Ok ok so here is the story of the band Radical Dads. For starters, Radical Dads is Lindsay Baker, Chris Diken, and Robbie Guertin. So now you have that info. Important to note is that we met in the late 1990s when we were all in college in the Northeast. I’m not going to say which colleges, but rest assured they were smallish and we majored in subjects that are, among the creative class, completely clichéd. But some of us happen to be putting those degrees to real actual use today, so go figure.

Back during those Northeastern collegiate years, we were all friends on account of liking similar cultural things and rebelling against similar institutional things. We were listening to bands that were au courant in certain circles at the time, such as the Pixies, Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, Sleater-Kinney, the Lilys, Pavement, The Clean, and Yo La Tengo. During the course of this liking/rebelling/listening, the three of us began to play music together in different combinations and with different aesthetic goals. One of the combinations was a two-guitars-and-drums arrangement, which is hard evidence that we may have some kind of twisted predisposition for basslessness. Or maybe that we want each instrument to be critical, without which the whole enterprise would fall apart. Or maybe a three-person band is just extremely pleasant logistically, in terms of synching schedules and traveling in vehicles. Choose your favorite reason.

The next thing to know is that, after college, we all moved apart and did separate stuff for a while. Which is what people do after college – they take time to “find themselves” and/or take foolish artistic risks to “make it in the biz” and/or take an unsatisfying job for the health insurance in case “something bad happens.” Robbie played in the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah during this time. In 2007, because of a variety of factors, we were all living in Brooklyn, NY, which is also a complete and brutal cliché that hurts to type. At that point we were overtaken by flashbacks to the golden youthful days and started playing music together again. We made it an official band with a name that we liked because it has internal rhyme. Plus it’s an homage to our actual dads.