Introduce yourself to the readers.
My name is Sam Ward – I’m the drummer for 4th & Orange.
I’m Ricardo, I play guitar.
I’m Alexandre, I play the bass.
I’m Garret Douglas, lead singer for 4th & Orange from Long Beach, California.
I’m Irey and I play keys for 4th & Orange.
How would you guys describe your sound to someone who’s never listened to you before?
We were all individually involved with our own projects before we were involved in 4th & Orange, and that helps us create a blend of sounds. It’s not the Reggae that you would expect to hear because a lot of people only listen to big names like Bob Marley and Sublime. Then you hear us and we don’t like to take from anybody. We just like to be ourselves. So if we’re all being ourselves, then the product is a complete mix of different cultures. So I would say ours is just a mixture of Pop, Reggae, Hip Hop, Rock, and Punk.
How did you guys discover your sound?
Irey and I [Garret] have been friends since high school and then we hooked up after high school with music. At the time I was doing heavy Hip Hop. He [Irey] was doing a lot of stuff in his garage with Reggae bands. When I went over there, I decided to hop on a Reggae record and it was the beat for “Eyes” by Collie Buddz. And I was like, “I think I could rock on this.”, so I ended up just singing my style of music on the Reggae beat. It kind of felt like this crazy little combo that just really worked. Once we put it out, we saw the reaction from it. It made us hone in to doing Reggae more because we saw more reaction from the Reggae that we were doing than the Hip Hop we were doing. We’re doing something that people aren’t doing at the moment and we’re standing out more.
How did you guys, Garret and Irey, meet the rest of the band?
We’ve always wanted to form a band. It’s just been us. We were working and songwriting with Latium Entertainment and they knew that we had worked on a lot of Reggae stuff and our management really loved the Reggae. They thought it would be creative to form a band around the sound that we were already working on. And we found these guys online. Our producer helped us put the band together. He hash-tagged “Reggae”, “Reggae guitar player”, “Reggae drummer”, and then we found these guys online. From there we formed 4th & Orange.
You just released “In The LBC”, take me through the journey of that song.
“In The LBC” was, I [Garret] would say, a take on one of the original songs that is so legendary in Long Beach. There’s a song called “Summertime in the LBC” by The Dove Shack and Warren G. If you’re from Long Beach, at least in my generation, when this song plays, it’s almost like everybody at the party doesn’t have to know each other, but when this song comes on, then we all know each other.
And so DJ FLICT came into the studio, he’s our producer for a lot of our records, and he just played this beat that him and our previous bass player, were working on. DJ FLICT knows our background – he loves Long Beach himself. We started writing it with our writers, which are: Zach Sorgen, T-Baby, and the guys were there too, and we were just bouncing ideas, and then little by little, the song started becoming something. We’re paying homage, you know? And then we thought about it, “We’re performing at One Love (One LoveCali Reggae Fest), let’s drop it the day of. And that’s how that record came about.
You guys have played quite a few different festivals. What are your favorite moments when you’re playing festivals?
Well One Love Cali was amazing because personally, I’m from the East Coast, I’m the only one from the East Coast. I’m from Boston. Having grown up listening to all this music, Sublime was huge for me. When I moved out here two years ago, I didn’t expect to be in a Reggae band. I came out here just to play drums. I mean, the hashtag “reggae drummer” obviously went far because Reggae always comes back for me. So being at One Love Cali Fest and sharing the stage with all my favorite bands that I’ve been wanting to share the stage with for years was amazing. I’ve been in other Reggae bands too, but not at this caliber. So to be able to share the stage with them and be able to be on stage with these guys in their hometown in a place that also means a lot to me, it means a lot. It was amazing. That was that was a highlight so far, for sure. – Sam
One Love was like a dream come true for me as a guitar player. You know, I always played in small bands in college. Finally being able to play in a festival is ridiculous. Literally one of the best days of my life. – Ricardo
The show is like a magic moment. It’s live, so you get to see the reaction of people. You get to give them something that can change a moment, their lives. We’ve been enjoying playing this year. We’re going to have more and more shows coming. – Alexandre
We had this show at Mercury Lounge in New York. And it’s awesome. It’s like old school, hardcore Punk Rock. We went out there and we tried out our West Coast/Reggae sound in a whole other coast with people who don’t give a shit about that kind of sound in that venue, and we just blew the roof off. Everybody was jamming with us and it was one of the best nights. The other occasion I was just really blown away by was One Love. And when we performed on stage, it felt like rehearsals, which was so dope because usually a show feels like a show. We rehearsed enough and we put in the work to feel this comfortable onstage. And then when we got offstage, we walked into the back and Rome Ramirez from Sublime was just standing there watching our whole performance. – Garret
The shows have been awesome. I came from a producing background, so this is kind of new to me. The shows have been killer. It’s a whole new setting for me. One Love was actually our first festival. And those festivals are what I’ve been looking forward to. Just being outside and especially the ones where we’re by the ocean; that’s our backyard. It’s a chance to have all our friends see what we’ve been working on. – Irey
How do you connect with your audience when you’re onstage and through your music?
As long as it looks like we’re having fun, the audience is going to connect. The music is all our sound and it’s what we think sounds great and we just hope that the audience is going to connect with us. Our job is to put in what we think sounds cool to us and we hope that they would connect to it. Like we went to shows and we enjoyed a special time with the people onstage while watching them as a fan. And now we flip the script. So it’s only right for us to do what we saw our favorite people do.
What do you have planned for 2020?
Touring. Touring and writing new music. We’re planting some seeds. The end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 was about gathering what we’re supposed to sound like and then 2020 is releasing it onstage and getting the feedback.
To keep up with 4th & Orange follow them on Instagram and Twitter and check out the official music video for “In The LBC” below.
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