Thomas McAlevey is an American radio entrepreneur, writer, filmmaker, and adventurer.
Early life
Thomas McAlevey, youngest of four sons in a family of seven, grew up in Rockland County, New York. He is the brother of filmmaker Peter McAlevey and labor organizerJane McAlevey. His father, John McAlevey, was a locally elected politician known for his innovative land use planning concepts. The loss of his mother to cancer when Tom was 11 left his family in turmoil. After moving around a lot in his teens, McAlevey settled in Los Angeles at 20 and pursued acting, martial arts, and motorsports. At 24, he set off by motorcycle and circumnavigated the world for two years. At 27, while riding his English registered BMW motorcycle back from the Long Beach Grand Prix in California, he was struck by a drunk driver in a car. The impact broke his back and neck, and took his entire left arm, earning him the nickname "Bandit". He underwent massive spinal surgery and spent two years in and out of hospitals.
Media career
In 1990, McAlevey graduated from New York University with a degree in filmmaking. He married a Swedish woman, moved to Stockholm, and fathered two daughters, Pernilla and Marika. In 1993, he founded the first of several corporations, Bandit Communications AB. Bandit Radio quickly became Stockholm's most popular rock radio station, eventually reaching most of Sweden. He founded two smaller Swedish networks, Radio Lapland and Right on Radio, as well as a large nightclub on the Swedish resort island of Gotland. In 1999 McAlevey founded Tomsradio.com, a pioneer of streaming music that predated Pandora Radio and Spotify. In 2004, McAlevey set off with a Japanese camerawoman on a dune buggy adventure that had him crisscrossing Africa blogging and filming for several years. Those travels eventually resulted in the award-winning documentary movie, Adventuress Wanted.
Present
After years of adventure that spanned five continents, in 2010, McAlevey settled for the second time in Los Angeles. He founded and is currently CEO of Radical.fm, a streaming radio service that competes with Pandora. In 2015, Radical released a unique feature, RadCasting, which allows synchronous listening on different accounts. McAlevey also writes about the music and streaming music industries. McAlevey calls three countries home, Sweden, the US, and the Philippines, where Radical.FM also has offices.
