Doing The Radiators’ Last Watusi with Dave Malone & Reggie Scanlan
(via Jambands)
We talked to Dave Malone and Reggie Scanlan just prior to the
band’s sold-reunion shows on January 18 and 19, celebrating both the
club’s 35th anniversary and 35 years since The Radiators first formed.
After the shows captured on The Last Watusi, Malone admitted to
having to “chill for a while and let the end of the Rads sink in.”
Since then he has joined forces with his brother Tommy of the subdudes
as the Malone Brothers Band, along with forming Raw Oyster Cult with
fellow Rads Baudoin and Bua (along with John “Papa” Gros on keys and
Dave Pomerleau on bass).
Reggie Scanlan hit the ground running after The Last Watusi shows:
he was on stage with the newly-formed New Orleans Suspects (drummer
Willie Green, guitarist/vocalist Jake Eckert, CR Gruver on keys and
vocals, and hornman Jeff Watkins) two weeks after the Rads’ 2011
good-bye shows. Scanlan’s full-speed-ahead attitude was meant with a
serious challenge in early 2012: diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he
underwent a 16-hour surgery followed by a month in the hospital. His
fellow Suspects were waiting for him, however: two days out of the
hospital, Scanlan was on stage at JazzFest – a true survivor, sitting on
a stool and playing his beloved bass. Since then the band has released
two albums (one studio/one live) with a third of all-new material on the
way.
Both Malone and Scanlan cautioned that there were no Radiators
plans beyond the January reunion shows. Scanlan, fully focused on The
New Orleans Suspects, likened the “get-back-together” rumors surrounding
the Rads shows as the sort of talk you’d hear when a divorced couple
gets together for coffee to talk about the kids: “Everybody on the
outside thinks they’re going to get remarried and it’s great – nobody
knows what’s really going on except the people themselves.”
We conclude with some reflections from both.
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