"I find theological questions intellectually interesting," he says matter-of-factly, "and I got a taste for that at university where I took a course about the history of the Bible."

Roberts's speaking voice - like his singing one - is a resonant baritone that seems entirely unsuited to his slight frame and blithe manner. Despite power-skating lessons, Brad never cut it. And perhaps only a Canadian could have written a ballad like Superman's Song, which whimsically mourns the loss of a socially committed superhero with a mild-mannered alter ego. ", By the time Roberts enrolled in university, he was ready to trade Kiss lead singer Gene Simmons for Sylvia Plath and Nietzsche. "I can go out alone, quite anonymously, and not feel like a goof.". "Crash Test Dummies (Profile)". Even the esteemed novelist-in-hiding Salman Rushdie is an admitted fan. The hyperactive brain behind the Dummies clearly belongs to Roberts, who writes almost all the group's material. In 2004 she was also involved in the recording of the Dummies' Songs of the Unforgiven album.

He has the leather jacket and the chest-length coiffure, but not the attitude.

"I'm fairly attentive to any symptoms that may be cropping up," he says, adding that he takes as many as three ventilators with different medications on tour. Jennings, Nicholas. [1][10][11] and toured in support of the album in early 2002.[12].

But he was lucky enough to have understanding parents who supported his non-jock interests, including music. [8], Reid recorded with the Crash Test Dummies on all of their albums;[9] on the band's fourth album, she sang lead vocals on "Just Chillin'", "Get You in the Morning" and "A Little Something".

"It's great here," Roberts said recently. In January, 1994, MTV, which had shunned the video for Superman's Song, put Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm into heavy rotation. In, Jennings, Nicholas, "Crash Test Dummies (Profile)". "Brad Roberts is the front man, lead singer and raison for the Crash Test Dummies' être ...," Globe & Mail, 18 Jan 1991 "Crash Test Dummies," Contemporary Canadian Musicians (Toronto 1997) "Jamming with lobster fisherman leads Dummies singer back to acoustic sound," Canadian Press NewsWire, 27 … Rolling Stone magazine has dubbed him an "egghead," while Billboard magazine's Canadian correspondent, Larry LeBlanc, dismissed him as an "intellectual wanker."

Anatomy. Partner content is not updated. Things don't just pour out of me, due to some inspirational muse. Single and, he says, with little time for relationships, Roberts fills his days with work and his evenings hanging out at poetry readings or avant-garde concerts. When Brad was in his teens, he formed his own garage band, called Lung and the Breathless, which played 1970s rock covers. Holed up in a dressing room off the corridor are the Dummies - keyboardist Ellen Reid, 29, mandolin and harmonica player Benjamin Darvill, 28, drummer Michel Dorge, 24, and bassist Dan Roberts, 27, Brad's brother - all hanging around for a sound check. The twentysomething crowd gathered at the foot of the stage, politely swaying rather than thrashing about in the usual concert mosh pit, while the 10-year-olds and their parents sang along to the Flintstones song, In the Days of the Caveman.

The group's folky 1991 debut album, The Ghosts That Haunt Me, which spawned the surprise hit Superman's Song, sold an astonishing 400,000 copies in Canada alone.

© Copyright 2020 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. Reid, Brad Roberts and Stuart Cameron continued to record together, and toured throughout 2010/2011 in support of The Crash Test Dummies album Oooh La La! This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on March 27, 1995.

Dan, a natural player, excelled, while the physically gawky Brad was somewhat less adept. The group, renamed "Crash Test Dummies", performed at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1989, and released an album, The Ghosts That Haunt Me, in 1991. Yet his songs - and his instantly recognizable vocals - also exude a warmth that has made him famous from Melbourne to Munich. Catch up with the Cranberries, Coolio, Ace of Base, Lisa Loeb and All-4-One, KMazur/WireImage; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; Michel Linssen/Redferns; Patrick Ford/Redferns. At the same time, his songwriting, with its detached, wry perspective, seems somehow uniquely Canadian.
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It's Tuesday night at MuchMusic's downtown Toronto headquarters and the star-maker machinery is working overtime.

I have a very methodical approach to writing. Then, after three weeks of editing and throwing away a lot of garbage, something comes together that I'm happy with.". But he's not being pretentious; that's just the way he talks. As for Roberts, he is living in a sublet in New York City's East Village, writing songs for the next Dummies album.

In it he sings: "When I'm sampling from your bosom,/Sometimes I suffer from distractions like/Why does God cause things like tornadoes and train wrecks?

Fame has meant that in other urban centres, including his home town, he must now wear disguises to avoid being pestered by fans. Inspired, he rushed home and wrote his first composition, Superman's Song. We want to hear from you! The next month, Dummies manager Jeff Rogers landed the group a prestigious date on Saturday Night Live. Here’s How to Make Sure Your Vote Counts, Trump’s Last Enemies Before Election Day: Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Jon Bon Jovi, Bernie Taupin on His 53-Year Saga With Elton John and Hopes for the Future, Elton John Talks New Rarities Box Set, Life During the Pandemic, Flashback: U2 Play an Emotional ‘Kite’ at Ireland’s Slane Castle in 2001. Ultimately, what saves Roberts from sounding ponderous in his songs is his curative use of humor. The group, renamed "Crash Test Dummies", performed at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1989, and released an album, The Ghosts That Haunt Me, in 1991. Ellen Lorraine Reid (born 14 July 1966)[1] is a Canadian musician. I mean, he legitimately likes that stuff as opposed to people who pretend."

Flush with original material, the band evolved into Crash Test Dummies, a name suggested by a medical-student friend. "It's true that I've written about growing old, getting sick and dying," he says, coughing for a moment, as if on cue. Yet, because of their accessible pop sound and eminently hummable melodies, the Dummies are sufficiently down-to-earth to have won a broad audience.

Ace of Base, All-4-One, Coolio, Lisa Loeb, The Cranberries. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. A crew is busy taping a live Intimate and Interactive special on the latest Canadian pop sensation, Crash Test Dummies.

Yet, as a teenager, he regularly attended the Winnipeg Folk Festival. ", While planning to work towards a doctorate and a possible academic career, Roberts joined Riddell, then owner of two Winnipeg nightspots, the Spectrum Cabaret and the after-hours Blue Note Café, in a bar band.

Snob or not, the man whom the British music magazine Vox called "Professor of Irony at the School of Postmodernism" is clearly an unconventional pop star. I just find illness, like God and death, fertile ground for songwriting.
There is something puppy-doggish about him, with his hair flopping down, spaniel-like, onto his shoulders, and his large, sad, beagle-brown eyes. In 1989, they landed their own gig at the festival.

With his earnings from The Ghosts That Haunt Me, Roberts was then able to buy himself a three-storey house in Winnipeg, equip it with a 24-track recording studio and begin work on a second album. ", Reid, a classically trained pianist who has known Roberts since their days at the University of Winnipeg, says that irony underscores everything he does.

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