Brent Rademaker

I first heard and saw GospelbeacH 2017 and truly, they revived my love of live music and changed the way I was listening and what I was listening for. They were making sunny, gorgeous, beachy rock songs that glittered like the sun off a wave as you’re driving through Malibu. I dove into their vast network of past and present projects and found so many other musicians because of them, it was a pacific blue waterslide of music.  When I started writing about music earlier this year, I hesitated because I thought “well, it’s just going to be a blog with me writing about how much I love Beachwood Sparks.” But here we are, kicking off the launch with an interview with Brent Rademaker, my hometown hero, Sunset Boulevard Spokesperson, who’s been a huge part of so many bands I love including Beachwood Sparks, Further, the Tyde and so many more.

GospelbeacH has released two records and one collection of unreleased songs, covers, and live tunes since their start in 2016, and their new record Let it Burn will be released on October 4th. The first single will be out next week. Frontman Brent Rademaker opened up about GospelbeacH’s upcoming record, his inspiration, and also delivered some breaking news that should get everyone reallllllly excited about next few years to come in music. Check them out on Bandcamp to listen and buy and view upcoming shows.

Can you briefly tell me how you started making music?

When I was a kid, probably in the 4th grade I got a trumpet from the school band and I got kind of good at playing it. Our dad was a musician so he encouraged us. My brother played the guitar and our other brother played a bunch of instruments- the drums and saxophone, so my dad who had organ and piano stores in the gulf coast of Florida put the little Rademaker Boys band together. So we started playing out in retirement/55+ places, high school football games, strip malls, even occasional bars on a Sunday. We started performing live at a pretty young age.

That turned into punk rock. I switched the trumpet for the bass and started a band with my brother. We started playing out in art galleries, little underground shows. It was Tampa, Florida so there wasn’t much going on. Slowly, we got into the bar and club scene and graduated from that and ended up out in Los Angeles, signed to Geffen Records. So we became professional musicians over a long period of time. It was kind of a good way to start. To this day it feels like it means something, that I’m still doing it.

How did you get to LA?

In Florida, my brother and I were both in bands. He was in a really popular band called The Straightjackets- they were like the number one punk/new-wave band, my favorite band, and a lot of other people’s favorite band. When I got a bass and started getting good, my best friend was a drummer and we started a little garage band called A New Personality. We were just kind of making our way in the post-punk scene and we were current. We released a single in 1981 and it was of the time. We weren’t re-creating some sound, we were doing it in real time. A New Personality kind of ran its course after touring with Duran Duran and stuff. We got kind of big, but it was weird, so we moved to LA and we broke up that band. We started a band called Shadowland, that’s the one that got signed to Geffen. They discovered us when we were doing some Byrds covers at a place called Club Lingerie and they signed us.

But- we made kind of a bad record (laughs.) It’s funny, that was kind of such a bad experience because we did make a bad record, part our fault, part the label’s fault. We just didn’t work with the right people. I remember we were making our album all the way over in Wales, and the A&R guy flew out from LA to check on the progress. He heard the record and he was like, “Woah! What happened to all those Byrds covers?” We weren’t interested in doing that; we wanted to do our own songs, which was probably a mistake. We ended up doing a night of Byrds covers and I think that was one of the tapes that just burned up in that big fire they had at the Universal warehouse. That band kind of fizzled out.

The whole major label thing was so stupid that the three of us from Shadowland decided to start a brand new band called Further. We started our own record label and did our own thing and we sounded like whatever we wanted to sound like at the time, from record to record, and show to show, and didn’t really give a shit what anybody thought. And that’s when people actually really started noticing us. We couldn’t really get much attention when we were on Geffen, with hundreds of thousands of dollars behind us. But as soon as we started doing it on our own, people started to pay attention. And that led to Beachwood Sparks, which is revisiting the Byrds thing- something that I’ve always really loved. That brought us through Bomp! Records and Sub Pop Records and I guess that’s where I kind of made my name- if I even have one. I don’t know if I do. If I do, it’s from that band. And it kind of enabled me to do everything I’m doing now. And I mean that in the best possible way, I’m not trying to live off past glories. It’s just that we set up on that path and I’m still on it.

Let’s talk about your sound’s evolution- from Beachwood Sparks to GospelbeacH.

I had to make a conscious effort not to sound like Beachwood Sparks, which was really hard because it’s the favorite band I’ve ever been in and obviously the most successful.  So if I were looking for success I’d probably try and mimic that sound a little bit. I think the way I’ve evolved is by really following my feelings. It kind of started by mistake so it’s really hard to say what the evolution was besides Patrick at Alive Records asking me if I wanted to make a record. I didn’t have any songs or a band, but his interest prompted me to start GospelbeacH.

How did GospelbeacH come together?

I reconnected with the original drummer from Beachwood Sparks, and a guy that actually played in the last incarnation of Further, Tom Sanford. He left Beachwood Sparks before we made any records and went on tour, so he didn’t really get to have that part. It was kind of fun for us to get back together and write songs and start GospelbeacH. Even though he’s not in the band anymore, he was a big part of it. So it was cool. I always wanted to play with more people but it’s hard to just hook up with a bunch of strangers and say “Oh, here are my songs, play them.” It’s better if you have some people that you know. But then it’s also great to meet new people, and the strangers become your best friends. And that’s kind of how the band is now.

Tom knew Jonny Neimann, the guy who’s my main partner in the band right now and has been there for the last two records. It was kind of cool to have other band members bring in other band members. It was kind of like a revolving door, a lot of it revolved around Neal Casal. When Tom and I wrote the songs, we said, “Okay, now we have to record them. Who do we want to get to play guitar?” And I was like “Neal!” So I called Neal and he happened to be free. He came to Chinatown and we recorded that first GospelbeacH album. And then Neal went on his way. He was way too busy; he wasn’t on the second album. But lo and behold, he was able to return for this album. And now he’s gone again (laughs).

It’s kind of easy to connect the dots if you just look at the backs of the records and look at the names and you say “oh, this guy, that guy, he did that.” The record label doesn’t really need to stick a sticker on the front saying “featuring members of this band and that band.” People like me, we read the album covers, we look at the records, we read the articles and listen to the music and wonder who’s on it. I was writing something for Shindig Magazine about the albums that influenced the new GospelbeacH album and I was looking at the liner notes for Graham Nash’s Songs for Beginners. I was just blown away by everyone who’s on it. They don’t put a sticker on there that says “featuring members of the Grateful Dead and Neil Young.” You just have to find out by flipping the album over.

Right, and that’s the only way. There’s no database like there is for film, you just have to pay attention.

I think GospelbeacH is a really good version of that – if you look at who’s been on the records for the three albums, it’s starting to have a nice little resume.

What did influence the new album?

Well, the loss of my dad and the end of my marriage. There’s no easier way to put it. It’s really that kind of a record. It’s pretty plain that it’s about loss and breakups and heartbreak. But there’s a lot of redemption there. I had to really dig deep to handle all this shit.

I was thinking, this new album has an edge but it’s still pretty rockin’, it conveys hope.

I think it would have been hard if it was all just despair.

Are you more musically driven or lyrically driven?

Lyrically, for sure, on this new album. Usually it’s simultaneous. I do like to write but I like to write about other music. I am really into the craft of songwriting but you need real experience so you can hone your feelings into a real rock song.  But I love guitar solos and those don’t really have a lot to do with the song at first. Then they become part of the sound and the landscape of the song but it’s more about, “how do you want to convey this feeling?” Okay, you’re sad, you’re heartbroken, you got to fight, you’re going to bounce back from this, you’re going to tell this story of redemption, but what’s the music going to sound like? Is it going to be quiet and wispy? Is it going to be sad and minor key? Or is it going to be like so much of the music that I love, rock and roll with a heart, you know? Like Jackson, and Petty, Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, and a lot of others taking personal experience and making it into real art. But rock and roll art. To some people, it can be a little bit throwaway, musically. It ends up in radio wasteland of FM rock and Sirius channels that only a few people are listening to. But that’s the kind of music that I love.

What was the process of making this album like?

It was to get my life on tape. Trevor [Jimenez], my co-writer who also wrote the songs on Another Summer of Love with me, played drums and wrote the songs with me on this album. I love his songs and he loves mine so we started making songs together. I spent 2016 recording and 2017 releasing Another Summer of Love, that was pretty much an ode to happiness and love and marriage. Then ironically, that same marriage I was singing about just ended. It’s so weird, you know, we had to write about it.

The whole idea was to try to get the feeling Trevor saw me going through on tape. To have Jonny Neimann, Neal Casal, and Ben [Redell], and Trevor… those are all people who care about me as a person, they don’t just want to play bass and guitar in a band that’s making a record and make a few hundred bucks to play a session. It’s not about that. They really want to support the feeling and be part of the band that supports the feeling, we really wanted to get this across that this stuff happens.

So writing is obviously kind of a coping mechanism or a therapeutic process. Do you feel like that kept you going?

Yes! I know it did. October is when it all happened and I moved into my own place. We were writing the songs in the months leading up to that, and we were in the studio by Thanksgiving. We worked on this music in real time – we really started working on the songs in October and November and it was like, “get to the studio, record it.” Trevor would come over and he and I would work on it at home. It wasn’t that we needed to make an album, I don’t even know if the label wanted us to make an album. Alive is the kind of label where you make a couple of records and then you go onto another label, especially if you don’t sell a lot like us. But they supported it and the guys supported it and it all made sense and I think we captured it in the perfect time. If you asked me to write an album and said “okay it has to have this concept and sound a certain way,” I don’t know if I could do any better than this without anything to reflect on.

You don’t think it would be that healthy but it really is. That’s where a co-writer comes in. He can get into my shoes and into my skin and write what I would be too embarrassed to come out and say. As soon as he says the first two words like “bad habits,” I know where he’s going and I can write the next verses. I know exactly what he’s doing. And that’s a friend, and that’s somebody who’s also into the craft of songwriting. The way our heroes do it. You can tell the difference between a song that somebody lived and one they just kind of made up.

I’m glad something beautiful was able to come out of all the pain and heartache. That’s what it’s all about, right?

Exactly. I’ve had a bad track record of not handling bad news very well in the past. If you go back to the 90s, I’ve had my problems. I’ve had some bad things happen and I just didn’t know how to handle them. This one, I swore, especially because of my father, that I was going to do it right, that I was going to make it, and I knew I had no choice but to make it. I knew nobody was going to put up with me not handling it right or using it as an excuse for poor or self-destructive behavior. I still had a job to do, a living to make, a record to make, friends to be there for, my dogs to live for. I had to be there for my ex-wife. It’s not like “okay, we’re done and now we’re never friends again.” We were married, we were together for twelve years. We’ve still got to be there for each other, even though we’re not going to be together in a marriage. I can’t put that on her, for me to become some kind of basket case.  So the music helps, it’s everything. That’s why the album is called Let it Burn, because you let those feelings burn. You don’t let the good stuff burn, you let the bad stuff burn. That’s kind of the secret behind it.

Any tour plans to support the new record?

In late January and February we’re going to Spain and England and back to Scandinavia where they seem to really appreciate us. We have a few west coast shows right after the record’s out so that’ll be really fun because I’m dying to play the new songs.

I know you’ve had a hand in organizing some really amazing festivals in the past, like Hearts on Fire, Freaks for the Festival. Are there plans for more? Is that a secret calling?

Yes- it’s actually not a secret but I’ll break some news to you.

I’ve been working in the design world for the last five years, for really good people, really nice design companies. But I just started a record label, and I’m going to be doing that full time. I’ll be helping a lot of other bands, and I’m going to be free to be out and touring more with GospelbeacH. One of the things I want to do is not just a festival but I want to put together a tour with some bands from around here, all our friends, and go on the road together. I want to take the LA sound we’ve been curating for the last many years and take it out to people around the world, especially around the United States. Whether people come or not, I don’t care. But there seem to be people out there who dig it. That’s breaking news! The label’s called Curation Records and there’ll be news of the records we’re putting out and the bands that we’re signing in the next coming weeks. I think a lot of the bands and friends, a lot of people from our scene out here are doing stuff. They’re getting stuff out there, they’re touring. Circles is doing really great, Mapache’s doing great, some other bands, it’s going to be interesting to see what the future holds.

Speaking of the LA sound- obviously, most of your bands have been very location-driven, everything’s been kind of labeled as California sound, specifically Angeleno music. For me, it’s so specific that I’ll listen to the same songs on very specific mile markers on the 1 or the 162. Is there a location this album is related to, specifically or broadly?

It’s really not – the best thing is to have someone tell you “oh we’re driving through the desert listening to your music.” This is kind of Sunset Boulevard music. It’s city rock- you get out of the club at night, you leave the Echo or something, you’re out on Sunset, even into Hollywood. Kind of boulevard of broken dreams – there are hints of – not failure, but what it takes to be a musician, and how much love and heart and soul you have to put into it, and how that affects not just your love life, but your life with your loved ones. The city lights, the city traffic. I moved into the Hollywood Hills in October, away from the east side. I work on Sunset Boulevard. I even recorded a bit of the city noise, at the beginning of “Get it Back,” there’s this noise that’s right outside here on Sunset Boulevard, I did it during a rainstorm at twilight, so it’s definitely got the sound of the city. If you’re cruising around more in the city rather than out in the country. Which sucks, because most people want to be driving up the coast, but it doesn’t really matter. Everyone’s going to say “West coast! Angeleno spokesperson!”

It’s not a bad label to have, I don’t think.

God no, please. I love it, I’m so happy. This city got me through everything, and now it’s getting ready to get me through the next part of my life. A lot of the music I like is made by people who came here at an early age or any age, or grew up here, and there’s a certain vibe – that’s why everyone, everywhere, wants to make west coast songs.

Follow Curation Records on Instagram for the latest news about what they’ll be up to!