Thomas McAlevey is an American radio entrepreneur, writer, filmmaker, and adventurer.
Background
Thomas McAlevey, youngest of four sons in a family of seven, grew up in Rockland County, New New York 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.
Education
Tisch School of the Arts.
Career
He is the brother of filmmaker Peter McAlevey and labor organizer Jane McAlevey. 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 Bayerische Motoren Werke 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" (as in one-armed bandit). He underwent massive spinal surgery and spent two years in and out of hospitals.
In 1990, McAlevey graduated from New York University with a degree in filmmaking. In 1993, he founded the first of several corporations, Bandit Communications Bachelor of Arts. 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.
After years of adventure that spanned five continents, in 2010, McAlevey settled for the second time in Los Los Angeles
He founded and is currently Chief Executive Officer 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 United States, and the Philippines, where Radical.FM also has offices.