiators did a cover, we’d do it as good as the original. It might not be the same as the original, but it was fun to see what we could do with it.
But all our music was like that – some things would be pretty tightly arranged; some would be pretty loose. For me, I always kept a part of each song that was never the same; I wanted to see how it was going to turn out each night.
Dave Malone: There was so much energy each of those three nights at Tipitina’s being fed back to us from the crowd … it was Niagara Falls energy, dude. You could feel it like a wave … it scared the hell out of me in a delightful way. (laughter) So the tempos sped up on some of the songs; we were feeding off the energy of the crowd and they were chewing nails, man – it was crazy.
Rads Unplugged
Although it is a compilation album of songs the band chose from their 3-night run at Tipitina’s, The Last Watusi flows like one, big, jam-packed show. The first disc of the 3-CD collection is all acoustic tunes, with the band proving that being unplugged does not inhibit the ability to jam. Malone and Scanlan described their feelings about playing in an acoustic setting.
Dave Malone: I love the acoustic stuff, man. Ed’s written so many different kinds of songs and we’ve covered so many different kinds of songs – except rap, thank God – that it was always good to have those few-and-far-between acoustic sets. I’ll be honest with you – they were difficult for the acoustic guitar player – but I just loved those songs.
Reggie Scanlan: Actually, the acoustic disc is my favorite one of the album.
I really like playing upright bass and I don’t really get to do that much anymore. The trick when you’re playing acoustically is everybody has to have a sensibility of playing quietly. Once you start getting loud and have to amplify things, you might as well be playing electric, ‘cause an upright isn’t going to sound like an upright at 100 decibels, you know? So, the challenge is to keep it on a conversational level. Acoustic instruments aren’t meant to be loud; the more you amplify, the more you get away from that.
Upright bass to me is absolutely gorgeous. Guys like Paul Chambers … Charles Mingus … they had such amazing tone and they got it all out of their hands.
Dave Malone: It’s hard to pull off acoustic stuff with a full drum set, for one thing. And the Rads were not necessarily known for their … um … soft dynamics, let’s say. (laughs) We were kind of an off-the-wall rock band and we played every kind of music imaginable. But I loved the acoustic stuff.
In The Moment
As The Last Watusi moves from the unplugged first to the definitely plugged-in second and third (Disc 2 leads off with the well-loved Dave Malone-penned instrumental “Metric Man”) you can feel the emotions building within the four walls of Tipitina’s. Whatever each of the Rads’ personal feelings were about reaching the end of the road, they were definitely flying in formation as a band for those final shows – and the proof is The Last Watusi. Reggie and Dave provided some insight as to what they were thinking up on stage.
Dave Malone: As I said, with the energy from the crowds, there were times when it was almost too frenetic. I prefer melodic stuff, but the excitement of the moment became the gist of the three nights.
There was no calculated anything at that point, man – it was just a matter of keeping my emotions in check. I was on the verge of bursting into tears every five minutes.
Imagine this: I’m at the end of this thing I’ve done with four of my brothers for 33-1/3 years, okay? And I’m playing a song – knowing that we’re not repeating any songs over the course of three nights – and my Virgo brain keeps saying: “I will never play this song again with these guys.”
But it was a very emotional three nights man, I’ll tell you that. I had a hard time keeping my shit together. I had trouble singing; you’ll hear my voice break on a number of the songs. It was hard.
Reggie Scanlan: You know, I really wasn’t thinking too much during the shows themselves – I was just making sure I didn’t fuck up. (laughs)
Dreamers
Out of the 35 songs in total captured on The Last Watusi’s three discs, there are too many high points to even begin to select some to discuss. Dave Malone refers to the recording as “warts and all” – the truth is, it’s an amazing document of some pretty intense emotions fueling some very intense musicianship. “Like Dreamers Do” is the final cut on The Last Watusi – and it’s a perfect ending. Fish Heads who were there and those that have studied the final night’s setlist will tell you that “Dreamers” was not the last song of the evening – the band returned for an encore – but both Malone and Scanlan agreed that it was the ideal song to conclude the historic album with … eight minutes of classic Rads.
“Like Dreamers Do” begins with Ed Volker’s signature piano riff. On The Last Watusi, Volker’s intro is extended; Dave Malone admits that it was hard getting those first words out: “I’ve been waitin’ for ya …” wasn’t easy. But after the first few lines, Camile Baudoin does a crazy little zipper-rip up the neck of his Les Paul, Reggie Scanlan begins a big-bottomed Latin-flavored rumble, and Frank Bua’s drums come rolling and tumbling from somewhere deep in a rainforest jungle. Listening to the version on The Last Watusi, you get the impression that Dave Malone’s bandmates are gathering him up in their music and I asked him about that.
Dave Malone: Oh, yeah – that’s exactly what happens, cause I felt pretty naked up there when it started. It was tough, man …
Reggie Scanlan: “Dreamers” is a good example of the challenges I liked about playing with Ed – and the freedom he gave us to contribute to his songs. When Ed brought “Dreamers” in, I was listening to a lot of Latin music at the time and I thought, “This would be a cool direction to go with this song.” It’s really a bastardized version of a Latin idea I had. (laughs) You can go back on a lot of Ed’s songs and tell what I was listening to at the time – maybe a lot of reggae; blues; whatever – and it was great way to try ideas.
That’s one of the things that made the Rads’ sound, I think: I might take a Latin approach to a song, but Frank might not – so it’s not going to sound Latin … it’s going to sound different. It’s going to sound like The Radiators. And “Dreamers” was the ideal song to end the album with.
Dave Malone: By the time we’re into the solo section at the end, I’m thinking, “Oh, shit … this is the last time.” I can’t even talk about it now, man.
Reggie Scanlan: Dave and Camile would spend a lot of time working these pieces out. They always had a feel for what each other was going to do, which they developed over the years.
Dave Malone: On the album, you hear Camile letting loose at the very end and we’re building up the rhythms behind him. He and I kind of have a telekinesis – sometimes it’s a very slight nod or something and I’m the one looking for it and then I signal the other guys.
Camile said what he had to say on his guitar and then he nodded to me – and then I got everyone else’s attention and called the ending.
“Dreamers” was not the last song we ever played together, but it was decided to be the last song on this disc. I can’t even remember what we played as the actual last song
I was a wreck by then, man.
The Future
As mentioned earlier, we talked to Dave Malone and Reggie Scanlan just prior to the band’s sold-reunion shows on January 18 and 19, celebrating both the club’s 35th anniversary and 35 years since The Radiators first formed. After the shows captured on The Last Watusi, Malone admitted to having to “chill for a while and let the end of the Rads sink in.” Since then he has joined forces with his brother Tommy of the subdudes as the Malone Brothers Band, along with forming Raw Oyster Cult with fellow Rads Baudoin and Bua (along with John “Papa” Gros on keys and Dave Pomerleau on bass).
Reggie Scanlan hit the ground running after The Last Watusi shows: he was on stage with the newly-formed New Orleans Suspects (drummer Willie Green, guitarist/vocalist Jake Eckert, CR Gruver on keys and vocals, and hornman Jeff Watkins) two weeks after the Rads’ 2011 good-bye shows. Scanlan’s full-speed-ahead attitude was meant with a serious challenge in early 2012: diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he underwent a 16-hour surgery followed by a month in the hospital. His fellow Suspects were waiting for him, however: two days out of the hospital, Scanlan was on stage at JazzFest – a true survivor, sitting on a stool and playing his beloved bass. Since then the band has released two albums (one studio/one live) with a third of all-new material on the way.
Both Malone and Scanlan cautioned that there were no Radiators plans beyond the January reunion shows. Scanlan, fully focused on The New Orleans Suspects, likened the “get-back-together” rumors surrounding the Rads shows as the sort of talk you’d hear when a divorced couple gets together for coffee to talk about the kids: “Everybody on the outside thinks they’re going to get remarried and it’s great – nobody knows what’s really going on except the people themselves.”
We conclude with some reflections from both.
Dave Malone: I turned 60 last August and I’m the youngest guy in the Rads! So, you know, we’d been out there kicking ass and taking names and rockin’ and rollin’ for 30-plus years.
We were all complaining about the airports and hotels and this and that, right? Post-Rads I’ve come to realize how really good I had it! (laugh) Having to deal with all that stuff without your own personal organization behind you is a whole new ballgame, man. It’s a lot of work – I really have not touched my gear or strung my guitar in, 20 years – reality sets in.
Reggie Scanlan: I’m a firm believer that everything happens the way it’s supposed to happen and if you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing, then things will happen the way they’re supposed to. Once Ed announced he was getting done, I had to think of the practical things: I had a household to support; I had to make a living … I couldn’t curl up.
And I wasn’t done playing – I had no intention of cutting my schedule or retiring or anything like that. I now had the chance to work twice as hard if I wanted to.
That’s part of life’s cycle: you’ve done everything you can do and it’s time to move on. You start realizing as you get older that you have a limited amount of time to be here and you start thinking, “What is my real agenda? What are my real priorities?” You have to come to grips with that kind of stuff and with the fact that things are going to change; bands break up; things are going to be different at any given time in your life; you just have to kind of be open to it and accept it.
If something ends, it ends – you have to let it go and be happy that it happened, not bummed out that it’s ending.
Dave Malone: So I miss the Rads, but I don’t in any way, shape, or form have any ill will towards anyone who felt like they couldn’t do it anymore – I totally get it, you know?
I don’t like it … but I get it. (laughs)
*****
Brian Robbins’ wife has a little teeny, tiny black diamond in her left ear in honor of “Like Dreamers Do” and all that it meant many years ago. You’ll find a picture of the happy couple over at www.brian-robbins.com.
