Embodying the mentality of their home in Santa Barbara, alt reggae outfit Cydeways has always championed the ideals of celebrating all the small things around them, while living with a youthful sense of reckless abandon. From the music they produce to their charismatic personas offstage, they remind their fans of the love we all found for music in our youth. Even after years of playing and touring together, they still take every opportunity to joke amongst each other like childhood friends, and it is not hard to see why their relationships with artists and fans are growing by the day.
Grateful Web got to sit down with Cydeways at this year’s Cali Roots festival in Monterey and spoke with them about their recent strides in the industry, the identity they have found within their music, and the ways they keep themselves grounded while on the road.
Grateful Web: Over the last few years, you guys have been invited to contribute to a plethora of reggae compilation albums, including the Cali Roots Riddim series, Pop Punk Goes Reggae, and The House That Bradley Built. How have you seen this as a reflection of the way your place in the reggae community has grown over the years?
Casey Kernohan: Well, that’s a nice reminder. Shoot, I mean a lot of those projects specifically Dustin spearheaded, but I think generally over the last few years, just between touring and working on compilation projects like those, I think we’re just developing more of a name for ourselves within this community. Specifically, today, we played here two years ago, and even two years later just the number of people coming to our merch table, or singing our songs, or people who say “hi” while we’re walking around, there’s just more of them, and we’re super thankful for it. Anything any of you guys want to add to that?
Dustin Parks: Great words. Tattoo that on my body, that was majestic.
GW: With that said, reggae really has become the genre with the most features on singles and collaborations between artists in their music. What is it about this community that invites artists to come together in the studio?
DP: I think everyone’s very close friends with each other in this community, and it always makes a cool song when you collab. It’s all about connections. Every feature we’ve had, there’s always been a good buddy of ours. The whole reggae scene does that, and we love that. It’s a good sign when you work with people that you love and artists who are your idols.
Kevin Harvey: I mean, front to back, even the fans, too. I know everyone says it, but it’s truly a community when you get these fans and you become friends. It really is such a welcoming and collaborative community, start to finish.
GW: Your music checks a lot of reggae boxes, but your sound crosses over into the alt-rock, pop-punk genre, too. Why do you think those genres blend so well?
DP: We’ve been such big fans of alternative music and I’m a sucker for blink-182, but I love reggae too, obviously, so we’ve always tried to match those two together into a blink and Sublime kind of a vibe. I think it works, it’s just two of our favorite styles of music, basically.
KH: I’m glad he’s sitting over there because I would never say this to Dustin’s face, but I think Dustin’s voice goes well. He can sing a good reggae song, and he can sing a good pop-punk song. I think people like it and I like to play to it.
DP: It brings up the tempo on the songs and keeps people going.
CK: I think with both of those styles, too, that’s what all three of us grew up listening to, and that’s what was popular when we were younger.
DP: We only listened to deep cuts.
CK: Yeah. We loved Slightly Stoopid and Sublime, but also blink-182 and Sum 41, so especially for Dusty, who’s the sole lyricist-
DP: -You guys are making me blush.
CK: I think it speaks to what he grew up listening to, and all three of us, we’re all a similar age, and that’s what was popular. I think that’s part of why we do that, but also why it works pretty naturally for us.
DP: And a lot of the songwriting, too, is very influenced by blink-182’s songwriting, just the harmonies, I learned a lot from them in how I write.
GW: So with that era of music being such a big part of you, do you have any opinions on Warped Tour coming back this year?
DP: Oh, I wish we were on it.
KH: Yeah, that’s our number one.
DP: I went to Warped Tour as a kid, I was probably 14 or 15, my Mom dropped me off at the gate, kind of a thing.
CK: Same here.
DP: It’s so cool that they’re finally back, and I’m sure it’s gonna rip.
CK: And there are some bands from our scene. I think Jakobs Castle is doing it.
KH: The Elovaters are on it.
CK: Yeah, and Surfer Girl is doing it, so it’s cool that they’re kind of diving into the reggae world and pulling out of that.
DP: It’s just a legendary festival.
KH: If those guys are listening, pick us up, too.
DP: Tell Kevin Lyman!
GW: So you guys really have become one of the biggest jewels in Law Records’ crown. What has your experience been like with them in building this band?
CK: They treat us so well. They treat us like family. Ye, and Paul the GM, we’re all in communication with them multiple times a week.
DP: That’s the best thing about them, we can call them anytime. And also, we’re the biggest Pepper fans, too.
CK: Yeah, we have weekly calls with them, I mean we’ll text them day and night for advice or whatever we need, and they’ll respond.
DP: We love Yesod. When we first got signed with him, we went out to lunch with him in Redondo Beach, and it was like meeting our idols.
CK: And then Paul took over and has just been absolutely crushing it.
DP: Yeah, very helpful.
CK: He’s doing great things and has been the nicest guy. We’re just truly lucky-
DP: That someone believes in us?
CK: Yeah, right? Even my Mom’s given up faith, but Paul’s still in our corner!
KH: Paul, we love you. But seriously, they’ve stepped outside the traditional record label role a bunch of times to help us when we were struggling with other things that all bands go through at different points. They’ve been super ride or die and loyal. We owe those guys a lot
DP: Great, great people.
GW: So with that, it’s easy to see why you’ve really come up over the last few years. More tours, bigger venues, lots more studio time, with all of these added time commitments, how do you make sure your family and loved ones still get the time and attention they deserve?
DP: Oh, they don’t. I can’t even hold a girlfriend. It’s a tough balance, for sure. I mean, for me, I put music over everything, which you kind of have to. You have work, then you have to go on tour, it’s definitely a tough balance, but you make it happen.
CK: Me and Kev are very fortunate. Kevin’s married, I have a long-term girlfriend-
DP: -Shoutout Karen!
CK: And we’re lucky to have found people who understand the lifestyle, and get it, and put up with our bullshit.
DP: Hard to find.
CK: We’re truly lucky for that.
DP: This takes over your life.
CK: It does, and honestly, having a solid home foundation is so, so, key. Being on tour is hard enough as it is without any extra pressure and stress, so just having a nice home base, it’s incredible.
DP: 100 percent. Someone who supports you is incredible. You need that.
KH: And the other thing, too, is obviously, and this is something that we’re getting better and better at as we grow, but balancing work and life. Things like paying your bills and taking care of the other things.
DP: And we live in Santa Barbara, California, which is not cheap.
KH: Yeah, and navigating all of that is a project, but I think trusting your partner, like Casey said, he and I both have long-term partners, so we’re lucky. But also trusting your bandmates-
DP: Oh, I don’t trust either of you guys.
KH: I couldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.
CK: That reminds me, we have this joke where our girlfriends, they’ve been to shows, but they think backstage is like a Mötley Crüe show, but it’s literally just us sitting on our phones. And we know our girls could go to a bar and pull any dudes faster than we could.
DP: We’re just eating pita chips and drinking vodka backstage.
CK: That’s about as crazy as it gets for us backstage.
DP: Pita chips and vodka. That should be the album title.
CK: Yeah, we’re very fortunate. And Dustin and I live together, Kevin lives five minutes up the road from us, so these guys are my best friends, it’s all like a family afair with all of us and our girlfriends and wives.
DP: High fives all around.
KH: I love you guys.
CK: We’re so fortunate to have each other and our Law Records team. And Kevin’s got his whole family tree out here today.
KH: Oh, it was like punishing our manager to get us like a million passes because my whole family wanted to come to this thing.
CK: How many dinner tickets can we get to this thing?
DP: We love Colin
CK: Yeah, Colin's our manager, we haven’t shouted him out. He’s doing great things for us, and we’re so lucky to work with him as well.
KH: Colin Blakley. He also does a lot of things with Good Vibez and Cali Roots, he’s awesome.
DP: Great guy. We love him.
CK: We’ve got some great people in our corner.
GW: Anything new on the horizon you’re excited about that you want to plug?
DP: Not our butts. But our new album drops in July, and our last single off of it is featuring Wax, the rapper. It’s really cool, it has, like, a Western kind of vibe.
KH: Breaking Bad vibes.
DP: Hip hop vibes.
KH: It’s cool.
DP: We wrote it like three years ago, and it’s finally coming out. Grateful to have Wax on it, it’ll be rad.
CK: We’ve been playing it live for about a year, so some fans may have heard it, and we’ve gotten some good responses to it over that time, so we’re fired up to finally drop it.
KH: And we have summer tours with Pepper and Ballyhoo! I think that gets us through August.
DP: We’re also doing Reggae Rise Up Oregon.
CK: Me and Dustin, we have the same birthday, and that show is that weekend.
GW: Before we go, what’s one question you’ve never gotten in an interview before?
KH: I’ll tell you the one we always get, because everyone knows Dustin is from Massachusetts and moved the band out west, so everyone always asks us, “Oh, so you’re from Massachusetts, tell us about moving the band out West.”
CK: And we’re like, come on, we all met in California.
