Jolly Llamas

Dread City Rockers

“From the beginning we knew that if we were going to make an album, we were going to make a good album,” says Jolly Llamas frontman Brent Hagerman of his group’s long-awaited new record. “There couldn’t be anything half-assed about it. We knew we were going to take our time and work on it until it was done, until it was right. We could have finished it two years ago, but because we did spend so much time with it, we kept hearing things that could improve. Over the course of those years, I think the album really got better and better. Plus we all have jobs and families and Ph.D’s to work on and stuff like that.”

For those counting, it’s been nearly four years since the Jolly Llamas’ (singer-guitarist Brent Hagerman, drummer Ian Mollison, bassist Chris Robinson, organist Scott Wicken), last album, an effort which established their reputation as the area’s finest progenitors of fiery, experimental, roots-based reggae. The new album is Dread City Rockers, which not only delivers the best twelve songs of the band’s career, but also proudly celebrates the band’s deep love and knowledge of authentic reggae music. The Llamas had help though, and they barely had to cross town to find it.

“We did it with Brian Alexanian at Zane Studios in the Belmont Village,” says Hagerman between pulls off of a cold pint on a swelteringly humid day in uptown Waterloo. “The reason we went to him was because, (local singer-songwriter), Mike Alviano told me that he toured with the Wailers and I was like ‘Really?! There’s a guy in Kitchener that toured with the Wailers?!’ So I immediately called him and I was pretty overzealous at the time and I thought it may have turned him off a little, but he was cool. He toured with them in the late seventies/early eighties and he’d been a soundman in Toronto for years, working with all the reggae bands that came through. He had all these amazing reggae credentials and that’s what I was looking for. He had spent time in Jamaica and he knew a lot about the music, so that’s why we went to him. The album took something like three or four years from start to finish, but that’s only cause we wanted to make it as close to perfect as possible.”

Alexanian’s production skills and laundry-list of hardcore reggae cred certainly did much to buoy the spirit of the album, but he was working with guys who could speak his language. Hagerman has devoted the last decade or so of his life to reggae and the Jamaican culture, a fact that might surprise people upon first meeting the demure, white, academic family man from Kitchener.

“Well, I haven’t lived here my entire life” he explains. “I grew up in Bermuda and reggae was the sound when I was growing up, everywhere in the Caribbean. In the early eighties I was pretty much only listening to Yellowman and, of course, Bob Marley. It wasn’t until I came back to Canada though, as a teenager listening to indie rock or whatever, that I found myself really wanting to connect with reggae music again. Strangely enough, Big Sugar was the band that made me realize that. I remember hearing 500lbs and thinking, ‘Oh, here’s a band with a strong reggae influence that doesn’t suck!’ Cause in the eighties there were a lot of bad reggae bands, with a really soft, overly-processed sound. Big Sugar sort of became a template for us when we started the Jolly Llamas, and once we started my fascination just grew. I was listening to a lot of reggae, writing reggae music, and even writing about reggae, (notably a remarkably comprehensive feature on Sly & Robbie for Exclaim!). Then I ended up quitting my job to go back to school and get my Ph.D studying, of course, reggae.”

This detailed study of the tenets of reggae and the Rasta culture was instrumental in raising the Llamas above the level of your average frat-boy party band. Unlike rock ‘n’ roll, in which an evolution from the tried and true methods and traditions of the genre is pretty much essential if a band wants to be relevant and successful, reggae demands that you not stray too far, lest you be accused of dumbing-down a sacred cultural touchstone. It’s a fine line that the Jolly Llamas deftly maneuver.

“I think there are a lot of purists who would agree with that,” concedes Hagerman. “I think the main reason for that is that it’s really easy to play bad reggae. An offbeat here, an upstroke on the guitar there. But if you want to play authentic reggae, you have to go past Bob Marley! You have to delve deeper into the sixties with ska and rocksteady, and Toots & The Maytals in 1967. What we tried to do was learn that stuff and then fit it into our own context. I like to see how far we can take the music, but at its core have it still be reggae. I think with our album there are some very roots-reggae songs, like “Ease Up” or “People Don’t Help People”. But on, say, “Dub City”, we’re trying to take an authentic reggae song, but put a scrappy rock band on top of it. For some people that would be taking it too far, but I’ve always liked experimenting with that. Bands like The Clash and The Ruts did that very well.”

It would seem like an ideal time for reggae musicians. Bands like Bedouin Soundclash have shown that there is a huge demand for reggae music beyond the purists and rastas. They’ve shown that reggae can be for everyone. After all, it’s great dance music and everyone likes to dance, right? Hagerman isn’t so sure.

“I think everyone loves the stereotype of reggae, which is like, you know, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. People say they love reggae, but mostly they just like happy, uplifting music. That’s fine, but go listen to Bob Marley’s “Ambush In The Night”. That is not happy music. I keep hoping that there is a large audience for reggae, but I haven’t found it yet.”

The Jolly Llamas may find that audience yet. Their love of the genre is as infectious as the hooks that make tracks like “Dub City”, “Toast Coloured Girl”, and “Information Cage” instant classics. With reverence, precision, (and some sweet Hammond work), Hagerman and co. have crafted a definitive reggae album which will hopefully inspire others to follow suit and just say no to faux-reggae.

“You know, when I made the decision to quit my job to get my Ph.D, I knew that I had to make sure that it was something that I was not going to get tired of. I realized that reggae music has fascinated me for the last ten years and it’s just getting more and more intense and I’m not going to get tired of it in the next four years. I can make a career out of this.”

(originally published June 2007, Echo Weekly. Kitchener.)