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After releasing its last two albums on Law Records, Passafire started its own label, FlameGuy Records, and released “Start From Scratch” in 2011.
A New Spark
The reggae-rock band, formed in Savannah, rekindles its sound and finds more versatility with a new keyboardist PASSAFIRE 8 p.m. Dec. 14 Freebird Live, 200 N. First St., Jax Beach Tickets are $15 246-2473, freebirdlive.com
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34 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 11-17, 2012
assafire singer Ted Bowne admits that when the band lost keyboardist Adam Willis in 2011, its members were left to wonder about its future. There were valid reasons for concern. While Bowne was and remains the main songwriter in the group, Willis had been a significant songwriting contributor as well before leaving because the grind of being on tour had made him unhappy. “If you read the liner notes of our earlier albums, Adam has written a lot of the songs that we still play a lot, that people request a lot,” he said. “We were kind of upset to lose that aspect of it, because we really did like taking his ideas and running with them and making them into what they are now.” Bringing in keyboardist Mike DeGuzman as Willis’ replacement before making the band’s fourth CD, “Start From Scratch” (released in 2011), Passafire found that DeGuzman added some beneficial abilities to the music, beginning with his style of keyboard playing. “Adam was more of a functional keyboard player. He learned to play keys through making beats and doing hip-hop,” Bowne said. “When he plays, he plays as if it’s inside a beat that he’s making, and he’s very structured, whereas Mike is sort of from the jam band background, and he can improvise and be very loose and groove, and it’s opened up a 2012 new kind of element of our sound. We’re really happy to have this new transition.” DeGuzman also fit seamlessly in the songwriting and arranging process. “As soon as we started writing new songs, it was really cool to see where he [DeGuzman] was coming from as a musician and to share ideas with him,” Bowne said. “He would come up with chord progressions and I would be, like, ‘Why didn’t I think of that? That’s great.’ He would write things that really already fit what I was thinking for this new album. I was just, like, ‘Wow, we’re really connecting on this.’ ” The debut of keyboardist DeGuzman on “Start From Scratch” is just one of several ways in which the CD marks a new beginning for the reggae-rooted rock band, which formed in Savannah, Ga., in 2003, when Bowne, Willis, bassist Ted Kubley and drummer Nick Kubley were attending the Savannah College of Art and Design.
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After self-releasing its 2006 debut CD, Passafire was signed to Law Records, the label owned by the band Pepper, and released its next two CDs — “Submersible” in 2007 and “Everyone on Everynight” in 2009 — on that label. For “Start From Scratch,” though, the band started its own label, FlameGuy Records. Bowne emphasized that his band always enjoyed creative freedom on Law. It left the label on good terms and remains friends with the members of Pepper. The move was based purely on business. “We didn’t have control over the actual seeing where everything was going, seeing how many units were sold and how much was made in this month and all of that,” he said. “In that kind of situation, you don’t feel like you have complete control over your own product.” Another first for Passafire was to use a producer on “Start From Scratch.” After selfproducing its first three CDs, the band hired Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers with the hope that he would upgrade the sonic quality of its albums. That’s exactly what Leary did. “He [Leary] really just said, ‘Oh, you want that sound? OK, here’s how we do that,’ ” Bowne explained. “That was the coolest thing. At the end, you listen to it and it sounds exactly, for the most part, exactly how we wanted it to sound.” The reggae foundation of Passafire’s sound remains prominent on “Start From Scratch,” but Bowne said the group’s other influences are more present than ever on the latest CD. In addition to songs with a strong reggae sound (“Miss You” and the title track), the band shows off more of a hooky rock-pop sound on “Lorelie,” “Hard To Believe” and “Dimming Sky,” and lets some country/folk flavors come through on “Train Wreck” and “Epiphany.” Bowne likes how Passafire’s live show sounds these days. DeGuzman plays guitar as well as keyboard and can also play bass lines on keyboards, allowing others in the group to play additional instruments, such as banjo and acoustic guitar on a few songs. The bottom line is, Passafire now has more versatility live, and that, coupled with a deeper song catalog, has improved the group’s live shows. “There is a big library to choose from now, and it’s hard to fit all of that into an hour-anda-half. We do try to do a handful of new songs just so we can promote it. But people still want to hear their favorites, the ones that they consider the classics, the old ones,” Bowne said. “I think it’s best when I get to a show and I see a band play something from every album.” Alan Sculley themail@folioweekly.com