Ska is one of those musical styles which seems to pop up in a new form every generation or so. First developed in Jamaica in the early '60s, Kingston musicians combined fast-paced R&B and New Orleans boogie woogie with local Jamaican rhythmic patterns (such as mento) to create an energetic, danceable new style. Groups like the Skatalites and Byron Lee & The Dragonaires made ska the most popular music on the island. They even managed to export ska to places like the U.S. and England, backing such acts as Jimmy Cliff, Toots & The Maytals, and the Wailers. As the story goes, during one particularly hot Jamaican summer in the late '60s, everyone seemed to tire of dancing to ska's frantic pace, so the musicians began slowing the music down. The result, rock steady, ruled for a few years, before even that slowed further and become what we now know as reggae. By this time, ska's emphasis on guitar and piano-led rhythms transformed into reggae's focus on drum and bass-anchored sound, with guitar and piano relegated to supporting status. And that was itska was finished. Little did anyone know, the plucky little musical genre would triumphantly re-emerge ten years later in England, of all places.

That British movement was known as 2 Tone, for the multi-racial make-up of its bands and audiences. Groups like the Selector, The Specials, Madness, and the English Beat developed a new version of the music, more muscular and energetic than its predecessor, with an unmistakably British slant on vocals and lyrics. In many ways, 2 Tone paralleled the British punk movement, with fans developing dances and fashion styles to go along with the music. The heavy presence of Jamaican immigrant culture in England filled the whole scene with authentic feeling, from first generation musicians joining current bands (e.g., trombonist Rico Rodriguez, who played with the Specials), to punk bands dabbling heavily in ska and reggae (the Clash being the most prominent). Punk, ska, and true British reggae acts, such as Steel Pulse, Aswad, and Matumbi, often played gigs together, and battled racist hoards who disliked their music, attitudes, and styles. Eventually, these scenes faded, and the New Wave scene began to dominate the charts. Once again, ska dropped off the cultural radar. The second wave had come crashing to a halt.

Which brings us to ska's third wave: a primarily American version, created by youths raised on classic 2 Tone recordings, but who, in many cases, were only peripherally aware of the original Jamaican music. Scenes arose mainly on the two coasts, with groups like Fishbone, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the Boilers, the Toasters, and No Doubt all redefining ska for another generation of kids. As with all American music genres, the form was eventually co-opted, and a few of these groups (namely Fishbone, No Doubt, and the Bosstones) found enormous success playing high octane music which had little to do with the music's origins. However, there are a few exceptions; a few groups that hold to the authentic style of Jamaican ska. One of these groups is Hepcat.

Formed in California in 1989, Hepcat is a part of this third wave of ska, although the band remains more retro in tone and attitude than many of its bredren. Singer Greg Lee and his bandmates obviously have great love for and knowledge of classic Jamaican music; their records, while produced in the '90s, are generally soaked in vintage-sounding instrumentation and melodies. Hepcat's debut, Out of Nowhere, dropped in 1993 on Moon Records. Scientific followed in 1996 on BYO Records. By this time, the group had the attention of hardcore label Epitaph, which was looking to branch out into other forms of music. Hepcat's first Epitaph release, Right On Time, was a modest hit, and positioned the group for some great touring opportunities. While other groups in its general scene, such as Sublime and No Doubt, achieved huge success by adding pop and rock elements to their music, Hepcat clung to traditional sounds. However, the multi-racial septet has certainly not stood pat and watched as the third wave of ska dribbled out. Instead, Hepcat toured aggressively (playing 262 shows in 1997), joined the Vans Warped tour, and broadened its fan base without sacrificing its style. That is something to be applauded in this age of the quick sell-out.

Easy Star caught up with Greg Lee soon after the release of his band's fourth album, Push 'N Shove. Another typically strong outing for the group, the new disc features covers of classic soul ("Gimme Little Sign") and obscure ska numbers ("Tek Dat"), as well as a number of potent instrumentals. Expect Hepcat to hit the road and deliver powerful live performances in the coming months. In the meantime, check out what Greg Lee has to say about touring, the new album, and the history of ska. So, while waiting for the inevitable fourth wave of ska to pop up somewhere on the planet (China? Mexico?), check out one group keeping the old traditions alive.

The New Traditionalists: Hepcat Keeps Ska Alive for the Next Generation:
An Interview with Greg Lee

musictoday: I was reading that you grew up around Muscle Shoals.

Greg Lee: Yeah, I was pretty much born there. I was born in Huntsville, Alabama. My father was a staff writer there.

MT: Who recorded his songs?

GL: A few people did, but it's nothing that ever made any kind of charts, or any kind of recording that anyone would ever remember.

MT: But he still made a living from it.

GL: Yeah, he went from a couple different places. He also was at Tamlin and Stax and Atlantic.

MT: So how did that influence you as a working musician?

GL: Well, all I really knew about it, until about a year ago, was Huntsville, was Muscle Shoals. And I just went back recently for my grandfather's funeral, back to D.C., and I found out that my dad actually worked at these other places and had his own label going for a while where he recorded these other artists, doing doo wop. The saga continues!

MT: I was reading that you actually met Toots Hibbert at some point, at a young age.

GL: Quite a few times, but first at Muscle Shoals.

MT: What was he doing? Was he recording at Muscle Shoals?

GL: You know, I couldn't even tell you, because my mother doesn't remember it, but I remember it, and I've seen the pictures. So I don't even know what he was doing. He might have just stopped in.

MT: So that was your first experience with ska or reggae?

GL: Yeah, I guess so. But it wasn't really Toots, it was people who came through for Sunday barbecues. You know, just an odd Jamaican musician who'd bring in different tapes with rock steady or ska on it. I always thought it was, like, funny music. I thought it was circus music.

MT: Because it was so off-kilter in rhythm?

GL: Exactly. As I grew older, I learned to appreciate the vocal harmonies, and the melodies, and the chord progressions.

MT: When did you start diving into it? It seems like you guys are definitely connoisseurs of the style.

GL: Connoisseurs? (Laughs) OK. Well, yeah, I guess I started around 16 or 17.

MT: Is there something that got you back into it?

GL: No, after having a bunch of stuff for a long time, I went and saw Fishbone. I realized that there was a ska thing happening currently, like a new ska thing, and it blew me away, cause I didn't know. I thought it was just an old thing. And after that I picked up the Skatalites' Stretching Out, on Angelo [Moore]'s suggestion. He said, "There's a new one out, and it's really cool." So I got that and it blew my mind. I started buying more stuff, you know, adding to what I already had.

MT: What did you think of 2 Tone and the whole second wave of ska?

GL: What actually happened was that a lot of bands, like the Bosstones and No Doubt and Fishbone were spawned of this, of 2 Tone, the '80s movement. The difference between us and them, though, is that Hepcat was spawned basically from that, but our inspiration started from a different point.

MT: From the first generation of ska, as opposed to the second?

GL: So our music developed differently, obviously.

MT: So it is almost like you are drawing directly from the same influences that the bands of the 2 Tone movement were, since they were listening back to that original stuff, as opposed to No Doubt and those groups being twice removed from the original ska music.

GL: Yeah, we were, but 2 Tone was unknowingly. I'm sure that a lot of them didn't even know about the stuff before or didn't care. Because, what worked with that, you know, you had the guy from the Specials playing bass and adding disco. I thought that was awesome. You know, they were adding all these different things to it, and it just gave it more facets and made it more appealing to more people. That's the beauty of this music: that it is just forever evolving.

MT: How do you feel about some of the third generation bands now that are so far removed from what ska was, like Mighty Mighty Bosstones?

GL: Well, if you look at what we have here in the way of ska, and stuff like that, it's very similar, I think, to the music of the Caribbean, where there's a bunch of different genres of music, and within each genre there's like 20 different sub-genres. It's like a whole world of music evolved into one package here, packaged under ska. But, if you were to go listen to each record, it all sounds very different.

MT: Do you find regional differences in ska in the U.S.?

GL: I find there are regional differences in everything. I find that there's a difference between hip-hop from, say, Berkeley or Oakland, and between that and New York or Chicago. And there's definitely a difference between California ska and East Coast or Midwest ska. It shines right through. You can hear the beach in our California music. On the East Coast, well, I'm not that familiar with some of the East Coast music, but you definitely have an East Coast kind of vibe.

MT: Well, we definitely don't have as many beaches to be inspired by.

GL: Well, you got some good waves over there in New Jersey.

MT: And some syringes and things.

GL: True.

MT: You guys will always be pegged as ska, but listening to the new record, it seems like you have slowed things down a little. Would you say you actually play rock steady and early reggae, as opposed to the more frantic styles of ska?

GL: Well, it's like I say, man, if I had it my way, we'd do an album that had 46 songs on it. It's not really an evolution or de-evolution, up or down, it's just a matter of what we feel like putting on a record. A lot of these songs we've been playing for years, or we just made, or whatever, we could put together a record tomorrow, if we had to. A big misconception in music right now is that you have to innovate or push in a different direction. I think that is true in a lot of cases, but I think a lot of people are doing it and really not getting anywhere. People are actually just messing up their own thing. With us, what we're trying to do is, within our own genrewhere we come from, Caribbean musicthere's a million things that we could do that no one's ever even heard; and make it sound new. Like we did with "Tek Dat." And we did the same thing with American soul, which is not given the respect it is due, like with Brenton Wood's "Gimme Little Sign."

MT: Do you think that by being so retro in your approach to music, and to recording, that you doom yourself to cult status?

GL: I think there was a quote in the Washington Post that said that we were "teetering on the cliffs of mythic," you know, being mythic, and I thought that was kind of cool. As long as it made some kind of mark. I mean, not that we were ever aiming to do that, but since we have, it's pretty cool. I mean, I wasn't ever considered legitimate musically by my family until they found me in Time Magazine. You know what I mean? I had been playing already for ten years, and then it was like, "My baby's in Time Magazine!" and they bought a hundred copies and sent them to everybody. That was, like, "making it" for my family, and made it so I didn't have to go back to school like they'd all been pushing me.

MT: Even though the money is not necessarily rolling in...

GL: Yeah, the money's not rolling in, but we got Time Magazine, so "G'wan do it, boy!"

MT: Tell me about the approach you guys took with the new album. Each of you built a track around your instrument?

GL: It's kind of like an assembly line. That's how it happens on every album. It's always going to be a bit different, or way out, to people who are really into Hepcat. Because it all depends on what someone has been listening to. Maybe just that day! You know, I'll come up with a melody or a chord progression and someone'll come up with a bass line, and somebody'll come up with this and that, and all of the different influences go into one song; and to have something like that happen in the matter of 15 minutes, you're going to have some really awesome results.

MT: Were most of these songs played live a lot and honed down before being put on the record? Or were there any that really went straight to tape as studio songs?

GL: Well, there were a couple that we had never played before that we tried to run in the studio, and they didn't work, so they didn't make the album. Pretty much everything we played out live, except for the new version of "Prisoner of Love," of course.

MT: In terms of lyrics and melodies, is there one person writing those, as opposed to the instrumental tracks? Were you writing those?

GL: Yeah, I generally do things that have lyrics, and then I'll try and explain a bass line to Dave [Fuentes], and get him rolling on that.

MT: Are you guys going out on the road to support Push 'N Shove?

GL: What were doing right now is we're finishing up phone interviews as best we can. I've still got another week's worth to do. But what I would like to do is...what I'm doing is working on a tour, hopefully leaving September or October, with plans on going to South America for three weeks, come back and do America for two weeks, Europe for four weeks, and then America for two.

MT: Are you touring with anyone, or just solo as the headliner?

GL: Our own headliner. In South America, I'm not really sure, though.

MT: Is it true that you guys are having to pay off an enormous contract to BYO Records?

GL: Yes, we are. When we had gotten done with that album for BYO, Epitaph had approached us for signing, and we were like, "Cool, great, we get to do another album." We didn't think anyone was going to want us to do another album. We were even thinking about it, we were like, "OK, cool, we can go back to school now." So, Epitaph came along and we said, "Sure." I guess BYO had on our contract a buyout clause for $20,000, you know, if any label wanted to take us away from them. So, Epitaph said, "Sure, you guys are worth it. We'll do that. No problem." So, right when they wrote up the check, our manager went over there to give it to BYO, and BYO turned around and said, "No, we don't want $20,000, we want $100,000."

MT: How could they justify that?

GL: In my personal opinionand its nothing against them, they're just doing their businessit's pretty obvious that we didn't have money to have a lawyer go through court for two or three months or a year, and they definitely did. So any way it would have gone, we would have ended up spending that amount of money, there was no way we could have fought it, so what it did was held up our record, basically. So now we don't see any money from that. We're not too mad, because we're still allowed to continue. Fortunately, too, because for most bands, that would have ended them. That's why most people in this band were so upset. You know, don't they realize that they might get their money through record sales in a couple of years, but the band will be broken up, there won't be any new music for anybody. That was the painful thingthey didn't care about that.

MT: How is it being on Epitaph?

GL: It's cool. From the get, they said, "Well, that's too bad about BYO, but we're here to tell you that we see your music on a larger scope," where Moon Records and BYO, I don't really think they did. Before I was talking about saturating the same crowd, I think in a lot of cases, they do that because they can, they play to a built in audience, and both Moon and BYO were definitely guilty of that. I think that's what they had to work with. I don't think they give the music much more merit than just, you know, to their scenes. To me, that's really sad. I think Epitaph and Hellcat are putting out bands no one ever thought of before, and these audiences are receiving it really well. That's what we've wanted the whole time we've been in this band.

MT: You guys opened for Rancid a few years back, and were also on Vans Warped. How did your audience expand or change after those appearances?

GL: Well, the problem we've always had with the wave thing we were talking about earlier (first, second, third, etc.) is that they saturate the same audience with the same music, and it ends up having a four-year life. That's the wave. They kill it and everyone goes looking for something else. And being part of a wave myself, I guess, I can recognize that. You just get sick of it. So what we tried to do was expand, you know, make our music reach as many people as it can. It's been working to our favor. It's been building a tougher skin on Hepcat, that's for sure. It works every time. We've opened for everyone from Ben Harper to Rancid to Taj Mahal, and every time we've had no problems. Opened before Pennywise, before the Deftones, and we always do fine.

MT: It must be hard touring with a group as large as you have. How do you keep it together?

GL: Um, smoke a lot of illegal stuff. Drink a lot of good libations. Keep everyone relaxed and comfortable. We're pretty good at that.

MT: Who do you think your audience is?

GL: You know, two legs, two arms, with or without breasts.