Venice Beach Dub Club continue to evolve sound while staying true to the band’s roots
Photo credit: Venice Beach Dub Club.
Daily Reggae caught up with California-based Venice Beach Dub Club to learn about the band’s new album, “VBDC II: Time Marches On”, their creative process, and how they continue to push musical boundaries to innovate in the scene.
Seth - Super exciting to hear about Venice Beach Dub Club’s new album, “VBDC II: Time Marches On” due out this July! How did the band mix it up in the writing or producing process for this record?
I wrote, composed and arranged everything myself. The two exceptions would be instrument solos (guitar, horns, etc) and featured artists.
Production wise, most of the work was engineered by Big G, who also mixed and mastered everything. Benji (Bass 2 Zion Productions) engineered “Stay Cool” and “Woke Up Feeling High Today”.
Speaking of writing new songs, what do the advance singles mean to you? Any fun stories of how they came together?
For singles, I usually pull the songs that are naturally “pop.” I’ve never tried to change anything to make it more digestible. I came up with Stay Cool in 2022 and thought “well, that sounds like a hit” so we put a live horn section on it, shot a high quality music video and promoted it as best we could. It’s a contemporary dancehall tune, which was new territory for me at the time. The whole process took about 2 years.
It’s a similar story with “Find Out” except the process moved much faster. That song was written in 2023 and finished in a couple months. It had this dancey, Daft Punk, discotheque vibe that I haven’t heard in Reggae before. I knew it needed a rapper on it to really connect, and brought on Dizzy Dustin, whom I happened to be working alongside at DiPiazzas.
How did the band originally come together and how has it evolved over the years?
It was a life reset for me. I quit my career and moved to Cali to make Reggae. Once I got here, I rented a place with a roofdeck and started throwing open jam sessions. Reggae people turned up and became my friends and eventually band members. That was 2016 and since then, like a dozen band members have come and gone. I guess I can make it work with whoever but I wouldn’t want to do it without Big G and Benji.
Musically, I hope it's evolved for the better but I guess we’ll see how people like the new album. It’s more experimental and musically diverse, which turns me on at least.
Pumped to hear Gary “Big G” Larason’s electric guitar solos in the album! What type of guitar did he use during the recording of the album and does he use the same one on-stage?
I think he’s mostly a Telecaster guy but he has a lot of guitars. I can say that the amount of different styles he solos in on this album is jaw dropping (from Country, to Blues, to Heavy Metal.) I don’t think I have a favorite song that doesn’t feature an epic guitar solo. That was a requirement in my day. Now bands get away with doing a lot less but I need that substance.
Photo credit: Venice Beach Dub Club.
Speaking of on-stage, where can fans catch the band live this summer?
No said dates, so far. We really haven’t got any love from the bookers since the lockdowns and we’re not in the scene, parting it up all night and making relationships like that. If anyone wants to see us live, please let your local venue booker know and we’ll do our best! We rehearsed a ton last year so we’re good and ready if opportunities arrive.
Time Marches On’ took three years to make. Can you talk about what changed in your life — and musically — during that time that shaped this album?
My life just continues to fall to pieces post-2020. I won’t depress you with the details! The relationship between the quality of my life and the quality of my creative output is inverse: the harder it gets for me, the better the music turns out. There’s a reason most of the best writers die young (and if I had been chosen to make it to the big leagues, I would have too.)
I’m still alive, however, and I’m invested in seeing how good the music can get.
Find Out’ features Dizzy Dustin from Ugly Duckling. How did that collaboration come about, and what did he bring to the track that you didn’t expect?
He was working the door at DiPiazzas in LBC and I was the MC for the Reggae nights. I didn’t realize he was a famous rapper until Big G made me aware (I’m from NYC and not well versed in West Coast Hip-Hop.)
The song at that point was just a hook about nothing. Dizzy sort of shaped the direction of the song with his verse. I decided to break it into two verses and go back and forth between it and my own verses. It’s nice when a feature can appear on an entire track as opposed to just recording a generic verse remotely and emailing it to you!
Can you give us a little behind-the-scenes on the next single, ‘Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em’? What's the story or vibe you were chasing on that one?
That one was a little bit of a derivation from my organic writing process. The titular phrase was a motto for my now-defunct podcast and a lot of the listeners demanded I make a song with that title. So I treated it like a writing assignment. With a title so overt, I wanted to make the song sound like a festival anthem. I totally tried to channel Fortunate Youth and just write something people could groove out to. It ended up being one of the most musical tunes I’ve ever made, with something like 18 live instruments on the track. Shout out to Jeremy Park of Quinto Sol, who played lead guitar and electric piano, to give the track a distinct vibe.
VBDC had a #1 hit with ‘Purebloods’ during a very intense time in the world. How has your relationship to success — and to making music — evolved since then?
Well, the #1 single and album was very reaffirming at the time (2021) but to be honest, most of that traction was from my podcast listeners, not Reggae fans. Our support has dwindled since then, sadly, and our last single debuted something like #60.
Hopefully we can start making forward progress again with VBDC II but honestly, it’s not nearly as important to me anymore. The music is getting way better and if people are responding to it less, that’s out of my control. I’ll keep making the best music I can, for myself.
Beyond the album, what’s next for VBDC? More collaborations? Touring? Any surprises you can tease for your fans?
Yes, there are a lot of surprise features on the new album. One is a pretty severe mind-bender, like “how’d that happen?!?) Touring is unlikely, unless the people show they have an appetite for it. We’re older cats and I’m not gonna coerce a bunch of grown men into playing weeknight pizza parlor gigs in Fresno, or anything like that.
I’ll give you a little news-breaking nugget, though: in addition to the two Christmas singles VBDC has released thus far, you can expect a full Christmas album in the coming years, with originals, covers, features and all that! Ho Ho Ho, I love Christmas!
