The rise of Kash’d Out: From hustling tickets on the street to national reggae tours

Photo courtesy of Kash’d Out.

Dailyreggae.com caught up with Kash’d Out’s bassist, Joey Brohawn to learn about the band’s origin, growth over the years working with LAW Records, and new acoustic album, Casual Encounters.

Who were some of the influences for your earlier albums?

It’s hard to say because there are so many! With our kind of reggae, it’s an eclectic blend of music. It’s not just reggae but there is some rock in there, some R&B. We all have our foot in so many genres, but we all really share reggae music.

We’re big fans of Rebelution, Iration, Pepper and I’d be wrong to not mention Sublime. Sublime for all of us was one of those bands we all discovered in high school and became obsessed with. That’s something that I feel like we share with most of the fans. We talk to them about how awesome and badass Sublime was. Some crazy dudes playing a weird mix of rock, pop, acoustic reggae, punk tunes. It’s hard to pin the genre of Sublime down, but that kind of eclectic blend is basically what Kash’d Out is all about. We’re going to keep on blending genres and having a good time with it.

Speaking of Sublime, it must have been cool for you guys to be on The House That Bradley Built album.

Oh, dude, that’s one of those full-circle moments, where you get to give back to the origin you know. Bradley’s House is an outpatient center for artists and patients struggling with addiction. It’s amazing to give back. Naturally, we played a bunch of covers of Sublime songs and this opportunity came by through Paul from LAW Records, who really championed this cause so amazingly. He’s done so much work cording with Bradley House and over 30 artists to record a song and send it in. It was wonderful and so cool. I feel like we did something good for Sublime fans.

I have a friend that listens to Sublime and they’re like dude, I found this whole album of Sublime covers! And I’m like yeah, I’m on it dude, listen to it!

Laughs. What made you pick Slow Ride?

That was one of the old-school covers that we did back in the day that we all thought we did great on. Slow Ride is one of the deeper cuts I’d say. Not one of the hitters but the deep cuts, and it’s just a really good song.

There’s a little skit in that one, which is fun. We used to do that skit live.

And you mentioned LAW Records. How has it been working with them?

LAW is the best. I’m a little biased. They are the only record label I’ve ever dealt with, but Paul is awesome. The whole team is awesome. Being at LAW it feels like they put you first. They really cater to you and try to figure out what they can do for you.

LAW also works with Pepper and through that, we were able to become friends with Pepper and learn from them as well as tour with them.

Yeah, you were on the Pepper, Less Than Jake tour!

Yeah, I’d say that was our first big chance. Pepper and Less Than Jake gave us that chance. Less Than Jake is from Gainesville and before we were touring nationally, we did the local thing. We’d go out to a town a few days before the show, and we’d promote tickets on the street. We did that in Gainesville for Less Than Jake shows for like two years.

One day we did a show with Less Than Jake and one member of Less Than Jake was talking to Pepper and said, “Ah man there’s this great band who’s hustling tickets on the street, they are really doing it, they are called Kash’d Out.” And Pepper was like we are in the process of signing them and through that conversation, it kind of became decided that we should open on that tour they were doing. It was all very organic and felt good. It felt like we earned it. We had to put in some good work.

Through elbow grease alone! Tell us about how Kash’d Out met and how you formed and came together as a musical group.

I say destiny brought this group together. It’s all random coincidences for how we all met. Greg worked as a songwriter, who would help bands and artists with developing their sound. Artist development type stuff and he was working with this one artist called Evan Charles. He’s basically the catalyst of Kash’d Out.

Jackson my good friend from high school was his guitar guy. Jackson came into the studio and saw Greg. He knew Greg because Jackson is from Maryland like I am and Ballyhoo! is from Maryland. Greg worked on two of their albums. So, Jackson was like oh this is Greg Shields. I know this guy.

Jackson told him he had this reggae song, so during that session, Jackson showed him Going Down off the EP, and Greg was basically like we should make a band! And that’s how it started.

Greg, Jackson, and their audio engineer, Josh Saldate went to work and made the EP in a relatively quick amount of time. They banged it and were like now we need a band. Greg said I know a drummer and Jackson said, I know a bassist. That’s how Kash’d Out started.

The momentum keeps building for you guys. I think I first heard about you two years ago on Instagram and your music is great. Bringing the good vibes from Florida. You have a great reggae scene in Florida, both bands and fans alike. How do you like being a part of the Florida reggae scene and how has it influenced the band?

Oh, it’s awesome! Just as being fans of reggae, you’re already paying attention to what other bands are doing. Every time see SOJA come to town, you look at who is opening for them. And then you look to see when they are coming to town again. We already had an ear to the ground on reggae and it’s really cool because Florida has a bunch of great bands like Artikal Sound System, Seranation and so many great groups from Florida.

We are able to play with them and bands that tour through Florida regularly. On the East Coast, there are pockets of reggae scenes. Florida, the Carolinas, Maryland/New York area are the hottest spots on the East Coast. Florida has a special love for reggae, especially with Reggae Rise Up in St. Pete. That’s the closest thing you’ll get to a Cali reggae fest on the East Coast. It’s epic.

What was it like recording this more acoustic album (Casual Encounters) and how did that differ from your previous two albums?

One big difference is that with acoustic it’s a whole different vibe and energy. The way we record is a lot of rock theory. You need drums, electric guitar, electric bass, and those instruments to really fill out the sound for the most part. With acoustic, it’s about bringing it back and adding tasty layers. I simplified a lot of my bass lines because when you listen to something acoustic, you’re not wanting the bass to go bumping and crazy all the time.

I used to watch the old MTV live acoustic shows. Those were awesome because no instrument was overpowering another. It was all balanced and this is what this album was kind of like. We got to re-imagine a lot of songs, which was cool, and also bring a whole new vibe.  

We worked on Causal Encounters at The Audio Compound in Florida.

Did you do a lot of live tracking as a band as a whole, or was it single individual parts and you came up with the parts during the recording process?

We jammed to the songs individually and then together to map out how the drums were going to be. Like whether a song would have a lot of a kit sound in it, or if a song would have miscellaneous drums like bongos and percussion. We had to plan some of that on the fly but had a good rough idea of what we were doing before we stepped up.

It was awesome seeing Jackson, our guitarist, really develop his part during this. The new parts he came up with on this album are amazing. It’s an acoustic album, so the acoustic guitar is playing a big part. Jackson has a huge strength with his acoustic guitar playing.

It’s always a real pleasure to see it take over more than how it would on a regular album, where we’d add horns and some cool drum bass stuff.

It was a different kind of creativity I’d imagine because you’re in a different box and confined to different boundaries. You spoke to MTV Unplugged, I’m curious what some of the other musical influences that you brought into this album and the influences that came into your band from its fruition.

We’ve been a fan of acoustic music for years. A lot of reggae bands sometimes throw in one acoustic song on an album, or the special editions of the album with feature an acoustic or dub version.

We were definitely inspired by that because the reggae scene lends itself to acoustic more so than rock or metal. That was a big influence. Like Double Up by Iration. And Rebelution’s Peace of Mind acoustic album is madly influential.

On top of that, folky old school music too. Jackson is a real big fan of acoustic 70s and bayou music. I feel like that came across a little bit on the album too.