B B r r u a c d e
Time has been kind to Crash Test
Dummies frontman Brad Roberts. First, his
signature baritone — as heard on 1993's
smash hit “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm”
(recently used in film soundtracks for Tag
and The Spy Who Dumped Me) — sounds as
rich and sonorous as ever on the group’s
were looking for voiceover work. Did
you find any?
BR: As a matter of fact, no. I never got one
callback. And I just couldn’t continue on
with it, because it got to the point where I
couldn’t have a life since I had to be ready
at any second to go uptown or downtown
to do these things. It was like putting my
life on hold. In one case, a potential employ-
er said they loved my voice, but they detect-
ed a certain Canadian accent. “But with
some training, we can help you get rid of
that,” they told me. So instead I started
working at the School of Rock in
Manhattan, teaching guitar.
Crash Test Dummies
IE: But you quit not long after. What
then?
BR: You know, I had a condition called
09•2019
current reunion tour, celebrating the 25th
anniversary of its landmark sophomore
effort, God Shuffled His Feet.” And second,
there is now a classy new cachet attached.
When Canadian and U.S. promoters got
wind of a one-off outdoor concert the origi-
nal members played in their native
Winnipeg in 2016, Roberts says, everybody
involved had had a blast doing it, and they
seized the moment and began charting
comeback concert itineraries. “They just
started booking tours, and we said fine,”
Roberts says. ‘And now here we are —back
with bells on.”
IE: When you first went on hiatus, you
restless leg syndrome, which is quite a
wimpy-sounding term for something as
devastating as it was. I just could not sleep,
month after month after month. And it got
to the point where the spasms in my legs
were so ridiculous; I would be kneeing
myself in the face every night while sleep-
ing. So I had to figure out something to do,
so I thought maybe doing yoga would help.
And I really dove into it deeply — I got a
private teacher, so I wasn’t just mucking
around, and I worked on that really hard for
seven years, until I ended up getting a
(yoga) teaching certificate, which was the
icing on the cake for me. So I taught for a
while until we decided to back on the road
and I had to stop.
IE: But you actually recorded an entire
album of mantras? That must sound pretty
ominous.
BR: That’s right — I did. That came out of
the yoga experiences. During teaching, I
met this professor of comparative religions,
and he taught Sanskrit and mantras, as
well. He was really enlightening, and from
his classes, I decided to set some mantras to
music. And most mantras that get set to
music over here are super mellow and
super soothing, and a little on the hippie
side. And you guessed right — mine is
much scarier. And therefore, that much
more interesting. I kind of made them for
some friends of mine, but they ended up on
the internet, and now there’s a cult-like fol-
lowing.
IE: Your voice doing an Om incantation?
Walls are probably rumbling five blocks
over.
BR: Well, I kind of thought that this was a
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