‘Everywhere the Pacific Ocean touches, they love them some Katchafire’

Source: Radio New Zealand

After twenty years in the business, Katchafire have made many friends in the music industry. The New Zealand band have called on some of their contacts for their latest project, Revival: The Guest Edition.

It’s the second time the band have revisited their platinum-selling debut released in 2003. Revival 2.0 was remixed by reggae legend Phillip McFarlane, and re-released back in January.

“We rubbed shoulders with all of these bands that were once our idols, we can now call them family, and we can call on them to do projects like this,” founding member Logan Bell told RNZ’s Music 101.

Caleb Spark

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Members of that family include Third World, Steel Pulse, Big Mountain, Mike Love, Laughton Kora and Ali Campbell who have all collaborated on songs from the album.

Bands like Jamaican stalwarts Third World and British band Steel Pulse were important early influences on Katchafire, Bell says.

“Third World is part of the project they re-recorded ‘Colour Me Life’ it’s not part of 2.0 yet it’s going to be content that’s going to be released further down the track.

“But those two were pretty much some of my hugest inspirations in songwriting.”

The first single from Revival: The Guest Edition is ‘Seriously’ featuring UB40’s Ali Campbell.

“I said to his tour manager, ‘bro, it’d be an honour if the bro wanted to do this’. It’s just an honour rubbing shoulders with those guys and they’re a huge inspiration to the way we move in the industry.

“You know, those guys have been in doing it for 35, 40 years plus and still going strong.”

Katchafire themselves are no slouch when it comes to reggae longevity – with six albums under their belt they are still selling out tours around the world.

“We’re pretty blessed. Many moons ago, we planted seeds in a lot of these places that we had no idea we were big in and it seems everywhere the Pacific Ocean touches, they love them some Katchafire.”

It’s not something Bell and the band takes for granted.

“I don’t know how we’ve done it… I guess our first fans from the early days had kids and it’s somehow impressed on that generation and keeps going. So, we must be doing something right. I’ll take it.”

Although the band has been revisiting their musical past, new music is in the pipeline, and Bell says studio time has been booked.

“At some point, we just thought we’ll stop stagger-releasing singles and we’ll just wait till we’ve got a good chunk of the album finished and maybe just go back to old schools and release an album – how we used to do it”.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand