Tropidelic dives in with open minds in latest release, “All The Colors”

Photo courtesy of Ineffable Music.

Tropidelic released an amazing new album today titled, “All The Colors”. Look out for our review soon! We spoke with Tropidelic frontman, Matthew Roads to learn about the album’s creation, the band’s live shows, and collaboration with artists like Iration, Michael Franti, The Expendables, Little Stranger, 311, KBong, and Johnny Cosmic.

Your new album, “All The Colors”, is rocking! Tell us about the inspiration and creation of the album - how was this album different than your others? 

This will be our second album produced during the Covid era. We had more time and freedom then we’ve ever had before which allowed us to dive in with open minds. With each record we open up more and more to shared writing. There are 4 members who were primary writers for different songs on this record, more than there ever has been.

Who are some of the artists that you collaborated with and do you think you’ll play some live shows with them in the future? 

We’ve been blessed to get some great features on the record. We have a bunch of dates with 311 coming up, and have toured with The Expendables and Little Stranger. We’ll see what’s next!

How has summer been going? We saw that you've been touring a lot and have a bunch of tour dates coming up with 311! 

This summer has been incredible. We started off on a Midwest tour with Iration and hosted our second annual Sunny Days Festival in Ohio in May. We also just wrapped a West Coast tour which included dates with Michael Franti & Spearhead. We are going to cap it off big with our event, Everwild Music Festival on Aug 12+13 outside of Columbus, OH. This year we have Dirty Heads, HIRIE and more.

How does Tropidelic balance playing live shows vs. releasing new music? In other words, how much energy do you put into the two and how are they different? 

The amount of energy that goes into both is pretty comparable. The type of energy is very different though. It’s always been my philosophy that if you’re listening to a band, 99% of the time it will be on a sound recording, so catering albums to live performances never made a lot of sense to me or at least that aspect being a primary concern. We try to make the best recordings we can for the listener and put on the best live show possible for the audience. Sometimes they coalesce and sometimes it’s harder.

That's rad you have some upcoming shows with KBong, Johnny Cosmic and Mike Pinto in Florida. Would you say Florida has some of the most fun reggae shows?

Florida has definitely been a long time favorite spot for us. Not too many places can create the setting that some of the venues do down there. We are stoked to be back in November!