It’s a class reunion! 🎓

The band signed to A&M Records in 1998, and now they’ve unearthed a collection of demos and unreleased songs from that era. We dig into those rediscovered tracks, revisit the band’s history, and talk about what the L.A. scene was really like back then.

Kevin Ridel is the voice and songwriter behind ’90s power-pop favorites Ridel High and later AM Radio. He got his start in the ’80s fronting Avant Garde alongside a pre-Weezer Rivers Cuomo and has remained a fixture of the L.A. music scene ever since.

Steve Coulter, drummer for Ridel High, is also an author and editor under the name S.W. Lauden. Beyond playing in the scene, he’s helped document it—co-editing the power-pop anthology Go All the Way, curating the Generation Blue oral history project, and writing the must-read Substack Remember the Lightning.