Radkey comes of age as international attention grows

“Weird as fuck.” That’s how Isaiah Radke, the 18-year-old bassist of St. Joseph punk-rock band Radkey, cheerfully describes his band of brothers. And it’s easy to see where he’s coming from.

Along with his brothers Dee, the band’s 20-year-old lead singer and guitarist, and Solomon, the 16-year-old drummer, Radkey has achieved quite a bit of success in a short amount of time — they started playing together in 2010.

Radkey’s home-schooled, self-taught musicians have recently returned from an extensive tour through the United Kingdom, and last week they supported Black Joe Lewis on select North American dates. Accolades keep pouring in for the band, which has released only two EPs so far. Listen to the them and the hype is justified: Radkey delivers fierce, fists-up, gritty American rock and roll similar to the Misfits and the Ramones.

Ahead of Radkey’s show at RecordBar Friday, The Pitch chatted with Isaiah Radke.

The Pitch: Tell me what the new album is sounding like.

Isaiah Radke: We haven’t really gotten time to fully write it. We got home, and we have issues, so we can’t have amps plugged in. So we haven’t really gotten a chance to do anything. It’s all in our heads right now and on paper. When we get that taken care of, we’ll be able to get these songs out of our heads.

How was touring in Europe for the first time?

Europe was amazing. It was really cool. Some of the clubs we played in England and stuff. We got to see a bunch of people. … It was everything you would dream of as a band. A lot of things came true for us on that trip.

You guys are all pretty young. Do you ever think about the progress you’ve made in the last few years?

Yeah. I mean, it’s pretty crazy. You start off jamming in your stupid little hot green room with your stupid songs, and then people start liking those, and it actually takes you to another country and stuff. It’s pretty weird, but we try to enjoy it as much as we possibly can. Which is easy.

Your music is influenced by some definitive American rock bands. How did you find your sound?

Well, first we decided that we weren’t going to talk about a sound. We weren’t going to try to sound any particular way. We weren’t gonna be like, “OK, Nirvana type of song. White Stripes. Ramones.” We didn’t decide what kind of band we were gonna be. We just decided to jam and said whatever happens, happens.

You were home-schooled, and I’m guessing that you were treated as adults a lot earlier than most kids. Do you think that has influenced you or the kind of music that you make?

Yeah, definitely. All three of us are weird as fuck. We’re only considered cool because we’re in a band. We’re not that cool. But we like it. Normal is boring. You will be weird if you get home-schooled, but it can work out. Not always. For us, it worked.

Do you ever feel like you missed out on something?

We missed out on a lot of stuff but not necessary things. Like girlfriends. Didn’t have any. We missed out on some things, but it’s things I could go without. A bunch of the drama stuff — we didn’t need that.

How does the writing process come together?

It’s weird. It’s a lot of different things. Every way. Some songs will start from scratch, and we’ll go from there. Or sometimes it’s an idea — like, “I want this song to be built around the haze.” That’s how we did “N.I.G.G.A.” We were like, “This song needs some haze,” and then we just did a song around haze. It’s pretty weird. There’s no one person who’s like, “Here’s the song.”

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“N.I.G.G.A.” is a powerful song with a strong message. Where did it come from?

We had played this show with this kid who was a black kid who went to a mostly white school. And he ended up being a friend on Facebook at some point, and a few of his white friends were calling him “nigga” and stuff. I saw it and I was like, “None of my friends would ever do that to me. How is that OK? How is this cool?” He was just cool with it and let them call him that and stuff, and it was like, “OK, well, obviously you have no respect for yourself, and your friends have no respect for you, and you obviously just want to be cool, like, “Oh, I’m the black guy — you can call me the N-word” and shit.

You can’t turn such a gross word into something positive. We don’t think so, anyway. So we wrote a song about it. While we do know that this song, it won’t stop anything, but it could possibly start more conversations. Like, there’s at least a group out there that doesn’t think this is OK. Because it seems like it’s just a thing that goes on. So we want to get people thinking before they talk.

Matt [Radke, the boys’ father and manager], have these guys always been in charge of their music and their lives?

Matt Radke:: Yeah. Basically, when they wanted to start the band, I said, “If you guys are 100 percent into this, I will give you 100 percent of what I have – if you show that you’re really into it and you really want to pursue this. And I never had to tell them to practice. I never had to tell them to do anything – they did it all on their own. They taught themselves how to play. They basically do all of it. I told them, basically: “I’ll take care of all the headaches: the booking shows and making phone calls all day. You guys just write and play music. I’ll take care of the crap. You guys do the fun stuff.” It’s worked out pretty well.

[To Isaiah] Do you guys like having him around?

Isaiah: Yeah. [Laughs.]

Just checking! Most teenagers hate their parents.

Yeah, yeah, they do! That’s another weird thing. We like having him around. I wish I remembered how they [my parents] raised me, so I can get my kids to love me, when I get them, and want me around. Yeah, we enjoy having our parents around. It’d be weird without them. I’d be lost on tour. It would be terrible.

You have been opening for some pretty prominent artists, and you’re getting a lot of national and international press. Are you ever recognized in real life? Is it strange?

Matt: Someone posted on Facebook that they saw them [Radkey] in Scotland walking, but they didn’t want to approach them because they might be busy. I mean, they were just walking down the street.

Isaiah: We were like, “Dude, we would have *loved to talk to you.” It’s kind of weird when someone treats you differently. It’s cool, but it’s weird. The band we toured with would play their set, and then they would go straight to the green room. And we would just go straight to the merch table and talk to everybody.

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Matt: I think people appreciate that they actually want to meet people and enjoy them.

Isaiah: Talking to people afterwards, taking pictures – it’s awesome. I don’t know why bands hate that, and they always disappear. God forbid someone loves your band, wants to talk to you. God forbid your music makes someone happy. Don’t talk to them.

Where do you hope Radkey takes you?

Everyone wants you to hear their band as much as possible. We want as many fans as we can possibly get, and we want to live off music and touring. We want to change the world. That’s the goal. That’s the dream. We want to do something important. And I feel like that should be the goal of most bands, to live off of something you love to do.