For the last decade, Radiator King has been the moniker of NYC-via-Boston solo artist Adam Silvestri. But since he moved to L.A. in 2021 at the urging of longtime collaborator / drummer / Dresden Dolls co-founder Brian Viglione, the two have teamed up with keyboardist Alexander Burke to form a proper band with each member contributing to the writing process. Today, Radiator King has released the video for “The Second Coming,” their garage rock-heavy single that is a crowd-pleasing anthem. I was able to connect with Silvestri for an interview about the new single and how the band responded to working with veteran producer Ted Hutt. If you’re enjoying the music video, please consider supporting Radiator King here.
Thanks for your time today! Can you walk me through the writing and recording process of your great new single called “The Second Coming?”
My pleasure. I wrote “The Second Coming” a few years ago, while on lock down in my New York City apartment during the pandemic. The lyrics were pretty much finished back then, but the song didn’t really take shape stylistically until I moved to L.A. and started playing it with Brian [Viglione] and Alex [Burke]. It started as a more straightforward punk rock tune but with Alex and Brian in the mix, it took on a style of its own. We imagined it living somewhere between The Cars and The Ramones.
We recorded “The Second Coming” with producer Ted Hutt at Kingsize Studio here in Los Angeles and knocked it out pretty quickly. These days a lot of independent bands record at home studios and while that is certainly cost efficient and can yield great results, for us it’s always been important to go into a proper studio together to record. I’ve found when there’s a finite period of time it forces you to commit and make decisions in real time. There’s no time for overthinking, no time for endless takes. You have to be prepared to execute right there and then. There’s a certain level of pressure in the studio. When you do a vocal take you look into the control room and see the band, engineer and producer through the glass and you think, “Shit, I better nail this. Everyone is counting on me.” It’s very similar to the pressure I feel when performing live—and the live setting is where I’m at my best.
The video for the song was recorded in a similar fashion. The guy who made the video, Declan Adams, filmed us in a room together just rocking out. We did a few takes running through the song and that was that. It’s very raw—I think it really reflects the emotion of the song. Declan was great at coming up with unique ways to film us. The way he uses the projector and lighting really gives the video the right aesthetic.
What was it like working with veteran producer Ted Hutt?
It’s been a great experience. Back when I was a kid I loved reading the inserts of the CDs and records I’d buy. It was pre-internet, so information on the bands you loved wasn’t as available as it is now. You’d scour the liner notes looking for any information that would give you some deeper insight into the bands you loved—who played on the album, who the bands thanked, etc. And, of course, the producer. At the time, I didn’t really know exactly what a producer did, but I kept seeing the name “Ted Hutt” pop up on so many of my favorite albums.
Now that I’ve gotten to know and work with him, it’s easy to see how his involvement in all those albums helped make them what they are, and why I was so drawn to them. There are of course a number of variables that play into it, but one crucial element—Ted has this ability to bring out the most captivating attributes of a band and the song and capture it in the studio. It’s something that’s fairly easy to achieve live—with a punk band, the energy on stage can be infectious and translate to the crowd, with a jazz band you can witness the dialogue happening as the musicians listen to and play off of each other. But to capture these defining elements of a band and their songs in the studio is extremely difficult and takes someone unique.
With “The Second Coming” video we tried to emphasize the song’s most captivating elements without being too on the nose about it. It’s all about experimenting with imagery that exists in the world where the song lives. I went through a lot of found footage while preparing for the video shoot, and came across scenes that related to the content of the song in some respect—insects devouring each other, a delinquent clown, propaganda films from the 1950s, splitting atoms, the Statue of Liberty, the American flag on a gravestone. In some ways, these images all live in the world of this song and Declan did a great job of editing them all together.
What do you hope fans of your music will take away from listening to the new single?
That each member—from the guys in the band, to the producer and engineer, to the video crew—contributed their unique style to the song and the video. Each of us in the band comes from a different background, and by letting those different experiences shine through, we were able to create something that none of us could have made on our own. That collaboration and freedom to be ourselves is really the backbone of the song. Hopefully you dig it.
Oh, and we’re playing a show at the Hotel Cafe in L.A. tomorrow night, Friday, March 21. So if you’re in town, you can come hear “The Second Coming” live in action.