At first glance, Tampa's Rocksteady@8 appears one attractive, disruptive female alcoholic short of being the most interesting Real World cast ever. They're seven disparate men whose clothes, faces and demeanors communicate very real personalities and lives, the antithesis of the boy-band different-personality formula. It's hard to imagine a group of more different-looking guys joining forces to create original music and even harder to conjure circumstances under which they may have come together. In their own college-campus way, they make The Village People look like the Olsen twins.Provocateurs and drama-junkies would probably find the Rocksteady reality series a bit dry, however, because the septet shares a focus that could saw through an aluminum can and still dice tomatoes till Doomsday. This shared sense of purpose is undoubtedly a main ingredient in whatever adhesive that holds these individuals together; to find the reason they hooked up in the first place, look to one of the oldest and truest cliches around — it's all about the music, man.
"This band is a very diverse group of individuals who all came together to make good music," says vocalist/composer Jason Nwagbaraocha. "And I think collectively, we realize that you have to be more unified than divisive."
That idea of unity through diversity is touted ad nauseam on music-scene Web sites around the globe, but opinions, attitudes and some vague notion of competition generally limit the concept to lip service. With Rocksteady@8, on the other hand, it permeates every level of the band's methodology, from its makeup and message to its eclectic ska/roots reggae/world-beat sound and Groovewell promotional collective. Rocksteady is everything your average hotel-lounge reggae cover act (what the band refers to as "cruise-ship reggae") is not. They have boundless knowledge of and respect for the genre's history, offshoots and spiritual/political tenets. And they've got the talent and daring to build from that foundation, incorporating personal influences and other world-groove styles to create a sound all their own.
"When we use reggae as the core, then bust out into an African funk groove, people just go wild," says drummer Jonathan Priest. "So I think that to limit ourselves to being "just a reggae band' at this point … we all listen to all of that, so I see Rocksteady being more of a world/universal music kind of thing."
The band's musical core consists mainly of the early roots and rock-steady played in Jamaica during the late '60s and early '70s as ska was mutating into reggae. The members came by their love of old-school reggae via different channels — Priest through parents' record collections, bassist Miles Hanson through English Two-Tone, trumpeter Brian Aulisio through the punk scene's dalliance with third-wave ska — but Priest's lovingly compiled home-mix CDs cemented their infatuation with its oft-overlooked origins.
"I didn't discover a lot of this stuff until they started burning CDs for everyone to check out," Aulisio says. "Jacob Miller, he's one of my favorites, and I never would have found the guy had I not been in this band."
Rub Up Push Up, Rocksteady@8's debut full-length disc, is both a celebration of and education in reggae's primal styles, executed with ace musicianship and a tangible passion for the form. More trance-inducing than a Marley-size spliff, Rub Up Push Up's throbbing grooves, call-and-response refrains and finely weighted balance of fun, love and politics sound cutting-edge when compared to the standard protest and dancehall fare — even though the record's inspiration came from long before.
"People aren't familiar with this brand of reggae. It's like we're playing something fresh and new when, in fact, we're just raiding the vaults," Priest says with a laugh.
Rub Up Push Up is coming out on Groovewell, an imprint/Web site/co-op created by Priest to promote Rocksteady and his other band, the edgy-jazz outfit Ghetto Love Sugar.
Rocksteady@8 (rounded out by guitarist Bryan Zink, keyboardist John Richardson and saxophonist Rob deDios) has already moved beyond the scope of their brand-new record. It always happens. You write, tighten and record a killer set of songs, then by the time the disc comes out, you've got a whole new set's worth of stuff you think is better. Having established the heart of their particular style, the septet is now intent on further incorporating the personalities of its members, and exploring their influences to the fullest.
"What we're working on now as a band is incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythms, funk — we all have different influences," says Priest. "John plays in a jazz group, Miles is a jazz student, Rob plays in (local jam band) Food. We all come from different backgrounds, and now it's time for these styles to start emerging."
"We try to take that to the next level with Cuban music, salsa, because all that has been really influenced by Jamaican music. So we're trying to bring our own signature, our own style," adds Nwagbaraocha. "All these musicians here are top-notch. They're able to free up different styles at a moment's notice, and that's always a fun thing.
"And it really hasn't been done before. You don't see live bands able to go from a "one-drop' roots style and sprout into a serious dancehall style, or serious juju music, or Nigerian."
With a slew of successful sets (most of them opening for extremely well-known reggae stars) under its collective belt, the band has noticed a jammy, improvisational aspect creeping into its live show, as well.
"We just click. In a live setting, when people are all dancing, I may feel like changing into a funk thing, and these guys are right with it," Priest says. "That spontaneity some jam bands have, that organic nature, we're trying to bring to reggae."
As bold or experimental as the group's commingling of styles might become, it remains grounded in their love of roots reggae's powerful groove. While none of the members are full-blown Rastafarians by any means, they speak with conviction of relating wholeheartedly to the culture's tenets of unity, struggle and overcoming. At a recent Skipper's Smokehouse show, they had a caterer provide unprocessed, wholly natural Rasta I-tal cuisine for the crowd. The notion of rising above oppression, of chanting down "Babylon," echoes in their reverence for Jamaican musical tradition.
"We are very sympathetic to the underlying philosophies," affirms Priest. "The external stuff, we don't embrace that, but beyond that … by playing all these different styles and showing the interconnectivity, if you read about true Rastafarian philosophy, that's at the core. I think we do reflect that, in having a diverse bunch of guys playing and sharing. That's a spiritual connection.
"I definitely want to use music, use Groovewell, use our performances to enlighten people when we can. That's part of the joy."
Music critic Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2002.