A shining example of building a community through music in an organic way, Massachusetts-born, San Diego-based reggae outfit Dubbest continues to build momentum at every opportunity. Their tenure playing together as artists has spanned across four decades, and the relationships they have built in that time more than reflect this level of familiarity and comfort. From relentless touring, consistent fan engagement, to dependable releases of new music, including their newest single Irreplaceable, out everywhere this week, the group continues to make their name known at the highest levels of the reggae scene.
Grateful Web had a chance to sit down with the group at this year’s Cali Roots festival in Monterey and talk with them all about their ever-growing place in the reggae world, the relationships they have fostered with their fans, and everything on the horizon amidst their cascading success.
Grateful Web: Congratulations on your first time playing Cali Roots. How does it feel to finally get to play the biggest stage in Monterey and how has this festival been in relation to your radar?
Cory Mahoney: We’ve been trying to get on this festival for probably 10 years, and it’s pretty amazing to finally get the invite to be here. And we’re playing on the bowl, so we’re extremely excited to be a part of this. This festival is the number one reggae festival in the country, so just being a part of it at all is huge for any band.
Andrew MacKenzie: Yeah, major bucket list fest for us. We’re super excited. We’ve been hearing about this festival since we were living in Massachusetts, and it just seemed like the place to be, so this definitely big for us, we’re excited.
Kyle Hancock: It’s Massive.
GW: A few days ago, you guys got tapped for a big set upgrade. Bigger stage, better timeslot, how did that happen, and what were your reactions?
Ryan Thaxter: It feels amazing.
AM: Yeah, we just kind of got reached out to with some good news. Basically it was just an email telling us, “Hey, you guys are going to be playing at 1:45 on the bowl instead of 11:45 on the Cali Roots stage.”
RT: Yeah, it was short and sweet. We didn’t get a lot of explanation or anything, they just told us this is our new time, and we were completely elated. Our minds were blown, for sure. It’s a great opportunity.
KH: Yeah, someone backed out, and we were given the upgrade.
GW: Having been fans of the festival since living back East, how many family and friends do you know you have watching the live stream back home, and what kind of nationwide anticipation have you heard about leading up to your set?
RT: Lots, for sure. We've got people all over the place. We have some family and friends here in person, too. My parents are actually going to be here. We have all kinds of people with us here today, but we have family on board for sure.
GW: In making the decision to relocate from New England to San Diego, what prompted you to all make that leap together, and why did you settle on San Diego?
KH: Yeah, we had basically started touring back when we were living all together, where we grew up in Southeastern Massachusetts, and eventually we toured out to the West Coast, we loved it, and we kind of wanted to be in the epicenter of where the reggae scene in the U.S. was happening. So we all made the decision to move together, it took about a year to prepare, but we just made the jump in the beginning of 2016, and it’s been great.
GW: You guys have been working on this project together since High School. In that time, how do you feel you’ve grown together, developed your relationships with each other, and how do you think you know each other differently than you did 15 years ago?
CM: I mean, we’re kind of like a family at this point. We’ve been playing together since elementary school, middle school, and high school is when we met Kyle, our drummer, so we’ve been playing in all sorts of bands since we were kids. It was when we graduated high school that we formed Dubbest to really focus on reggae and dub music, but we know each other in and out, we know everything. We have an unspoken communication. We do a lot of jamming when we rehearse, and we feed off each others’ vibes. We don’t need to talk about things in music. It just happens naturally, which is great, and we all get along perfectly, so there’s no bad vibes at all. It’s pretty easy, we lucked out, I think.
GW: A few years back, you had an album and tour that was largely crowdfunded. What do you think that says about your relationship with your fans, and what did that experience teach you?
AM: Well, we definitely were fortunate to have a lot of people who were willing to help us out and be a part of what we were trying to do, because when you start from nothing, absolutely nothing, like a couple of dudes just playing our instruments at the same time, it’s hard to imagine branching out and connecting with people. Overall, it just felt really encouraging, exciting, and it reminded us of the purpose of why you play music. You know, you want it to reach the people, you want it to strike an emotion or take you back to a memory, you know? So I think doing the crowdfunding and connecting with the audience in that way was pretty reassuring, and it just felt like we do have a purpose. We’re so grateful for all that, it was awesome.
CM: Yeah, I think we have a very organic following because we toured and we headlined tours ourselves before ever linking with any bands. We would just book our own tours and just travel around the country playing any bar that would have us. So we played some very small shows, and we’d make relationships with people all over the country who become pretty close to you. Then you see them every time you return, and they all tell their friends and family. I think we have a very organic fanbase, and they’re all super supportive, which is amazing.
AM: And even to this day, we’ll go to the merch table and connect with people. It’s funny, every city you roll into, there’s a handful that we feel close to because all of these years come back and getting to know them, and being able to continue the networking on social media, it just brings you crazy close. No matter how big your audience is, you can get in there and get personable with each of them. It’s pretty cool having friends all over the world, it’s awesome.
GW: I know you always have something coming down the pipeline, but what are you working on next that you’re most excited about?
RT: One thing we’re really excited about, right after this festival, we’re dropping this brand new song called “Irreplaceable.” We’re super excited about it. We went into the studio and recorded a couple of new songs, and the first one’s coming out. Super excited about that, it’s sort of a heavy, darker kind of dub sound. Classic Dubbest, so keep your eye out.
CM: Yeah, a lot of new music coming out, for sure. We’ve been focusing on pumping out new songs as much as possible, so keep your eye out for new music always. We’re trying to put out a new song every two months at least.
