Los Angeles needs all the help it can get when it comes to the environment. Even singers, songwriters, musicians and bands can help. Randy, a longtime environmental activist closely involved with non-profits and green lobbyists, tries to help spread the message through his music.

Since very early in his musical career, Randy has been passionate about environmental topics, and bringing that concern to the minds of his listeners to help promote positive change. On his first album, Heavenly Blues, recorded in 1992, Randy sings,

“Once was a green field, now it’s a busy factory. Inside people are making money, outside people can’t hardly breathe. Cry out, to the heavenly blues…love the world before it kills you.”

Not exactly Pulitzer material perhaps, but the sentiment was in place early, since this song was probably written circa 1989.

Perhaps the most direct statement of Randy’s pro-environmental philosophy was defined by the release of his CD, Downstream, in 1998. The title itself refers to all of our lives being connected to the past and how we live in the world we created yesterday, and how we will live in the world tomorrow that we create today, and so will our children, and so on. The title track of the album is a testament to the importance of solidarity on the green front, and about being aware of the consequences of our actions.

“And if I throw it on the ground, and say ‘who cares, it doesn’t matter anyhow’ I forget it might be found by someone else a hundred years from now, Downstream. It’s in everything we do…” etc.

And perhaps the most well known and vehement of Randy’s political songs, The Wheel, reminds us that our actions don’t stop in our backyard, or even at our shores, they affect the whole planet.

“The Wheel don’t stop at the waves. The sun never stays on the edge of the world…The moon won’t sleep in the sand, everyone’s just gotta find their way…”

In some more recent material, Randy’s dedication to the environmental movement, and to political progress, has remained strong. In the song, Plantation, off the unreleased 2003 album with 5th Hour, All is Love, the lyrics are intended to remind us that our fortitude is tempered in the fires of adversity:

“The harder the wind, the deeper the root is driven underground. The drier the sand, the stronger the seed that dares to sprout. Life, fragile life…”