The departure of the singer, guitarist and songwriter comes just days after the loss of singer-keyboardist Barbara Menendez.  However, during an interview Tuesday, Radecker insists her leaving the band was not the direct reason for his following suit.

"People think that when Barbara left, we couldn't handle it and split up," he said.  "But that's not exactly what happened.  We were going to stick together after she left.  That was the plan.   But the band kept coming up with songs that just were not in my ballpark.   That's what made me decide to quit."

"I quit on Sunday.  Monday the three of them (remaining Cold members Vance DeGeneres, Bert Smith, and Chris Luckette) said they would continue.  Now I just heard a couple of hours ago that Chris is going to join the Rockabyes, which leaves just Bert and Vance, who are not going to continue.   I just found this out.  Vance says it's definite.  There will be no more Cold."

Radecker's unhappiness with the group apparently stemmed more from musical differences than anything else.  He singled out recent changes in the group's repertoire as the biggest problem.   "The new songs I objected to were lightweight," he said.  "They were nothing substantial.  I objected to 'No Place I Can Go,' 'The Warning,' and 'Parnell Pitcher.'  They were just light pop, sort of a 1976 Wings sound.  Some of them were love songs, some of them had hooks, some of them didn't.  But there was nothing special about them as far as I'm concerned.

On the group's failure to get a record contract and national exposure, Radecker claimed he is frankly puzzled.  "We almost broke up about six months ago," he said, "but we tried harder to get a record contract that never happened.  Barbara just exercised her option.  If we had gotten the contract, things might have been different.  It's still a mystery to me why we didn't get one.  Bruce Spizer, our manager, always said, 'Don't ever mention the words 'new wave' because that's the kiss of death.  Just call yourselves pop-rock; be clean-cut kids having fun.'  And that was actually printed in Billboard once.  It was like, what were we, a bunch of idiot puppets?"

"Meanwhile, the Red Rockers, an unabashed punk band out of New Orleans, comes along.  They never got on the radio, they never had very big crowds.  But suddenly they're in Rolling Stone, with an album that's on a subsidiary of Columbia.  Somebody did something right with them."

With a lineup that included 5 instrumentalists, all of whom sang and wrote songs, the Cold's recent repertoire totaled 39 original tunes and 28 cover versions.  Radecker was quick to admit that everyone in the band contributed songs he liked.  "Some of my favorites were 'Missing Hit Man', 'Thanks a Lot', 'Hot Ride' and 'Wake Up'.  I liked the covers.  My favorite song with the Cold was 'My Way'.  That was one of the first songs we did with Totally Cold.  But at the end we weren't doing that one much.  We started out very close musically, but then disagreed.  It was fun back then to do songs like 'I'm Down', 'Vincent', 'Dock of the Bay' and 'You Know My Name'.  But somewhere along the way we lost our sense of humor and urgency about those songs."

Regarding the band's last single, "Missing Hit Man" / "Do the Dance", he said, "I wasn't satisfied with it.  I thought it was over-produced.  It was played and sung pretty well, but the guy who produced it, Craig Leon, overdid it.  We also did 'Come on Over' at that session, and the guitars were de-emphasized.  That's a driving rock song, and he did exactly what a producer shouldn't do with a band like us, and that's cool us down."

As for his future in music, Radecker admitted to having doubts.  Asked about joining another band, he said "I don't know if anyone will ask me.  There's not that many bands in town that I'd like to play with.  The one band I'd like to be in is with David Brewton and Steve Walters (two ex-Normals).  They're both in town, but neither of them wants to be in a band.   The Normals were the ideal performance band.  I don't know how their music might be translated onto record, but they were the best performance band I ever heard.   Both Brewton and Walters have jobs and are married.  They've been approached before about joining bands and they've both said no."

He summed up his views on the group he's leaving:  "The newer Cold songs seemed directed at modern, early-80s radio, which is something we never tried to do before.  We just happened to get on the radio with the songs we liked.  I don't want to seem like I'm running anyone down.   We've been together so long.  Our differences were musical.  Nobody knows what they're going to do at this point.  It's not the best way to end it."