MBW’s World’s Greatest Songwriters series celebrates the composers behind the globe’s biggest hits. Gregg Alexander, when fronting New Radicals, wrote one of the defining songs of the ’90s, You Get What You Give. He then promptly broke up the band and forged a new career writing hits for other artists. World’s Greatest Songwriters is supported by AMRA – the global digital music collection society which strives to maximize value for songwriters and publishers in the digital age.
Don’t call it a comeback. True, New Radicals – the band Gregg Alexander formed in 1997 – quietly dropped two new tracks this summer, having not released an album since 1998’s Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too.
They haven’t been in the Billboard Hot 100 since You Get What You Give became a phenomenon the following year. In fact, famously, and without too much of an explanation, six months after that all-time monster of a single peaked, Alexander disbanded New Radicals and walked away from the spotlight.
He didn’t walk that far, though, just to the studio and the writers’ room. There, as a behind-the-scenes force, he helped create hits for artists from Geri Halliwell to Enrique Iglesias, Hanson, Rod Stewart, and many others.
Highlights include Sophie Ellis-Bextor’sMurder on the Dancefloor, Texas’sInner Smile, Ronan Keating’sLife Is a Rollercoaster, Santana’sThe Game of Love, and Adam Levine’sLost Stars (from the film Begin Again, and nominated for an Oscar in 2015).
Another reason not to call it a comeback is because it’s not really as straightforward as that. In fact, Alexander himself has an alternative phrase for it. He calls it “a slow revival.”
If that revival has a starting point, it’s his duet with Michelle Branch on a new version of The Game of Love (Branch was also featured on Santana’s original), which came out in July, and has since climbed to No. 20 at Hot AC radio in the US.
This first signpost toward a New Radicals reunion was itself more organic (and at least partly accidental) than planned. Alexander says: “Lovely Vector Management told me that BMG was globally relaunching Michelle, starting with yet-to-be-revealed guests on her duets album.
“Olivia Rodrigo had told me at an Oscar music party that Game of Love was her childhood fave, so she was one duet idea. Then Michelle and I had so much fun singing it in the studio we thought perhaps the world should just hear us!”
The arrival of this fresh version of The Game of Love was quietly followed, two weeks later, by another New Radicals track – One Night Only (Break Loose Break Free!), from the new film of the same name.
This was a bona fide New Radicals single – their first original song in 28 years – but it’s not the New Radicals single. Not the designated (don’t call it a) comeback single.
Alexander (sort of) explains: “We do have the official, You Get What You Give follow-up; we just want to build up to releasing it incrementally.”
So you see: it’s not that ‘comeback’ isn’t accurate, it’s just a bit more complicated than that…
Raised in the suburbs of Detroit, Alexander grew up listening to Van Halen but also loved the sound of Motown that he would inevitably hear all over the city. A little later he got into deep house “after seeing Derrick May at 14, sneaking downtown on the night bus and blagging my way into now mythological clubs with the worst fake ID imaginable.”
At 16, he took a one-way flight to LA, “with my home demo cassettes and a duffel bag with no plan – except to walk Hollywood Boulevard and hopefully have an adventure and maybe get discovered.”
He nearly struck gold, not to mention platinum, straight away. “I met publisher Jim Vellutato and Tiffany producer George Tobin who wanted two songs for what became her debut album. I foolishly passed because his biz model was owning 100% publishing. I could’ve been a teenage millionaire!”
It wasn’t, of course, foolish at all, because soon after he met Jimmy Iovine and Rick Nowels, both of whom would play significant roles in his trajectory.
“Iovine was my biggest champion,” says Alexander. “Others pondered developing me, but Jimmy simply handed me a global A&M deal, which I signed on my 18th birthday. Then he booked me at A&M studios right down the hall from U2, Springsteen, and Don Henley.
“He was close pals with all of them, so I’d tag along to sessions. Even as a naive teen I still couldn’t believe my luck. Sometimes you honestly have to love the Boomers.”
Nowels, meanwhile, produced Alexander’s debut solo album, Michigan Rain (1989), and co-produced its follow-up, Intoxifornication (1992). Neither troubled the charts. The latter, however, was significant as it featured Danielle Brisebois on backing vocals. She would go on to become the only other permanent member of New Radicals.
Nowels would also be part of the New Radicals success story; he is the co-writer of You Get What You Give.
Brisebois is, once again, alongside Alexander in the new New Radicals, and will feature on the upcoming second album, Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed TWO.
As befits this slow (and certainly unhurried) revival, there’s no release date as yet. It will come sometime early next year, via Universal. (UMG’s Chairman and CEO, Sir Lucian Grainge, has remained a consistent champion of Alexander’s.)
Talking to MBW while on vacation in Spain ahead of this “slow revival” picking up speed, Alexander talks about fame, about AI, and about the power of music.
There is, though, of course, only one starting point. And it isn’t Michigan Rain…
Before I ask about that song and that time in your life, can we ask: How do you feel about being asked about that record and that time in your life?
I feel great! Because that album still makes people happy and it changed my life. Rolling Stone ranked it alongside Sex Pistols, Lauryn Hill, and Jeff Buckley as one of the best one-off albums ever, and our single is seemingly as ubiquitous as the day it came out; no complaints here!
I’m just along for that ’90s mythology ride. Back when we were totally unaware that would be the last decade free from all of these billionaire prepper tech bros’ overpriced smartphone gadgets.
When they ask any tech bro if their kids are allowed on social media or apps too, they’re all like, ‘Fuck no!!’
What do you remember about writing You Get What You Give? And did you know it was something special straight away?
Yes. While I tinkered on the guitar at Nowels’ studio I asked him to pound out on synth piano my fave Say a Little Prayer chords. And I ad-lib howled on top of that for around 30 minutes. Then I was so ecstatic hearing the playback I almost pulled a James Dean speeding down Mulholland back to Park La Brea to write lyrics all night.
I was practically hyperventilating while scribbling those lyrics, realizing I’d just written the best song of my life. I was terrified I’d fuck it up in the production. That one track was my own mini-Titanic or Avatar, which I probably burned a quarter mil on.
“I knew that, ultimately, I’d never have to work again unless I wanted to, if I didn’t fuck that record up.”
I’d already been dropped twice after two failed solo albums and remembered being reduced to couch surfing, so I realized this time I might prevent a few suicides with that ‘You got a reason to live!’ lyric.
I also knew that, ultimately, I’d never have to work again unless I wanted to, if I didn’t fuck that record up. We’re told it’s now UMG’s number two crown jewel of the ’90s, between syncs, radio, and playlists, behind Nirvana’s Teen Spirit, so at least I know I didn’t totally fuck it up.
Can you remember what that first burst of success and fame felt like?
Exciting, yet kinda odd. People yelling your name from passing cars. And most everyone you ever met or dated tries to contact you, all feigning unawares that your band just took off, yet wanting to know if they can be your ‘good friend’ again.
What was it like to have your songwriting praised by Joni Mitchell?
My lord. Well I’ve hung a bit with Joni, who’s the coolest, and someone whom even David Crosby had the guts to once admit is 10 times more talented than him, Bob Dylan and all those other platinum ’70s era Laurel Canyon dudes combined.
So, for that reason, when Joni said New Radicals made her want to keep making music, it kinda made me cry.
At 29 or 30, to be treated like a peer instead of a fan by artists that I listened to on a daily basis as a teenager was something you could never put a price on. I love Joni and hope she lives forever.
Is it true that you shared a house with The Darkness in London?
Yes, The Darkness and New Radicals lived in near poverty the year before my band’s surprise stardom. A bonkers house with odd rock ’n’ roll characters roaming in and out. It was a duplex, now probably worth millions, but then mostly paid for by the Hammersmith Council as a glorified squat.
Washing dishes one day I audaciously informed Justin Hawkins that I’d be a superstar within the calendar year. Then when it kinda started happening, I was as shocked as him.
I believe it reinforced to the Hawkins brothers that zany rock dreams can come true. They’re both sweet yet quite competitive, and so they soon quit auditioning singers to instead finally just let Justin’s inner wild frontman break free.
“Washing dishes one day I audaciously informed Justin Hawkins that I’d be a superstar within the calendar year. Then when it kinda started happening, I was as shocked as him.”
He’s so brilliant, yet at that time most of us didn’t even know that he could sing. I thought he’d become a video game designer and move to Taiwan!
We later celebrated their stardom together in LA and in London as they singlehandedly reinvented the phrase Drugs, Drugs & Rock & Roll.
Strangely, before I recently flew into Basque Country for a holiday, Michelle Branch and I raised hell all week in London. She and her hubby, Patrick Carney, brought along a party animal drummer pal of theirs named Rufus [Tiger], who it turned out is The Darkness’s drummer. And his dad is Queen’s Roger Taylor.
Anyway, there is rock justice in the world because The Darkness are now headlining arenas again. Shepherd’s Bush forever!
Is it true that when you took that step back from the spotlight after Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too, you had some extremely senior execs calling you up to try and tempt you back? Who were they and how did those conversations go?
Yes, and to speak frankly, in May of 2024 – just before my belovedly complex father unexpectedly passed – for the first time in decades I was meeting label heads and exploring deal offers.
But when Tony passed I lost 20 pounds, heartbroken, and my mom stopped eating entirely and so I dropped everything for a year to focus on her.
Danielle Brisebois is an angel who’d known my mom since she was 19, and she helped me nurse her back to strength in a care home, and then relocate her to the East Coast for a beautiful six months, until she caught norovirus. But my mom died of a broken heart too, over my dad’s untimely death.
I was still livid over losing mom and dad in that way, needing something hopeful amidst such darkness, and a Godsend came in the form of the newly reconfigured Capitol / Interscope reaching out.
They reached out during that TikTok-based ‘Depression Can’t Hit A Moving Target’ / New Radicals viral trend last year to ask about doing something musically disruptive to follow up You Get What You Give.
“Lucian green-lit countless productions of mine so soon after I ended New Radicals. He seemed to be the only one not mad at me.”
Universal emailed last week actually; they’re still figuring out which imprint will release Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed TWO, but I’m cool wherever.
I owe much of my 2000s Sophie Ellis-Bextor success to Universal. She’s Lucian’s personal signing, and my Texas and Ronan hits I owe mostly to Sir Lucian as well.
He green-lit countless productions of mine so soon after I ended New Radicals. He seemed to be the only one not mad at me!
I also adore both John Janick and Steve Berman, and I hear Tom March is a badass baller too, so it’s a great prospect.
What are the songs you’ve written for and with other artists that you’re proudest of?
Probably Lost Stars. Because, between humble and hardworking Keira Knightley and Adam Levine’s versions it’s well over a half billion streams organically.
Also, Maroon 5 performed it at the 2015 Oscars, despite it not being an official single.
And then to top it all off, Adam’s late and beloved manager Jordan Feldstein generously said they felt Lost Stars was one of the best records Adam had been a part of up to that point. That meant a lot to me.
Adam later told The Hollywood Reporter our Begin Again tunes were “perfect,” which was a magnanimous compliment from a fellow singer.
What do you remember about writing Murder on the Dancefloor? And how happy were you to see it gain an even bigger audience recently?
I was astonished! I frustratedly wrote most of that song long before New Radicals’ heyday, one early ’90s summer, on my guitar in my lucky old Mustang, which unluckily wouldn’t start, on a night I planned to go dancing in those same Detroit house clubs I used to sneak into as a teen.
So that song already having that odd history meant that the Saltburn phenomenon felt like a fever dream miracle.
Labels breaking new hits is rarer and rarer nowadays, so everyone craves those Running Up That Hill or Fleetwood Mac Dreams moments. Even wilder still is that all happened the same year Danielle’s Unwritten [by Natasha Bedingfield] production blew up on TikTok from being in Sydney Sweeney’s hit Anyone But You film. So it felt like the Gods of music were sending us kindness for some reason!
Wilder still, GQ ranked Murder alongside Martin Scorsese’s use of The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter sync on its list of the greatest film ‘needle drops’ of all time.
Have you started using AI as part of your writing process – and what do you think about AI’s increasing proliferation across the industry?
Hell no! I despise AI and I hope labels protect artistry from it tenaciously. Because AI will never, ever be able to create a song or record as powerful as a Hey Jude or Bohemian Rhapsody. Period.
“I despise AI and I hope labels protect artistry from it tenaciously.”
I don’t know Jack Antonoff, but I do know I love Lavender Haze, and I concurred 1000% when I heard he said that any creatives who use AI as a crutch are Godless whores and bad actors. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Can you tell us about writing The Game of Love? How do you and Rick complement each other?
When I first met Rick, not long after my 16th birthday, we drove to a Tarzana Burger King and he joked I shouldn’t give my publishing away to Tiffany, but let’s make an album instead. I had zero idea we’d still be good friends decades later.
Like all partnerships we’ve had some speed bumps, but the fact is we adore each other and also adore those same pop and soul chords from the 1950s to the present. Which is how The Game of Love was written.
The wild thing is, Rick and I were pals for well over a decade from back when he’d helped me co-produce my two long-lost teenage solo rock albums, ages before we’d even written our first song together, which was You Get What You Give.
Barely a year later we wrote The Game of Love, which won a Grammy, and then Ronan’s No. 1, Life Is a Rollercoaster, Texas’s Inner Smile, and many more. A good run!
I also remember Game of Love almost never happened. It was nearly midnight after a long day of striking out, but I said, ‘Rick, let’s try one last stupid idea,’ and we wrote it in 15 minutes. That’s how the good ones happen.
What made you want to revive New Radicals, and why did you choose to lead with One Night Only from a film?
Nowadays, fortunately, whether it’s a superstar DJ, band or solo act, that ‘Mariah’ era of ‘each single must hit No. 1’ pressure is long gone for everyone, including Mariah.
Bowie once was asked, ‘How do you beat your critics and rivals?’ He said, ‘Outlast them.’ And as I’m a Gen-X slacker punk at heart, my music’s longevity is all I truly care about. You want your songs playing everywhere in 50 years, not just 50 weeks.
And so slowly reviving New Radicals is about hoping to bring a bit of joy and light and to help fight the power in our own unique way. Move to the light!
When we disbanded, six months after our debut single broke, nobody, including us, ever expected our band or that song’s message to keep burning on, but here we are.
And so with Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed TWO, no one knows if it’ll sell 75,000 or 7 million. But the music is the message.
How would you describe your songwriting partnership with Danielle?
First off Ms. Brisebois is a stone-cold genius: singing on Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life at age 7; her iconic All in the Family role for American TV’s greatest show of all time; tirelessly reinventing herself by producing and writing Natasha Bedingfield classic Unwritten; all while composing hits like Pocketful of Sunshine, Lost Stars, and even New Radicals’ ‘lost’ hit Someday We’ll Know.
Danielle was besties with Andy Warhol at 17 [see picture]! What she brings to the room is an innate creative compassion and intellect. People call me for advice, but she’s the only person I call.
So, when we create, it’s in honor of our friendship, surviving teen romance, destitution, failed solo deals, sexist bully directors and even conmen she’s run circles around since she was a child.
She always had to be the sharpest person in the room. And has remained so, effortlessly, since we met at 19, and she’s still going strong.
Working with her is inspiring. She’s an angel protected by angels. Fuck with Danielle and look out.
What can you tell us about the new album?
That I am hearing it is better than the first one. And that our first [proper] single is apparently as good as You Get What You Give.
And after that? How likely is it that you will carry on putting out music as New Radicals for some time rather than hit it and quit again?
This album is called Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed TWO. But if it inspires people, why not THREE or FOUR? Who knows.
The fact is, a lot of music people want this album released because New Radicals is all about music, yet we’ve always been outspoken and so there’s probably some villains out there that don’t.
But all jesting aside, many believe that with a proper roll of the dice we could give a bit of the shot in the arm pop culture could use right now; we ain’t called New Radicals for nothing: subversively underground while dancing naked on Main Street.
What single thing would you change about the industry if you had the chance?
No one lives forever and so companies controlling IP could remember daily their deep responsibility to protect music for the next generations.
Great records and the music business changed the world, and it can again. With less of a ‘High School With Money’ biz mentality and being more about breaking the rules.
Outliers should be supported – like Ms. Eilish publicly taking on all those Jeff Bezos(es) in that room full of infamous billionaires is the kinda stuff that makes us wanna bring New Radicals back.
“Young artists being occasionally challenging should be strongly encouraged. Because Hey Jude or Highway to Hell weren’t made by tiptoeing through the tulips.”
And the biz side should remember, when navigating a creative’s IP, that we’re not delivering washing machines; it’s our souls.
Young artists being amiably complex, yet occasionally challenging, should be strongly encouraged. Because Hey Jude or Highway to Hell weren’t made by tiptoeing through the tulips. This world is only going to get records that powerful again by artists being encouraged to be creative and fearless.
What advice would you give a young songwriter starting out today?
Musically and creatively try to top your heroes. Because it’s harder to break through big now with zero MTV or radio kingmakers anymore in existence. So, each piece of content must touch people’s souls.
Be artistically zany and focus on what makes you unique. Push for greatness from anyone asking you to do all the groundwork that they’ll just seize upon once you go viral. Have them try and deliver for you too.
I do hope labels fund more music films and festivals that focus on new acts. How sad that UK festivals often now give ‘new act’ stage slots to nepo babies who wanna be rock stars.
Rock stardom is a far rarer achievement than film stardom for famous kids for a reason; because to be a rock star you kinda actually need talent.
“Most of the general public would rather self-immolate than have to listen to the latest nepo baby’s new studio album.”
Lord knows music is a sacred medium and so most of the general public would rather self-immolate than have to listen to the latest nepo baby’s new studio album.
The fact is, people are craving great music, not good music. And something different. Which is part of why the amazing Geese are breaking through. I fucking loved their BBC Radio 1 version of our song.
The fact that Cameron Winter can actually sing like no one’s listening and people still want to listen is a reminder that other young artists can swing big and try for something new as well.
So that may be another bit of advice: write a hundred or even a thousand songs to get to that absolute best one you can muster. And then sing it like no one is listening. That will probably be the one that breaks through and changes the world.
