Companies get stuck here all of the time.

Listening to the radio (I’m as shocked as you are) this morning and heard ‘You Get What You Give‘ by The New Radicals.

Even over a decade later, the song is still damn catchy and getting airtime.  This song was their debut single off of their 1st (and what would turn out to be their only album) and it was was huge, a Top 5 single in the UK.

The band, which was had lots of members over time, was built around the nucleus of Gregg Alexander, The New Radicals front man, who had put out a couple of other commercially unsuccessful albums prior. And then just as quick as they had stormed onto the scene, and even before their 2nd single could be released, the lead singer Gregg Alexander broke up the band.

In a press release (which seems a little pretentious for a band that only had one radio hit (we’re not talking about Aerosmith or Led Zepplin calling it quits now are we?), Alexander said

He stated that he “accomplished all of [his] goals with this record” and that “the fatigue of traveling & getting three hours sleep in a different hotel every night to do boring ‘hanging and schmoozing’ with radio and retail people, is definitely not for [him]“, that he “lost interest in fronting a ‘One Hit Wonder‘ to the point that [he] was wearing a hat while performing so that people wouldn’t see [his] lack of enthusiasm”

Come again? You are finally viable and you throw in the towel? I remember thinking this back in 1999 but 11 years later, to be reminded on the radio again seems so strange.

But it generates so many good things about getting stuck.

• The finish line of success is defined radically (pun intended) different for different people.
• When you build around a sole asset, you leave yourself exposed to their personal desires. A team works better.
• You have to love what you are doing in order to make it.

The last one is the most important. Even in the one of the most glorified careers, rock and roll singer for a popular band doesn’t work if you don’t love it.  And ultimately it gets down to work being work, and not always fun.

The most successful musicians get so much out of the music they create, and they have to.  They basically have to do the same songs night after night after night.  Let’s say The New Radicals stayed together. They would have played ‘You Get What You Give’ at least 3,000 times.  Most folks can’t say they have done something 3,000 times the exact (nearly) way and enjoyed it.

On top of that, its a ton of boring work to supporting and getting to performing. On the bus, away from your friends and family, in hotel room after hotel room, always on a group schedule and having fans coming up to you, etc.

Don’t get it wrong, most bands would (or think they would) kill for this, but it doesn’t come for free and ultimately, you have to love what you’ll be doing at the core (in this case perform) because the overhead to do (in this case on the road, etc) can be steep.