INhonolulu Magazine Issue #14 - February 2014 | Page 30

From page 29
SM: It just stuck. It’s very spiritual
while also being short and sweet. We
wanted to put Breath of Fire behind
us and try a completely new thing.
Danny was originally a drummer, but
we really wanted a keyboard player.
All the new music we were thinking
about, we were like “Oh, we could really use a keyboard for this.” Instead of
going out and finding a new element to
mesh with the chemistry that the three
of us already had, we decided to put
Danny on keys. Between all of us, being
that we all play drums, we figured we
could write the drum parts [laughs].
JR: We like the versatility—everyone plays multiple instruments. This
is important to the creative process.
Also, we all have different backgrounds—East Coast, New York hip
hop vibe, the hardcore metal scene—
and with that we mix it up, adding the
roots reggae vibe here in Hawai‘i. We
like to play what we like to play at any
given time; we like to diversify.
Page 30

JAI keeps us open to whatever we
want to incorporate. We’ve been moving in a positive direction. We worked
on our album here and hopefully it
will be coming out shortly.

JR: That’s what it’s about: working
hard, being spontaneous—that gets
the creative juices flowing. Whatever people want to do, you have to be
open to it, you know?

SM: It’s a new style of writing for us too.
When you come to our live shows, you
realize that they have a certain edge to
them. We have a lot of energy and play
a faster pace. When we got backed by
a label, we decided to try some experimental stuff with more island vibes.
We started doing things we’ve never
done before, as far as chord progressions, arrangements, vocal harmonies. It was a really big curve ball and
we decided to run with it anyway, to
kind of see where it would land us. At
times it was really con