The Radke brothers don’t pretend to be musicians they aren’t, choosing instead to have fun.
trends Brothers David, Bobby and Dannis Hackney formed the Black funk band Death in Detroit in the 1970s, but it turned into a punk rock project after they saw The Who live.
ROCKHOUND
Radkey: No Rules Punk
A synergy born of shared experience binds the three Radke brothers. They make music with a driving punk force and delicately laid-out instrumental groundwork. Often, Death or Bad Brains come to mind, but the Radke brothers and their band, Radkey, live entirely within their own sphere. It’s true the St. Joseph, Missouri, natives share a certain aura with the bands above, but according to bassist Isaiah Radke, their band Bad Brains, formed as a jazz fusion band in 1976 in is more of a Weezer, Foo Fighters Washington, D.C., has been regarded as a driving force and Ramones mash-up, only there in hardcore punk. are no rules. Experimenting with punk, rock, pop and stripped-down acoustics, Isaiah, Dee and Solomon Radke bounce off one another rhythmically to form a sound all their own. THE EARLY DAYS It’s puzzling for Isaiah to look back at what the band faced in St. Joseph after touring with such stars as Jack White, Foo Fighters and The Offspring. He notes the bizarre reality of being a Black rock band—often questioned for not being into rap instead. “We just grew up listening to music, and it happened to be rock music. Black people have always been playing rock music,” Isaiah says. “We’d have people come up to us and say, ‘I saw you guys get on stage and I really didn’t know what was coming.’ But we loaded up guitar, drums and bass, so what else did they think was going to happen? It’s so confusing and bizarre that it’s considered weird to be a Black rock band.” Growing up homeschooled, the Radke brothers found themselves without much to do—aside from digging through their father’s massive vinyl and CD collections. Artists like Led Zeppelin, the Ramones, The Beatles, Steely Dan, Billy Joel, Elvis Costello,
The Beatles, Stones and Zeppelin were awesome—but rock lives on. Why not break out of the classic rock cocoon and give new rock a chance? Rockhound is here to help. Think of it as a bridge from 1967 to today and beyond. 40
Weezer and Nirvana were among their daily rotations. When they picked up instruments of their own, those influences immediately seeped through. They spew pure, elevated energy and an old school rock mentality—jumping around on stage for an hour straight in sleeveless jean jackets and black wrist sweatbands. What bass player other than Isaiah Radke comes to mind who bobs his head aggressively and does jump splits live? Next to none, even in the most hardcore rock bands. “We always tried to make music that we felt didn’t exist yet,” Isaiah says. “We’re happy we had those influences because then we always enjoyed the music that we made.” As young teens discovering their place in music, the Radke brothers found that writing and recording came to them naturally. With their dad as their manager, touring the country in a van was a family road trip they enjoyed. Grounded in the same influences, collaboration and songwriting has been an oddly smooth process for Radkey. They somehow eliminate the frontman mentality, too—they are all the frontman, contributing equal amounts of heart to their sets. But in the beginning, getting other people to see that, let alone listen to their music, wasn’t easy. When they dipped their feet into the live show pool in the 2010s, they had trouble booking shows in their hometown, forcing them to venture out to nearby Kansas City venues. “It was really discouraging,” Isaiah says. “That’s how people can really kill a band—by not letting them even play shows in the town they’re from. We continued to grind and practice and, eventually, we landed our first gig with Fishbone in Kansas. That’s when we were like, ‘OK, we can do this.’”
MAKING THEIR OWN RULES Radkey hasn’t let the challenges of stereotyping and hometown rejections slow them down. Independent from a record label, they’ve forged a path of their own. The key, Isaiah says, is playing as many shows as possible. With that came connections, landing them big
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERICK LUCK AND PAUL ANDREWS
By Kendall Polidori
Luckbox | June 2022
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