On June 27 and 28, the city of Norwich will hosting a road race, craft vendors, bands and music — all with free admission.
This year’s Rose Arts festival also features the likes of Eryka Fir from the Westerly, Rhode Island fuzz metal duo Coma Hole, Hartford funk fusion band Jelly, Boston indie rockers Hush Club, Providence country artist Jake Hunsinger, New York City soul singer Kendra Morris and the Bloomington, Indiana funk act The Main Squeeze among many others including reggae rockers Passafire, from Savannah, Georgia, on the Chelsea Parade Stage at 3 p.m. on the June 28.
I had a chance to talk with vocalist and guitarist Ted Bowne about two new singles the band has been involved with over the past few months, a few bands from the New England region having a notable influence on Passafire’s sound and the hopes for making a new album at some point.
RD: So far this year, Passafire has been part of a couple collaborative tracks, one with Ganjacat called “Firefly” and the other being a remix of the Dubbest tune “Slow Burn”, so how did these come together? Were they both done remotely or was the one with Gangjacat done in person?
TB: They were both done remotely. Dubbest is a band that we had the pleasure of booking a tour with, they supported us starting in Colorado back in 2023 and we became fast friends on that tour. I think we have a lot in common with those guys and Ryan [Thaxter], who is the singer and keyboard player in Dubbest, reached out to me and just asked if I would be interested in doing a remix and a new verse for that song. Of course I was interested, I’m pretty much always interested in those kinds of projects with bands I like, so I took their vocal stem. They sent me all of the stems for the track, and I changed the tuning of the vocals to a minor version of the chords that they were playing.
Then I replayed all of the instruments in this minor progression, so that’s how that one came about. Ganjacat lives close by, they live in Virginia Beach while I live in Maryland, but we shared files on the internet and I ended up just using their vocals as well to create an instrumental track. They went back and added more instrumental stuff after I finished, so it was a collaborative thing and I got our keyboard player Mike [DeGuzman] to play some keys on it as well, so it was a collaborative effort over the internet.
RD: When it comes to collaboration in the overall sense, do you have a distinct approach or does it all depend on the person you’re doing a project with?
TB: Each one tends to be a little bit different. Usually, the average collaboration that happens for me is that someone has a track, it has an open verse, and they ask me to add a verse there. They’ll also ask me to add some adlibs and maybe some harmonies on the chorus to make it more together and more cohesive. That’s kind of the average thing that I do, I’ll add a verse to somebody’s thing, but more recently I’ve been getting into doing full remixes and reworking songs differently than they are at first. There’s a bunch of stuff, I can’t think of them off the top of my head, but there’s a bunch of stuff out there that I’ve done this process with.
RD: Very cool. With Passafire performing at the Rose Arts Festival this weekend, do you feel that outdoor festivals are the ideal setting for the band’s reggae infused sound? What are your overall thoughts when it comes to performing in this type of atmosphere versus clubs, arenas or other venues?
TB: Reggae music can exist in any situation. I like playing in clubs, I like playing outside and I like playing the amphitheatres we did with Rebelution and Iration. I like playing in any scenario, but if we are playing outside. I do prefer for there to be something over us in case it rains, but other than that, I really do enjoy playing outside. It’s something about just feeling the air, the wind and the sun while seeing people enjoying themselves, so I’m really excited for this festival.
RD: It should be a great time, I went last year and it was really fun. You mentioned that you live in Maryland, but Passafire originally started out in Savannah, Georgia, so coming from that area of the country in the Mid-Atlantic and the Southeast, what are your thoughts on performing in Connecticut and the New England region?
TB: We’ve been coming to New England since 2005 or 2006 and we’ve been performing in Connecticut specifically since about that time as well. My first thought is that I hope it’s a lot cooler up there than down here in Maryland. This heat wave is definitely a thing, but I love touring in the Northeast and there is somewhat of a strong reverence for reggae music. It’s more of an authentic reggae music love. I know John Brown’s Body has origins in the area as well as Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad. When us and The Movement came up in the Southeast, we were listening to those bands and that’s how we got our sound.
RD: It’s cool that you have that particular influence. Are there any plans for a new studio album from Passafire in the near future? I know it’s been a couple years since you guys put out your previous one “Remember a Time”.
TB: We definitely plan to record another album. However, I wouldn’t say that we’re on a full hiatus, but we’re not touring. The only time that we get together is when we fly out and do shows and we really only do a couple shows a month. It would really come down to us finally getting our act together and booking some time to write and record some music, which needs to happen for sure. We’re not trying to rush anything and we definitely don’t plan to do a giant tour behind an album because we’ve changed up our model. To answer your question, I don’t know when, but there will be more Passafire music when we find the time to actually put that down.