Today we’d like to introduce you to Radio Cult.
Radio Cult, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Bambi Lynn and I (Ricky Zero) started the band Radio Cult in 2005. At the time, Bambi was playing keyboards and singing, and I was playing bass and also singing. She and I had been in several bands before. When putting together Radio Cult, Bambi had a specific vision for how she wanted the band to look. We also wanted to play fun music and put on an energetic stage show. My childhood friend, Jay Jay, was just getting off the road touring with another band, so we asked him to be our drummer. When we started, we had two guitar players as well making us a 5-piece band. Originally, we were playing mainly rock and pop hits from the 80s and a few original songs along those same lines. Since Bambi and I had been touring for the last few years already, it wasn’t difficult to fill up our schedule, and we played over 100 shows in our first year together.
As time went by, we expanded into playing popular songs from more decades rather than sticking just with the 80s. We also focused more on original music. Being on the road long-term can be difficult. As a result, we’ve had several guitar players come and go over the years. Eventually, Bambi started playing guitar more than keyboards. These days, we’re usually a 3-piece band. For some shows, one or two of the former guitarists will come out, making us a 4-piece or 5-piece for that night. It’s always nice to have our friends, old and new, join us on stage, so it’s not at all uncommon to see different people sitting in with us either just for a song or two or for the entire night!
At this point, Radio Cult has played well over 1,000 shows. We’ve released five CDs, a DVD, a video game, a comic book, and a Saturday morning cartoon. We’ve traveled all over the southeastern USA, all the way out to California, and even over to Europe a couple of times. We’ve played shows everywhere from bars and private parties to music festivals and comic book conventions…and we’ve had a lot of fun along the way!
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
Being a band, music is obviously a big part of what we create, and I do love to write, record, and perform new songs! However, being in a band has also given us many opportunities to collaborate with some wonderful people from a variety of different fields. Several friends have helped us put together awesome music videos over the years. We worked with numerous comic book artists to help us put together the Radio Cult comic book. We’ve had some great animators put together music videos and our friend Brian Cribb spent months working on our full-length cartoon. The cartoon, in particular, was a lot of fun because we also had the opportunity to go into the studio and create all of the background sounds. Getting a chance to be a part of the process of creating these common sounds in uncommon ways was a blast! There seem to be cool new projects coming up all the time. I think more often than not, enjoying the process of creating the art and working with such talented people is the best part! As for our message, I guess it would be, “We’re going to have fun! Feel free to join us!” -Haha!
How can artists connect with other artists?
Well, being in a band is a much different situation. Besides have each other around, we’re also always playing shows in front of people, so in our case, it isn’t lonely at all!
Do you have any events or performances coming up? Where would one go to hear your music or learn more about Radio Cult? How can people support you and your band?
The best place to find all of our work would be our website: RadioCult.com. However, our music is on all of the usually websites (iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, etc.) and many of our videos have been posted to YouTube (a quick search of “Radio Cult” will bring up dozens of videos). Although the calendar on our website is usually current, we’ve been so busy in the last few months that it isn’t up-to-date right now. However, Bambi does post all of our events on our Facebook page: facebook.com/radiocult
Contact Info:
- Website: RadioCult.com
- Facebook: facebook.com/radiocult
- Other: youtube.com/user/radiocultband
Image Credit:
Black and white photo by “Bokeh Photo”
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