Corie Sheppard Podcast
Corie Sheppard Podcast
Episode 231 | Colin Lucas
On this week’s episode of The Corie Sheppard Podcast, we sit down with Colin Lucas — the voice behind “Dollar Wine” and a pioneer in soca and band culture. From the foundation of Sound Revolution to his corporate leadership roles at the Port Authority, TTPost, and NCC, Colin reflects on a life that moved between big stages and boardrooms.
He shares the true origin story behind “Dollar Wine,” the groundbreaking journey of Sound Revolution, and how hits like “Stay,” “Shake It,” and “Football Dance” came to life. We talk about live music vs. backing tracks, the storytelling missing from today’s soca, and the challenges of being “the executive” in a world that didn’t know where to place him.
This one is a tribute to legacy, sound, and purpose — and it just might change how you hear soca forever.
Click the link in my bio for the full episode
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Alright, oli, I have notes, I have notes in front of me, and when I have notes, that means Oli. Now I'm in trouble. Welcome Colin Lucas. How are you going, sir? I am good. How are you doing I good? I good, I good know I'm in trouble. Welcome Colin Lucas. How are you going, sir? I am good. How are you doing I good? I good, I good, I'm nervous. I was telling you before I started that the most difficult people to talk to sometimes is the people who have the kind of track record you have and who play in so much different playgrounds. But I come here under instructions, eh, colin, I hear you. I have a wife whom, nowadays, nowadays, users be complaining on the social media.
Corie:AKA boss, the boss. I'm glad they say that. Thanks, right, and they're showing you how DJs, fed up with people coming and doing requests, always coming up and saying well, I want to hear this. I want to hear that my wife, no matter where we go, she is going to that DJ and ask for dollar wine. So I come with instructions. She say don't make me wait for a whole hour to talk about Dalla White. She said talk about Dalla White up front. But she also said I don't listen. So I didn't really want to start there. If I don't listen, I don't listen, you're booking for a divorce.
Corie:I want to start with today where's be up to now, because I know you're working, I know you're doing.
Colin:I know you're busy in. I have a little guest house where, actually where Song Revolution's band room used to be Right, this is also the house I grew up in, so we have a guest house there called Culture Crossroads Inn Nice, because it's actually at a crossroads and a lot of culture happening in the house.
Corie:I was in the house. You know I have some history in the house. You know, yeah, yeah, history in the house. Before we leave, I'm going to tell you about some history I have.
Colin:History that you want me to bust out here, man.
Corie:I don't know if she could be. You know, we can talk about it late when she doesn't tune out. Right, we can talk about it later, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I spent some time there, so you had originally grown up there, that's just not Patna from the crossroads. Hi, wait here, when you must study your career. I was wondering if the crossroads had to do with your. You had several crossroads. You had your artist career, you had musician corporate.
Colin:But the thing is, I deliberately avoided doing music as a career yeah, Um, and for the simple reason I never wanted to reach the stage where I felt I had to do this because I had to live. I always wanted my involvement in music to be driven by passion, not necessity.
Corie:So you don't sing music. Music was never your career. It was my hobby, full time.
Colin:Hobby. You say yeah, man my hobby.
Corie:We didn't say hobby. Wait your time. At the height of Songrev you're working and things otherwise yeah serious. Yeah, somehow you're leaving FET to go to work and things very easy.
Colin:Yeah, you see, because and people who know me well know this I was not partier and was never a drinker. So I'll be playing at a FET and in between sessions I sleep in on the back of the stage or worse yet, when Soka Village moved to the port, remember, at one time Soka Village was in the port.
Colin:My office was right across Dock Road. I would go and do work in between sessions and come back and you go home, you catch 10, whatever and you go to work and you get back out. And because there were people who had issues with me being a corporate person and a musician, I used to make sure I'm not late for work and I'm not missing or people on the job. Yeah, and of course they triggered people in society too, but you know I got threatened more than once. I either have to do this or the other.
Corie:But in the job, I understand. But what do you mean? People in society. What is the issue?
Colin:Well, remember, a lot of people are followers and some people are haters, unfortunately. So if you have somebody triggering a line of thought on the inside of an organization, there will be overflow and there'll be people on the outside who'll be saying yeah, best you keep your executive work or your same kind. So in fact, there were some people in my music industry that used to refer to me as the executive. Yeah, yeah, they found I was kind of out of place. Now.
Corie:Oh, so you gained licks on all sides, both sides I was an equal opportunity sufferer.
Colin:Yeah, they used to say look, look, look the executive, Big boy.
Corie:Yeah, I like that, I like that, I like that. So in those days, before I go back to the origins of songwriting, of how you get into music in the first place, you were in the tent as well. You were singing in the tent, I got to be in the tent from the year of Dola. Oh, that's little.
Colin:Yeah, Martino called me and he said listen, I want you to be in the tent. I said, but I never sing in the tent in my life. The thing is and some people used to get horrors about this in the early years, but people like Rudder and so on helped to soothe that People were offended when they said, but you're not a Calypsoan. It's almost like if you say I don't know how to sing, you're not a know Calypso. No, no, no, that wasn't what it was meant to. I, my my teething, was singing in band, so I was singing all kind of thing R&B, reggae, kaiso, soka so I wasn't a cut and dried Calypso-ian. Yeah, that was. That was an insulting calypso. That was just saying what? Yeah, it's who you are Exactly.
Corie:You know, I never knew that. So Soka people who was in the band circuit going into the tent, you're a non-calypso, so you're graffiti.
Colin:now we're calling everyone else you Wow. They used to call you a band singer. I see they used to call you a band singer?
Corie:I Spectacular that was Monroe, yeah, but they were more Martino. Martino, that's right. They were more like there were plenty of men singing soca then, like Turen Shoyi, all the men, oh yeah but yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha gotcha.
Colin:Yeah, they didn't have an issue with that, right? You know, like in place there, you know because? And we'd kind of literally say you don't worry about that, you don't worry about that we good and you was good.
Corie:Oh gosh, you was comfortable on stage as well. Yeah, I know.
Colin:And you know, a lot of people used to say well, you could go and sing tent every night and go to work. You know, because, whereas the through the week, in those days and I used to tell him, you know, singing in tent actually easier than doing a band gig, I said but when I'm doing a band gig I had to play two sessions of 45 minutes an hour each. Oh, in the tent you're singing one or two songs and you go on and you go on and hear the joke too.
Colin:You know, when you're on five to ten, you know that you don't have to be in the tent from half past seven when it's open. Right, right, right. You know you're on five to ten, quarter past nine you reach Stage manager sees you. You think. You think when you finish Out Out Home Sleep Work next morning, that work, out home sleep work next morning. Oh yeah, that work next morning part is a hard part. Remind me to give you a joke about that, tell me. So I was outside doing a gig and the gig was Sunday. I had a meeting. I wasn't the CEO of the port yet. I had a meeting with the CEO and the minister on Monday, so the meeting was something like 11 o'clock. I said, okay, I booked for the first flight out. It was Grenada or St Vincent, right, so you had to come back in for the meeting. Yeah, I had to come back in for the meeting. Going to the airport, flight cancelled. Nice boy, I said. But what the hell is this? I called the promoter. I said you know, flight cancelled.
Corie:He said well, I can't remember that.
Colin:So I started asking him what are the options? Somebody said, well, you could actually charter a plane. I said charter a plane. You've got to be kidding Chata, please. You've got to be kidding, you know. But they kept saying, well, they would see what they would do with the flight. And it kept getting later, friend, I went around the corner and Chata, a small aircraft, yeah yeah, like a four-seater, and got back in time for the meeting. Now, of course, I had called ahead and told my boss I had a problem. The flight was canceled, but I tried.
Colin:When I reached the meeting room just before the meeting, he said why are you going to Europe so quickly? I said well, I chatted. He said I didn't know, I had rich friends. I said no, that was all the earnings from that gig plus the two previous gigs, plus the next gigs. He said but Colin, you didn't achieve, you know. He said but you know, colin, you know you didn't say chief. It. Bad enough if I embarrass me, but I mustn't embarrass you, and for you to sit down there for the ministers. Where's your deputy ceo? And you have to say he was out. I said I'm not putting you through, that understood.
Corie:He said okay, I appreciate it yeah, that commitment, and even in the commitment you're talking about is on both sides, because you're talking about a FET. And I didn't know this until I spoke to Eddie, because by the time I started, fet is late 90s, early 2000s, so the song system and all them things, the band come in and plug in. But he was telling me that you're working in a full song system, so you're responsible for everything.
Colin:For everything, but that gig happened to be one where I was a solo performer. Ah nice, appearing on the show.
Corie:Gotcha gotcha Different world. So let me go to the origins now. Song Revolution how did it start off? So?
Colin:Song Revolution is 2.0 of a band that was originally called ARAC A-R-A-C Andre, richard, arturo Charles, andre Day, richard Ramsubag, arturo Macano and Charles Assam. So they had this group. I was away at the time doing some studies and I came back for holidays and Andre, who had been a friend of mine I kid you not, since we were like five years old and living in the same old oh wow, and living in the same street, right, and he said, yeah, no, we start a little band, come and check us out. So I went and checked them out and the vibe was really really nice. Sure, next thing, you know, somebody stick a guitar in my hand so I end up playing, you know, while I was there on holiday. It was fun. And they said, well, when are you coming back? I said, well, next year. They said, well, when you come back, let's make a big banner, right? I said, well, why not? Yeah, so came back Next thing, you know, sound Revolution.
Colin:After Shout Out, there was a guy named Don B Harry. Now, this is no joke. Eh yeah, don B Harry had a meat shop at the corner of Bombay Street and Kathleen Street. Don B Harry had no children in the band. He had children. But no children in the band, nothing at all. But Don B Harry became committed to helping us form this band. In fact, since none of us were employed yet, we had to take the loan.
Corie:But I'm not kidding. What age were you at here? 20.
Colin:Oh, young, young. And Don said when somebody asked Don, actually they were trying to dissuade him from going through these things. He said it's such a huge area you don't know them from Adam, other than they come to buy meat. Yeah, why would you, you know, put yourself in that kind of situation to go and borrow money from a bank? Of course he said a rather young man in a band room practicing music than on the corner looking for mischief.
Corie:Important message up to today.
Colin:You understand what I'm saying, and he and then my dad, they actually got together and took out the loan that had someone. You know the starting block. I see.
Corie:So when you take the loan and you form the band, that's when you all came up with the name Song Revolution. Ah yeah, so what was behind the name? How did you all come up? How did you all choose?
Colin:Revolution. I had mentioned to that same Don B Harry that one of my ambitions was to revolutionize sound in Trinidad. You know, as much as I liked how music was played in Trinidad, I just felt we could change things a little bit. So he took revolutionized sound and he said you know, guys, I think a good name for you would be Sound Revolution. And immediately everybody bought into the name, everybody bought into the name, and there it was Sound Revolution. And then Oba, sound Revolution. And then Oba don't know if you remember the Rastaman blowing flute and sax and things. Oba came up with the tagline One Body, okay, meaning yes. So we are many people, but together here we are One Body, nice. And if you look at the Sound Revolution logo you'll see Sound Revolution, one Body.
Corie:Yeah, I want to ask some about that Sound Revolution logo. You own the rights to the name and the logo and all that.
Colin:Yeah, the guy who came up with that was Daryl King. Yeah, and incidentally, daryl's daughter got married the day before yesterday. Daryl Dara, yeah.
Corie:Congrats to them. Congrats to them. And you see Metallica or ACDC, you see them on shirts all over the world. There's those bands that live on forever. Yeah, and I wonder sometimes if there's something you all think about doing or want to do from that band era.
Colin:Well, remember, the band no longer exists, right, so the impetus for doing that now. But in the day we had somewhere of t-shirts, somewhere of glasses, somewhere of mugs, I kid you not, somewhere of everything.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, long before the merch thing come on, yeah, and and and used to sell them, oh, and there was always a biting market for that I would imagine, yeah, I suspect that it would be here still, like if we do some of those things like the big bands bands at the time.
Colin:Kalyan.
Corie:Kalyan.
Colin:Yeah, okay. Roots came along about the same time with us, maybe, maybe a year after Roots emerged out of a studio band.
Corie:Right, that's what you were saying. Yeah, so they were playing in studio and then went on the road.
Colin:Then somebody said yeah, come out now. So it's.
Corie:Kalyan I light and all them at the time Germany Brass.
Colin:No. Firefly came out after, oh after Firefly was about three years into Sunwave's existence. Right Chandelier was about the same time with Sunwave, I see.
Corie:All of them come out about the same time. Yeah, yeah, how competitive was it when you all came out? Real competitive yeah.
Colin:But it was a kind of friendly competition that I'm not sure exists now. I that are not sure exist now. I mean friendly to the point of view that if your equipment break down, the other band will say come and use ours now, wait till they play the. It was that ridiculous, right? No, you want to eat them raw in the fetter, you know? And. But there wasn't enmity or animosity, it was just really competition. You're just, you know, I just really competition. You're just, you know.
Colin:I remember a time we were playing in a fed called West India Club. Nobody alive now knows about it. Yeah, west India Club, I don't know. It was at the eastern side of country club, so on Marival Road, there that side, and we had some electrical problem. The thing wouldn't phase properly, chandelier was not fed to one and Carl Jacobs came across and said you want to use our equipment? And we did and we represented ourselves very well. Carl was telling me after that, while the session was going on, robin in Hampshire, hi Robin, how are you going? Looked at him and said Carl was telling me after that, wiley session was going on. Robin in Hampshire. Right, hi Robin, how you going? Looked at him and said Carl, you realize, we just kind of committed suicide.
Corie:Oh, you're so tight. A little buddy told me colonists are perfectionists.
Colin:You know, you hear a pin drop in your music, right man, I just kind of heard that when my children all referred to me lovingly. All right, well, ocd lovingly. Yeah, I think anything worth doing is worth doing excellently. That's one of the credos I live by. Yeah, if you're not going to try your best at it, don't bother.
Corie:Got you, there's somebody else with you now when you tell me you and your partner bounce up and you stick a guitar in your hand that don't work, so so where you learn to play music. I was doing my little guitar thing and um now funny, I'll give you a joke.
Colin:Same problem you man, I used to be more playing keyboards and rubbing as your nose and nasty guitar, and we both went to St Mary's.
Corie:He was a year or two ahead of me and we said, as a Fatima man, I can't help it right, I can't help it.
Colin:Well, I understand, I understand. So I told Robin you know, play keyboards and so on and so on and so on. He said that's good, let's see how that works for you. On a beach line at Maracas Something I write, though, yeah. So I decided I'll learn to play guitar too. Yeah, how much instruments do you play? Play with? I don't consider myself a super competent instrumentalist, but I can find my way around keyboards, guitar, bass, pan sax yeah, you can find your way around.
Corie:Find my way around. Somebody tell my story. They say one time in a fit, when Colin walk with an alto sax and then I think it's over, they say I have a tenor sax. And they say we ain't no, colin can play no sax. All of a sudden he note for note solo in the keyboard, so I don't want to play the wrong part.
Colin:And actually one of my tutors in sax was Oba. Yeah yeah, he was a guy who just shared knowledge and you know, he said I'm fingering the best fingering for that, and we tried tooling it this way or whatever. Now Oba was something, and then Oba learned to play keyboards.
Corie:Yeah.
Colin:Yeah From him.
Corie:Oba learned to play keyboards. Oh, he learned to play keyboards from you Got it.
Colin:I wouldn't say he learned from me. He had this kind of ridiculous kind of talent, right. Anything he put his hand on he'd play. If you ever heard Oba play double second, he would. Yeah, oh, he would stroke your chin and say, oh, hey, didn't know he was there. No, he was phenomenal.
Corie:That's when you might tell Carl he committed suicide. You know he wouldn't have committed any harm.
Colin:Carl realized, we just probably committed suicide.
Corie:So keyboard is your main instrument. Yeah, you learned that formally, like you, were trained in music and reading music and all that.
Colin:Well, there's a shame moment here. My mother, in her spare time, gave piano lessons Right downstairs in that same house, you see right? So it was natural and normal. I started to take lessons. But a little way into it, not very far into it, I said, mom, I really don't want to do this. Imagine that. And she said to me I won't force you, but I guarantee you you will live to regret this. Imagine that, yeah, and she said to me I won't force you, but I guarantee you you will live to regret this decision. And I did, because up to this day I can't read music yeah yeah, so I play entirely by ear, or?
Corie:by sight impressive too. No, that I, I wish.
Colin:I wish I could read music. Yeah, I wish I could read music.
Corie:Most musicians I find it more and more I wish I could read music. Yeah, I wish I could read music. Most musicians, I find it. More it's up to musicians is, the more the people who play by ear, the ones who read, say boy, I wish I could hear what Colin Hearn you know but you see, you could do both, right, I suppose you know you could do both Best of all worlds.
Colin:Yeah, it's anyway. I'm not too old. I could still learn to read music. You're going for it still? Yeah, I'm thinking about it honestly seriously that might seem ridiculous, but I'm actually yeah, nothing ridiculous about it.
Corie:I think it's great. You know what I mean. No say retire, no say attain, have time on that, yeah do that? Yeah, what you mean, why not? So going back, just back to the crossroads, that culture is just a part of you that will always kind of come out when you name in or your own ventures and those types of things well, yeah, because, like, for instance, if you check the rooms, all the spaces are named after cultural things.
Colin:Right, room number one is songwrecks studio. Right, we have um sparrow stateroom. You have ricky jai ranch. You have Despos Domain. Nice, you have La Chapelle Lounge, right Plummer Place. Oh, nice, nice, nice, minchell Manor, beautiful.
Corie:So it's all a dedication. It's a kind of tribute Panorama Penthouse.
Colin:I love it, I love it, I love it.
Corie:I like that. It's in St James too we could boast of, so I'm sure tourists come in. They're glad for this sort of education when people come in on those things, yeah, they like that feel, you know, Beautiful.
Colin:I mean, right as you open the door you enter phase two, four. Yeah, Right, so you get it. Boom as you enter, the culture is going to be hitting you. That is good.
Corie:So the t-shirts printed for me for Songrev right. So when we come in Songrev, what is the name of Songrev room?
Colin:Songrev Studio.
Corie:Yeah, we could get a Songrev jersey to buy there.
Colin:No, need that, I'll give you a discount.
Corie:I like it. I like it.
Colin:This thing working out, you know.
Corie:This thing working out great. So Songrev on the road. Songrev is a powerhouse from everything I hear Of home them time. But I hear that you know, the more I talk to people about bands, they can't escape sound revolution. And when you say revolutionized sound, that's one of the things. As I talk to people preparing to come here, everybody talks about the way the band would sound, not just the instrumental or something. They say men come in to blow people out and that kind of thing. It's Aaron and all that for the banner. And the son is your brother, my late brother.
Colin:William Lucas. All right, he was something and he was never into music. No, this is you know.
Corie:So mommy ain't got nothing to do with it.
Colin:Well, actually that's a different mother. That was my dad's first wife. Okay, all right.
Corie:Gotcha.
Colin:And my mom's only child I see.
Colin:I see I see, see, I see, I see, all right, good, yeah. She took one look at me and said never again, never again, take a look, I'm not doing that. So Willie wasn't into music and I told him he heard the band play once. This is before you had mixing board and so on. And he said to me I said, well, come and hear us again and give me more detailed feedback, and so on. I said, well, come on here us again, right, and give me more detailed feedback, and so on. And he came reluctantly, it was cutting into his drinking time. So he came. He said, well, you know, this was this and this was that. So then we bought a mixing board. I said I'm really come and see if I could do this for a minute. So I can't play and do this Boy. Just do it once. Yeah, try it. Came on, you know.
Colin:He said oh wait a minute, yeah, this sounds good. And people were like, yeah, I like all that sound. I said, yeah, my brother, that's the engineer now. Yeah, and that is it. Then he became like so deep into the thing People used to say you could tell from outside of it. Nobody had to say sound revolution. You're outside of it and a band starts, you know it's sound revolution.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Colin:There was a particular texture to Soundwave Sound, in fact. In those days everybody had their texture, yeah, yeah, but ours seemed to endear itself to a lot of people.
Corie:Yeah, we do. The story's there, the story's there. And at that time you were the lead singer. You were the only front singer.
Colin:No, actually I was never the lead singer in Soundwave Sound Never check my notes actually.
Corie:Yeah, actually, I was never the lead singer in Song Revolution. Never check my notes. Yeah, check your notes. Front singer, right? What is that?
Colin:I was never the lead singer in Song Revolution. So who was the lead singer? Nigel Hutchinson and his mother, lois Hutchinson and Oba were the first three lead singers. Yeah, were the first three lead singers. And then subsequently, when Nigel and Lois left, they were replaced by Leon Caldero and Antoinette Salandi Right. And then, after Leon left, he was replaced by Derek Seals, and I don't know why.
Colin:I hesitated them, because Derek is one of my favorite singers of all all all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all all all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all. And Oba would play piano. Oh, you're a switch, but official front line yeah.
Corie:I was not going to say all them YouTube videos that you're singing in front. It's just so it's.
Colin:Those will post songrevs. That's solo.
Corie:Yes, I see. I see, I just assume when I see you in the band it's songrevs yeah.
Corie:That's interesting and putting together the group. You're instrumental in just deciding on players, lead singers, the whole thing like what the band looks like and sounds like, coming off of that and going into the arena as competitive as it was is one of the things I always ask band singers because back then people might not know now, but most of the bands you see now they have a lead singer. It's's a band, but it's not the same type of cover and a band giving you a whole experience and people. People may not remember that when you, when you go to see a band set, you could hear any genre of music from any artist, exactly including your own composed music.
Colin:Well, the thing more often, because in the good old days a friend of mine drew to my attention sometime ago in the good old days bands had singers. In the good new days, singers have bands yeah.
Corie:It flipped completely. It flipped completely. Yeah, something I mean when you think of it. If you was to call a band now, the singer name comes through.
Colin:Exactly Nadia Batson and her band. Yeah, Marshall and Chess. Yeah, I find it sad like you miss it.
Corie:I guess younger people now don't know what it was like.
Colin:And you see, it's important and it's one of the things I really miss Me singing my song is me singing my song, you interpreting how you hear and feel and want to deliver my song. That's a totally different experience from the original and we've been deprived of that, I feel. So I'm telling you. You know, one of the greatest experiences in my life was to hear Taxi, please Stay. Yeah, oh, my God, listen, when you talk about blow away, blow away. I was like yeah, yeah.
Colin:And I remember Aunt and Marcel telling me they had a song called Hot Mama, right, and my same brother, william, encouraged me to learn that song. I hadn't heard it and he was to make yeah, come, let's go. And he carried me to a fet in Windshore Club Doesn't exist anymore, it's where Massey Caranajos no, I see, windshore Club was there, right. And my brother carried me to this fet here, kaliang, mm-hmm. And immediately as I heard the song, I was like wow, and I know how I, you know how to internalize it and deliver it. And we did. And then Arthur came to hear us play and deliver it. And we did. And then Arthur came to hear us play Right, and after we played, arthur said that that was. I wish I could have done something like that.
Corie:You know what I mean it's just a mutual respect.
Colin:Yeah, because, yeah, you could only put this much into what you create. Right, what this much generates in other people is this much, I would imagine yeah, it must multiply and now we're just being deprived of that.
Corie:Yeah, if I was missing, I heard Zan Zan was here and he said because he was at 18 now as a lead singer and doing more of what you were doing, yeah.
Corie:Or what song Rev would be doing, and he said he said the same thing. It's his interpretation of it. Now you bring up Stay right, which to me, just listening back to music and stuff, I'm not sure how unique the song was then, but it feels like that groovy era that we face in the late 90s, like Stay was just in such a zone. Music then was like that in such a zone.
Colin:Music then was like that yeah, there was a movement there happening At the forefront of that. Again, carl and Carol Jacobs. And when you have time, go and listen to a song called From no One Right and call me and tell me. Your mind will be completely blown, not only because of how the song is structured, but how it is delivered Right. The level of harmonization, the kind of sax playing inside there world class. Mm-hmm, you'll call me and tell me I will, I will.
Corie:I will. So with Stay. You wrote it and Leon delivered it. Leon is who is he?
Colin:No, on the original Right Stay was 1986. Yes, it was in Leon, that's right. That was the first recording we had with Leon, followed up by Shake it in In 87. Yeah, leon delivered it. Now, one of the things about Leon Caldera he's he's an exact singer. Now I don't know if you know About the. It's a trick they use in In studio Called double tracking, so you'll sing down a lead and sing the lead again. What happens is that, because it's never very exact, what they do is they smooth each other out, right? So a lot of people say, zemen, you don't want to hear the angular, so you double track and it smooths it out. Angular gotcha, so you double track and it smooths it out. The thing with Leon, though Leon is so precise as a singer that both tracks were exactly the same.
Colin:Oh, he can't smooth out nothing, so so you know it's amazing, we in the studio and we sing, but how come we're not getting the soothing effect Now, because Leon's voice is also very melodious, Right?
Colin:You didn't really need it to save the track, but you had become accustomed to using it in songs like that Right Softer stuff and you could play Leon's two tracks with no music and you swear it's one track in. He was so precise. Yeah, every note hit at the same time, held for the same note, hit at the same time, held for the same length, at the same pitch, with the same on. He was he was amazing.
Corie:The only other person I've heard that about is brandy the r&b singer. They said she could match the waves exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've never heard that before. They're legendary, so stay. What? Can I imagine what your reaction is like to that in fits or them kind of thing, because now when you listen back to it, it sounds slow.
Colin:Yeah, I have a new version, by the way. Oh, you do. I have a Senate for you.
Corie:Oh, please, that would be nice, that would be nice.
Colin:So, people, people that was a big song. You know how it started. A little drum beat and the young man say watch out. Yeah, boy. Now, after the song had been on radio for about a week or two, from the time, mose the drummer went the part, he'll go. And then he'll go say watch out.
Colin:And they go come and set for it yeah, stay with somebody and people you could actually stop the music, which we used to do sometimes, and he'll just hear the part he say stay, and we come back a little longer and then you stop and he say stay, yeah, huge, huge. Up to today, an American jazz guitarist actually did a cover of that song, eric Gale, and it was the title track on his 1988, I think, album. And well, he called it let's Stay Together yeah, I guess that's part of the hook.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, big song you bring up, but I'll ask you at that time that's 86, so some rev would have been earlier 80s, right when it started officially 1976 oh, 76, yeah, oh, I see. Well, my date's wrong. These notes, they weren't at them, so you're writing your own songs and those things from the inception of some rev where review is focused on.
Colin:I give you a joke. I again let me shout out deceased. Hey, just so 69. Right, sebastian, hubert, right Sebastian. I'm just saying, colin, you're only playing people's songs. Write your own songs. I'm not into that. I don't think I have that skill. He said, yeah, trust me, I have that skill. He said, yeah, trust me, I have it. So he said, yeah, what? I'll help you write a song. I said okay. So we agreed He'll come Sunday afternoon and he'll help me write a song. So I got this idea for a song Give love to get love Right? He never showed up. So I started Playing around and writing and spent a few hours Customly next day, monday band practice, and his initial instinctive response was can you write a song? I like that.
Corie:He help you.
Colin:Band leader help you and he help you. It was unapologetic. He say can you write a song? I say yeah. He said let me hear it now. So I signed it. He said song and, would you believe, first song I've ever written Give Love to Get Love. At the wedding I told you about the first, first, first first singer of Iraq, a guy named Virgilio King. Right, we are meeting now after we haven't seen each other in about 20 years. Yeah, yeah. And as we shake each other's hand he leans to me. He said I woke up this morning. I said no, you're not serious. Yeah, feeling kind of blue. I said Virgilio, and he sang the whole first verse of that song for me, love it from 1977. Wow, he remembered a song that I wrote and never even recorded. A Savage Leo wrote and never recorded, never recorded. So he just had that in his head. Yeah boy, yeah boy.
Corie:How many years ago is that let's not a few, a few a few dozen a few dozen years so like the appetite for songwriting opened up.
Colin:Yeah, from that and I started like, okay, I could do this. But then I got daunted by the recording industry. I said Colin, boy, suppose you go and put everything there. So I kind of pulled in, and then the band members of Songrev started seeing all around 85 in old BC and Oba in particular was saying, hey, we need to start recording. And then Roots had started recording, you know so, colin.
Colin:Shandini had started recording, so Colin can. So I said okay, okay, okay, okay, okay and um. But I wasn't the only writer. You know Moze the drummer oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, john. In fact, up to now he has a band in Toronto called Moses Revolution.
Corie:I kid you not.
Colin:And he plays and he still writes and stuff Nice.
Corie:So from there it's racist. You're writing all the time.
Colin:Well, I'm not as prolific as a Rudder, sorry, I'm not as prolific as a David Rudder.
Corie:I have a few questions to ask about some song you write, because I feel like if people will say that, people may say hey, this man writes it, you know. But I listen to some of these songs you write right and I think they underestimated in terms of the writing ability or the literary ability. We could talk about it, but let me get to put your hand in the air and shake it. Bomb right. I mean them is big ears and calypso and soca and them great things. So what is this like in Feds then?
Colin:I'll give you a joke too. Now our rule was you don't play a song unless it's on the air already. Okay, because we had a bad experience with our first hit called Destruction Right. It was actually sung by Doron Hector, otherwise known as Versatile. Okay, so we recorded this song and we know this song bad. So we said, yes, we're playing this in Fet from Tomorrow. Right, and you start this song and you start to play this song and people say I'm not joking. Sometimes they were very acrimonious.
Colin:So we learned this song, song released on the radio. It started with a drum roll that simulated thunder After the song got on the radio from the drum roll. So the rule was unless there's a song on the radio, you ain't trying it, you ain't trying. It Comes along. Now shake it. We in Arima Tennis Club, january, the 1st carnival kickoff. I remember two other bands Great, and one band just put on a session there to make you go home, boy, uh-huh, because you know your guy licks all under your tongue. No, careful, I feel it might have been chandelier. I see when I say session, session, father. So we in a little huddle now that we used to call the body Right, and we saying, boy, where's the answer to that boy? Because it totally mash up the place, you know. And my brother of all people said let's start with Shake it, but his song is not released yet.
Corie:Unreleased. At this point it wasn't released.
Colin:He said, colin, trust me, yeah, you know he have. Let's start with Shake it. So I look around and I say, leon, how you feel about that? Well, leon was never on the back down. No, no, leon said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let me do it. I look around and say, oh, you sure Nobody know the song. No, mm-hmm Say yeah, mm-hmm, we are nothing to lose with that. Yeah, yeah, we don't get much of it already. So, boom, turn on the system. Ladies and gentlemen, you're now tuned into the sound of Sound Revolution. Everybody went.
Corie:Serious Big reaction.
Colin:One time we're looking at each other and watch Willie by the mixing board. You might know him. Yeah, boy. No, that was, that was counterintuitive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that was.
Corie:Hmm, that was, that was counterintuitive, yeah yeah yeah one of those things that legendary you know, in terms of the song itself, the opening. I always wonder about the opening of songs how you decide what's the playfulness, what's the safefulness, how you greet that and I think a band have a. I guess singing with a band or being in a band you have such a good feel for what the crowds respond to and all that, but that kind of just hold them in 87. So those times you all have things like Roadmatch on your mind and them kind of things when you're not on it.
Colin:No, I didn't. I didn't. Honestly, I didn't figure that was our domain, you know, because even prior to that, the only band song that had ever won road match was Bahia Girl. Everything else was from Calypso Nyan, and I was drummed into your head Calypso Nyan is who will win road match, Right? So there was no effort, no focus on that. Yeah, but this guy, Afun Edgar Afun's nephew I forgot his name.
Corie:John Afun.
Colin:Right, came to me about three weeks before Carnival, just so. He said you know that could be a good match. I said what he said shake it. I said no, he said, but you have to know what to do. I said I don't understand, remember I, yeah, you didn't think of that, I don't know. He said there are ways to work your song so that it becomes very high profile as a roadmatch contender, right, but we couldn't finish the conversation and I didn't know the ways and there was nobody else who ventured to share the ways with me, right, so we came, actually we came second at it, yeah, yeah.
Corie:Oh, it did. Yeah, that song, that's one that stood the test of time, like many of them. You know me and dad, that was there that time. Song Rev on the road. Yeah, yeah, what's your reaction like to that on the road?
Colin:from the time you play the start, people just singing the whole song.
Corie:You know Leon could have rest but he was't a man to rest.
Colin:He wasn't to today, yeah, as they used to say, don't be gone, bad, bad, bad yeah, yeah, yeah.
Corie:I always wonder. I mean, you have an intense season. You talk about two 45 minute sets. You in particular, you had to go to work the next day and all that. How are you managing, after a long kind of big hits like that and you don't remember, a thousand songs going on your road Monday and Tuesday? How do you add energy for that?
Colin:then we used to we actually had a record of carrying the most songs on the road and so on. A lot of bands used to cut it down to like between six there's no joke six or eight songs, because they figured those are the songs that will get the triggers, and so on. Our philosophy was that's what you all think, that's what the radio station tell you, or you feel you learn that from the radio station. But people have had a whole season of fetting with 20-something songs. Why am I going to deprive them of 13 of them On the road? So we used to. This is no joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're playing 20, 21 songs on the road. Yeah, and we started also carrying 20 songs right through during the year calypso's I see outside of the season.
Corie:I got you because then the band's performing year-round.
Colin:You're touring and performing all the time gotcha. But at the beginning, huh, you carried two out of the season the road march and some other popular one. It was that bad the whole carnival carrying two songs.
Corie:That's what you mean, just the band After the carnival. After the carnival, just two songs.
Colin:You're keeping two soca. Yeah, and we were always like, but that was the practice. And then we just said, no, wait a minute, no, this isn't land of Soka and we carry in two. So we say, look, we carry in all when you're doing that, oh yeah.
Corie:Well, I can't imagine how difficult it was, because there was a time when Ash Wednesday come Soka to stop play, if you say radio, what's going? On Radio, done with Soka for Lent.
Colin:Yeah, and to late 80s, right, where the actual preferred genre of young people in Trinidad was like Soca and they wanted to hear Soca like all the time, anytime. We used to be playing in a lot of graduations, right, right, secondary school graduation Whole band Right, whole band Plain. And we remembered when, like in the late 70s, early 80s, you had to do a lot more R&B and pop and funk and that kind of music and reggae and stuff. Right, and you're playing a few soca because, right, you know, and you're ending up the set, right. And by mid 80s and thing to the late 80s, the thing changed. They want to hear Soka. Yeah, you play a little reggae, you play a thing. But the main part of the session was, you know, these ladies used to be in the gowns, the graduation gown, and you see, they come when you start, when you realize it, they come and they kick off the shoe right there by the stage and you're going. It's not two, three, four, so they want them.
Colin:Right, you keep pumping if you wouldn't look like you're gonna stop song right here and these are young people, teenagers, yeah, and that gave us so much joy could imagine to see us. We said yes. Finally, you know we have come into our own um. We found that that kind of intensity started to win a little bit by the close of the end of the 80s. Yeah, yeah, now they're still taking the soccer full scale carnival and they're still. But you see, where they wanted to hear soccer whole night in the graduation, that started to fade away amazingly to that boy at that time.
Colin:Well, you see the airwaves kind of guide what you hear. Therefore it guides what you like, right? You know, I have often said to people don't feel that a song is played a lot on the radio because you like it.
Corie:You like it because it's played a lot on the radio because you like it.
Colin:You like it because it's played a lot on the radio, right? I ask people, you like Chinese music, right? No, why do you think that is? I've never heard it. Thank you, if you grew up in China. I suppose, your brain will attune and you know, then you'll like this Chinese song and not this one, right? But you wouldn't dislike Chinese music, of course. You know. So what you hear, what is fed into your subconscious, you know kind of guides, what you will like or not like, generally speaking, so hence it's only Renaissance.
Corie:You see it coming out.
Colin:It was amazing. Yeah, they were hungry. You know if you played one too many Kograb songs you just heard somebody say Soka, songrev Soka, and we were just like, yeah, you're coming down early now, you know. So prepare to be burned.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, I can imagine a band like Songrev in their graduation. You know, I think Sun River, I think FET. What kind of events used to play?
Colin:at the time we were the number one choice for even fashion shows. I'll tell you why Our cross-section of music. We used to play, yeah, r&b thing, but we used to play crossover jazz and things. In fact, there's something on YouTube that's been going around for a while Right, sun River concert. There's something on YouTube that's been going around for a while Songraven concert, 1982. Mm-hmm Playing Take Five. Mm-hmm, right, yeah, oba soloing on the flute and so on. Mm-hmm, we used to play. We used to play Nightcrawler, yeah, bob James. No, we really. Yeah, yeah, we used to really get on so that people having fashion shows at Hilton would feel, oh, song of the Sea Band, because you know the range. Yeah, when we used to be in Carabana, Right, yeah, man, they used to hire us for fashion shows and Queen show and so on, because of how we used to play and what we used to play.
Corie:Yeah, you were just set to suit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, with you A little buddy telling me today there's a show, at least outside of Asta Cinema is now I don't know his name of it.
Colin:Right, it's now a church, right? Actually, we're done at Roxy and then Roxy closed to change into Pizza Hut, so we moved to Asta and I think the next five years were at Asta. Sound Revolution in concert.
Corie:And it's outside of the season.
Colin:Oh yeah, normally in.
Corie:October. Okay, I got it, got it, got it. But at that time that's a big change. Like I was asking Radha about that too, he had a no restrictions concert outside of Carnival. It wasn't common then to have a soccer show outside of Carnival, it was just restricted to the season, but it wasn't a soccer show for us. But for you all it was just a first.
Colin:Everything, everything I mean, and every year we featured a different act. So I think 1982, you start the second set. You start the second set with a Song Revolution Sings, Right? So 1982 was Song Revolution Sings stylistics. Song Revolution Sings Earth, wind, fire, I think was. I'm with you, I say 92, it's 82, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 82, song Revolution Sings Earth, wind, fire. Song Revolution Sings, I think Ro roots or something. We did Gladys Knight and the Pips and we did a couple local things, song Revolution things.
Corie:Yeah, so you're a team and you carry through the show.
Colin:For that first, for that first segment. After, in the second half, always that Song Revolution, things, that 40, 40, 30 minute session, right, and then you go back into different segments of the show yeah, big show sold out show, yeah, yeah, yeah three nights would normally run. Yeah, yeah, normally run.
Corie:You can do that now, but you see singers, you know they say bands are singers. Three nights is a lot. Yeah, yeah is a lot. I was asking Eddie about the simple things like preserving people's voice, and aren't you tired when you're?
Colin:drinking. Yeah, drink carnival. You got to be careful with it.
Corie:Yeah, have to be careful with it, otherwise you're horseback In them days. It have no backing track and no vocal backing. No, no, no, oh hell, no, no, live mixing no no, no, hell, no.
Colin:And the purists. The purists will go, anything will leave without going for that For sure.
Corie:It's something that I also feel like we miss now where people singing singing. You know you go to shows now and there's a. I mean, if you're lucky you'll get somebody who's singing over the chorus or a few punchlines, but most times it's a record playing behind somebody and they're going to see a real performance, so that's live.
Colin:Yeah, that's live. Imagine that. That's one of my, that's one of my little issues.
Corie:I have it it does as well as well as to set the trend. If I with body, I can't imagine how much that men like holy, they don't look like they're working to you. It don't look.
Colin:It don't look like it because somebody on stage on the lead singing, and then the same lead who's singing started to tell you something and the fellow had to pull down the lead voice that's still singing, because the guy started to talk to the crowd and I said, no, okay, how fake can that be? Anyway, let me not be judgmental.
Corie:Well, let me be, because when I go fret to fret now, because of the difficulty of that, it boxes the artist or the performance in. So what's happened I find now is when you go to FET you're seeing the exact same performance. It's so templated. That was never the case. I mean Ronnie's still on stage, people like Kurt, alan, eddie and them. They have no two shows the same. Customs is the night before. It's a completely different show you could expect, not just song selection, but the way the delivery, yeah, and the interacting with the crowd watching you on stage. You bring up fashion show. I'd ask you about your fashion choices, because you're a man who wears some tights over the ears, like when I watch it. I say you know, sometimes people just watch an old album and you watch your style. You say, when you watch back YouTube nowadays and you're looking good, still you still wearing them tights. Let me just make sure. First I'll tell you something.
Colin:I would have been the last person to wear tights.
Colin:I used to but you ever catch me in a tight man. Tights is for girls. No, honestly, tights, I love to see girls in tights. Oh man, go wear tights. I used to wear little cycles and things. I said, look, they could say what they want. The next thing it started to become a style. You still yeah, it's still good how you think this happened. Carnival sunday 1990, right soaker village, we setting up the trailer because we used to play from the trailer. Carnival sunday because we had to play juve and right. So we setting up the trailer, some piece of technical thing beating me on. So willie and I decide we will stay, let the others go, be a change and come back. And so you know we'd have a kind of smooth transition. We managed to get the thing fixed. Just five minutes before the promoter says Songrev, we said you know, a dirty from stints, a dear stints, must be made in. And then I said but I can't go and perform like this A fella named Baita.
Colin:he was a percussionist in the band Earl Edwards. Salute to Baita. Yeah, no, baita had his plastic bag. He said I have two cycle shorts here and I said Baita, me cycle shorts, boy, like a short spike, look, move with that, I could. I could ritual man come back, promoter, come and say some man with that. This carnival Sunday. You know, Bite a do myself.
Colin:I like I got white and a black and white. I say, well, now that white looking like that two thing, I'll take the black and white. I said, well, now that white looking like that two thing, I'll take the black and white.
Colin:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Antoinette said, yeah, well, I'll take one of these Sunriff jerseys, I'll shred it up, she'll put that. She'll go over the cycle shorts a little bit down, right. And you had to go do that Gotcha, do that gotcha. So that's what happened. Yeah, I've read self-concept, because the whole idea of psychostrust for a man and it was against it too.
Corie:Yeah, it was really distasteful.
Colin:Yeah, I'd gone up on the on the trailer and as I reached up on the trailer, some ladies were right down the button and they just said, whoa, that was it. I got sued.
Corie:So by test of blame by test of blame.
Colin:I am missing the man that felt, you know, it worked against all the negativity I had in me for wearing cycle shorts, right, you know they just went. Whoa, and that said, okay, colin, okay, maybe he's not so bad. Yeah, yeah yeah, I went through the night time next morning, so we leave there now and we had to go and play on the road. But we can't chance this or run home.
Corie:The trailer. Go where it has to go, we in.
Colin:We say Baita, you're the next Baita, You're going to own him.
Corie:I say Baita is to blame them.
Colin:ladies, go say Baita, it's to thank for that I say, baita, you still have the nectar, bring it so that carry on that's what it is yeah, listen. I'm so bad man, so what? The white one for juvie? I asked my mother cause them days I still living? I asked my mother because them days are still living home. Right, I asked my mother to wash the black one, yeah.
Corie:Make sure it's ready.
Colin:So I read that Monday on the road, beautiful, and the white one Tuesday on the road.
Corie:Nice, nice, nice. The thing I use, yeah, yeah, yeah by, but it's a good use. And this is 90 when you come out, so that time you're still with Songrev.
Colin:That time I was still with Songrev when is this year eventually, so I joined.
Colin:Robin Imamsha. Well, songrev and I had a parting of the ways later in 1990. Okay, and Robin Imamsha came to me. He said Colin, it's true boy, I hear you, it's true boy, he ain't talk that you and Sam Raft done. I said yeah, that's it. He said I could have the right of first refusal. Now, I'd never heard it termed before Right, okay, but it was obvious what it meant, of course, but I remember I'd never heard it before Right. Right, I said Robin, I don't want to be in a band anymore. He said we should have been working a long time. Think about it. Right, I thought about it.
Colin:I ended up in taxi. One of the first things Robin said to me is no, you know, taxi's a hip band, right, you know. He said no, no, no, insult to song revolution, but taxi's whole thing is youth and thing and flash and fashion. And I say, well, robin, I'm not driven by fashion. I tell him I've never been, you know, I just need to look tidy, clean and I'm good, I'm not driven by fashion, you know. He said, well, you gotta help me out.
Colin:And then because, you want to, to keep the, the, the look, the brand yeah, consistent okay or nothing, hey. So something close and physically close and thing and thing and thing. Hey, first time we go on stage, somebody pull robin and say um Robin, and say I'm, I know how we're supposed to look. Yeah, that's not it. He said yeah, but make him look fashionable that's your welcome to taxi. Yeah make him look fashionable in cycle shorts that kind of thing right? That's not it, and so back to the cycle show yeah, yeah well, all right, but I tried.
Colin:I tried valiantly in in my second year. Um, spectacular right. I didn't have any cycle shorts. I'm gonna first night if you see my boy, nice outfit. But soon I come off stage. Soon, as I come off stage, people come and say that's not. You know, I had to hustle to chaos. What do you mean? I had to pick up chaos. I had to hustle to chaos not to make cycle shots for the second night.
Corie:People, you're standard dancer.
Colin:People know what they're looking for when they see Colin Lucas. But I tried yeah all right.
Corie:Well, you give it a shot. Dying bad, dying bad. So it's more around 90,. You had a move.
Colin:Yeah, 90 was Taxi which morphed into, and in fact that's how come Dollar Wine ended up on the Taxi album.
Corie:I see it was on Taxi album.
Colin:Yeah, made in instructions. But I have one more song to ask you about before yeah, football dance.
Corie:Which one? Which one? Or 89, okay, good, yeah, there's more than one. Yes, my notes, I would not. What can I take here?
Colin:no, no, no no, all right, that's quite right, that's, that's all right good, so 89, I guess, strike squad.
Corie:We almost in that position now where people have a little football fever. Now that do you take over the team. And yeah, there are some qualifiers coming up soon too.
Colin:So when we I was going to play for them in a bar. You should make us some youth. Why?
Corie:not when you're looking for strikers. You know you have it and I'll be struck. The football dance might work again. So that time is strike squad fever. That was so Strike Squad Fever, that would have been my song rather than your football dance. Yes, what's the idea behind the song, then? Just supporting the team?
Colin:Yeah, just supporting the team. And there were some key figures in that Derek Seals and a guy we call Don Wheels, right, they were key contributors to the structure and the content of that song, right, you know, if you remember the song, to the structure and the content of that song, right, you know? Mm-hmm, if you remember the song, the part football dance, football dance, football dance, that was done. Yeah, and some other parts inside, mm-hmm, smooth voice on and on. Well, because of this, the smooth voice, as I said, there is this velvet voice, right, oh God boy. But because of this the smooth voice, as I said, there it is velvet voice, right, oh god, that's special, do you know? Let me, let me take a little boost.
Colin:Yeah, so one day in them days, you have two radio stations driving home from work. One station, football dance, I smiled, turn to the other station, football dance. So I was close toed to the other station, football dance, so I was close to home. But I was close to my parents' home, so I pulled up outside to run upstairs to say, mom, would you believe my song playing on both stations and it was on TV? Oh shit, the video was on TV. I was like whoa, yeah that is special.
Corie:I said, father, thank you.
Colin:I was like whoa, yeah, that is special. That is special. I said, father, thank you.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that must be a special. I'm telling you.
Colin:Both FM stations and the TV are the same thing.
Corie:Right, yeah, that was you know the thing about it.
Corie:Like several songs were done they had Lancelot Lane had one four or five strike squad songs but that one appealed to the youth in a way at that time that none of the other songs could have claimed. That was really holding on to youth at the time. I was like nine years old that time and you can't believe that. There's no way people don't understand now that there was nothing about Trinidad not qualifying by that time. We making it because even some and some of the things you say, leonson Lewis will put it in the net for that was what was happening in the very life.
Corie:But I want to ask you about that Jamaican influence in that song in particular. But you live and study in Jamaica sometimes.
Colin:Yeah well, I was 73 to 76.
Corie:Good age, good time, and you're studying what at that time? You're studying business or something really management. So all them jobs you get over the years you qualified. You're a man, it's not. You know. Sometimes we look back at it. A man may watch it and say the power of a big artist to run the port. And where was it? It was the port, it was TT. Post but TT Post was after long after yeah, after the port.
Colin:After my first stint in the port, which was the longest, I was about 30 years, right. Then I went to TD Post managing director, right I was the first local managing director at TD Post.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, congrats, that's good.
Colin:And then I went copyright organization, right, and then I went to NCC. Oh, you went to NCC, yeah, I was at N and executive chairman, okay, and then CEO for most of the time.
Corie:Gotcha. Yeah, that was lovely. So you're a qualified man. You went through it. You went through the training and things. Study over there and apply it really.
Colin:Yeah, I tried.
Corie:Well, I see now why you ain't leaving anything for the things Heavy hitter in the corporate world too.
Colin:I wouldn't consider myself a heavy hitter. You know it's amazing if you're really paying attention. And the more you learn, the more you know that you don't know it's amazing. So every day, on any job I ever had, was a learning experience. I remember going into the hold of a ship big ship at times went down with them fellas, we were working only as night, right, I decided I would take a little time with them down in the ship, going down there with them, you know, putting my helmet, safety thing and so on. Yeah, and first thing, a sling looking to come across and I was going to touch it and I just felt I can't do so and pull away my hand. So I look, fella said, boss, you can't touch that without gloves on, and he held it. He held it If you saw the little barbs and thing in that way if I had just touched it.
Colin:He said no, boss can't do it without gloves. So on and so on. And every day we go to pick up a container, the crane. The crane's struggling. I'm working on his TV, don't I know? He said tell it the driver do that. He said that's too heavy. You know, when they went to weigh it, a standard ISO 40 foot 30 tons, those days it was 40 tons and just how the crane was straight go and weigh that again 10 tons over, it would have split, you know.
Colin:so I enjoyed. And today, if I go anywhere, 10 tons over, it would have split, mm-hmm, you know. So I enjoyed, you know, and today, if I go anywhere, I'm going with what I know, but I want to leave with what I didn't.
Corie:Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I understand. That is the thing. Yeah, that curiosity built into it. Mm-hmm, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
Colin:So your time in Jamaica influencing the choices of songs that went into their football dance because it was a sample from Asward or some of the other songs. If that had been eight years before, I would have said my influence would have been key. But by that time you had people like Oba and Ting in the band. By that time reggae was itself emerging. When we started playing reggae as a new band in 76, 77, people used to call us the reggae band. You know, okay, and that would imply that all we played was reggae. But no, we were just the only band that played reggae.
Colin:Right, we played everything, but because we were the only band that played reggae, people started referring to us as reggae bands, but that changed over the next eight, nine years. So by that time of football dance, reggae was finding its own engine yeah, it was, it was and um. Couple of the songs that that, that we um I forgot the correct term for it that we, for want of a better word parodied right um, were themselves popular at the time.
Corie:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, you know. And hearing local voices singing it, I think made it special for people. And it came out of nowhere.
Colin:in his song too, everything came out of nowhere in his song.
Corie:Keep having surprises the more you listen to it. So it's been a rung, so you should talk to them now. I feel like if we bring back some of them we have a better chance to qualify this time. You know what I mean. There was nobody else saying, as a youth, you couldn't think of Trinidad not qualifying in 89. At that point you think you're sure, you're dead sure.
Colin:And you know I was behind the goal post when the ball, yeah, and I look in Willie and I sign up next to each other and the ball, I remember it was a long, long, long, long, long, long shot and I said, willie, willie, yeah, willie, I like how that looking you know, poof In the back of the net.
Corie:Heartbreak. Yeah, that was heartbreak. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we make it eventually and I feel like we'll make it again fingers crossed. So you fast forward now. Now is a selfish time, right, let me take care of the woman issues, right and needs you know? Yeah. So, dollar, why I hear you talking about. I was going to ask you, when we were writing that, how you come up with this cent fice and tencent dollars, I think, but I hear you talking about the origin it was a joke, and I tell so old in Trinidad.
Colin:Trinidad had pound sterling as its currency, so it was farthing tuppence shilling pound. That is how old that joke was in its original state and it evolved and morphed and came down through the years and I said you know, I have to make a song about that. But now the joke is horizontal.
Corie:The original joke it's horizontal, it's horizontal, it's horizontal. So the premise is the same.
Colin:Yeah, I just thought to make it more acceptable on the airwaves and you know things. Spatially acceptable, I would verticalize it.
Corie:So wait, wait, wait, because you teach me a whole lesson in your song, right, you teach me how to make a house of wine. What did? He was teaching Vertical. He was teaching a new bride. Are you serious?
Colin:That was the original joke. A guy was teaching his new bride I like it how to reciprocate it. And the story is when sweetness take us what she say.
Corie:It's pong, pong, pong, pong pong. Now I'm starting to understand why my wife like like it's so original.
Colin:She living vicariously through the song.
Corie:That's right, that's right.
Colin:No and and and. So I had the idea. And then I kind of got lazy with it. Two things happened. I had mentioned it to Robin in my show Right, and he kept asking you wrote that song. Yet I said, robin, I think I'll do that next year Because I'd already written one which was going to be on the album. Okay, because I'd already written one which was going to be on the album. He said you see, just how you explain it to me, that could be a real big hit. Then I went to a show in Spectacular and out of the blue, tommy Joseph gave that joke Out of the blue. I touch to his neck and I say that's a sign.
Corie:Yeah, it must be the reaction to the joke too. It must be. No, he has something there for sure.
Colin:I said that's a sign and I went home after the show and started writing Right, Right you know by that time you were performing with Taxi still, or solo. Well, I had started being a member of Taxi, right, but we hadn't started performing yet. Ah, okay, we were in prep mode, right, the latter part of 1990. Right, we were prepping to start Oliya's Night and go through the season. I see.
Colin:So I hadn't played yet. I see, and when? So when I told Robin, okay, I've started it and so on and so on, he said tell me when I could come in here, because I did it in my band room, right. So when they say, robin, you could come in because you know you sequence all this stuff, and then you go in the studio, you put it on, then you put live, so remember, on a silver painted stool in the bathroom. So I pressed start and it went, and robin went so I stopped it.
Colin:I said what he said has a hit already. I said, robin, you haven't heard a word, you haven't heard a melody, nothing. I haven't heard a melody, nothing, I don't care. His words were you cannot possibly do anything to spoil that. I said what is your story? He said you cannot possibly do anything to spoil that and I was like okay. So I started it again.
Colin:And Robin is like this and he's like this, and if you see him honestly, and he's like this and he's like, and every time like I sing a line or whatever, he would be like. And he was sitting with one of his legs crossed right and his foot was just going like this, not at the beat of the music, it was just, it was a nervous, kind and I was like Robin, it is a man of custom.
Colin:Yeah, he said Robin he said Colin, trust me, that is our number one sir. I said okay, thanks for you know your voter confidence. He said Colin, so that's how you ain't feeling it? No, I I number one, sir. I said okay, thanks for you know your voter confidence. He said Colin, so at that time you ain't feeling it? No, and with my mother, my deceased mother, one day when I was working, I knocked on the door because it was that band room was home. Same culture crossroads, yeah, the band room too. And back of the band room was an open garage and we had clotheslines there, so my mom would hang clothes out there from time to time. She knocked on the door and she said what's that you're working on? I said I'm working on a soccer farm thing. She said why? She said the rhythm is hanging close here and I'm dancing. I said when you have time I'll sing a thing.
Colin:She said okay, she came in and I sang a song for her and she said she said I'm no meaning, she's not a a thing, an authority on soca music. She said I'm no authority on soca music, but that song, that song, that song, and Robin, I tell you, robin, robin was like you cannot possibly spoil that.
Corie:Yeah, boy, hell that opening up to today it you can't do nothing else when the opening play, that thing is paralyzed here, you know it's a weird opening, yeah, it's aggressive as hell.
Colin:A fella who a you can't do nothing else when the open play, that thing is paralyzed here. It's a weird opening, it's aggressive as hell. A fellow, a guy who had taught me a lot of music in Jamaica, a guy he's deceased now, charlie Roberts. Now the song became popular, so he was accustomed to the song, but he didn't know that it was I who did the song. So we were out of touch for years. And then the year after I had to go to Jamaica again and we got back in touch and I was by him and he was telling me the story. So he said people telling me, boy, you hear this Dalla Wine thing man. So he's playing it. So he puts it on and he said this man here are crazy Him play a minor bass line in a major chord.
Colin:Because, as really what's going on? Really, the chord is G major, it's the key of G major, right, but the brass line is G minor. Ta-na, ta-na, ta-na, ta-na, it's a minor. Ta-na, ta-na, ta-na. Is it minor? That's minor. He said this man here is crazy. So when he found out it was me, he said yeah, no man.
Corie:And why Robert can't sit still.
Colin:Yeah, it was minor and a couple of musicians abroad, you know like why would you come up with that? What would make you think about that? I do not have a clue. I had the chords down. I actually did the major at first and something just wasn't right. So, just out of idleness, I played the minor and I was like, yeah, keeping that, so it wasn't any brilliance. So it wasn't any brilliance, gotcha, it wasn't any brilliance no, it wasn't brilliance, it was distance sound. Try that and okay, keep that. Yeah, so what's?
Corie:your reaction when you start, but I guess it hit radio and it go on. It had no time between when it launch and it pick up right. Yeah, it launch and it pick up right. Yeah, the food it was like a week pick up Right. And how long it take you writing and all that kind of thing.
Colin:It take some time, or that song Mm-hmm About three sessions.
Corie:Yeah, and you're done, yeah, yeah, in three sessions. Three sessions and that thing that will. I like to call them your songs, forever songs, because I lived in Jamaica for a while too. Yeah, 2008 to 2010.
Corie:And I couldn't understand Jamaica soaker scene. It seemed to be a hop-tongue thing and people who go in regular parties don't listen. Soaker, it's that dancehall thing. And them days it's the height of war with Movado and Cartel. So youth, that's what they're looking for.
Corie:And I'll tell you something right, I used to look and that's why I argue with anybody today that some fellas make a top 100 soaker the other day. I don't know if you pay attention to it, but I don't know if you could make a top 10 soaker without dollar wine. And I used to go to them fets, where it is hardcore dancehall and the dances on them is borderline violence. Because if Muvado come in when Carter is problems, and in the midst of that, with all the men and Dolla Wine will come on To me. It was that at that point in time, destro with respect to who they were always on Destro at that time, because a lot of Destro songs was covers of popular music like Carnival and Tea and Jamaica music is like that right, Plenty of reggae is, but Dalla Wine is coming in the middle of the hardest center dance at the moment.
Corie:Man boy, man, dalla in and it started. I'll keep watching it. And I was like, but wait, how'd them come up with this? How'd them know this song? You know what I mean. It's so strange because everywhere I go you don't hear Soka. But Dalla Wine was always in the mix and it even led to the creation of a kind of daggering movement. If you never heard, I will send some of them for you besides that whole, it is an era from about maybe 10, 2010, 11, 12.
Corie:Okay, plenty of the music. As soon as a senator, you start hearing it, okay, because that dollar wine was so, so powerful. Then and I'm sure it's your experience, that is global reach. This is just every year it has.
Colin:It has done well. Um, it has reached a lot of places. It's modest. You know what? What somebody told me once, a Jamaican guy. He was complimenting me on his song and I said but thanks, you know, like he say, you never know where me hear it first. You know. I said where. He said it's in a jukebox in a trench down in ohio. That's what I mean.
Corie:What is that jukebox in a?
Colin:trench town. That way me get for no dollar wine.
Corie:I said yeah, everywhere, everywhere. So when I hear people talking about soca, I was like I'm not sure if you could make that list without a song Now performing it for the first time. Well, I guess you're on stage.
Colin:The first time was the port where Hyatt is, right that side there on the waterfront. There there was a high-end party there Soka party Right, and it wasn't even on the air yet. So it was a a high-end party there soccer party, and it wasn't even on the air yet. So it was a little thing. But Robin said no, so you're going with this one too. Yeah, robin, he was the leader of the band, he called the shots so I could have my opinion but, if Robin said, we play him this that's what gotcha?
Colin:and from the get-go it was that. And people just flocked the stage and so on, and by the end of the set they were saying play it again. Yeah, and played it again. And by the next set they were like play it again. And but remember, that year too, there was um sookie, sookie, sookie. Oh god, hey boy, that mashup fine like chili, chili, baby. Remember that year too.
Corie:Mm-hmm, there was Soki, soki, soki, right, oh God Boy that mashup fine, like chili, chili, baby.
Colin:I can imagine, I can imagine.
Corie:That was a mashup. Yeah boy, yeah boy. Another one that will just stand in time. We play anywhere anytime, you know. Oh yeah, Monster hits. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's nice. Who would have been the original Sookie? Sookie was written and done by what? By Robin. Oh, it was Robin who wrote the? Song Mm-hmm.
Colin:Oh, okay, we live and we live. Yeah, robin. Robin is an amazing talent. Somebody could come to Robin and say I want to hear this song and Robin could tell you if it's going to be a hit. Yeah, he had that. Something touches him. When it's going to resonate with the public, he feels it I have. While I was in taxis there were songs coming out, songs that I would just put my head on, and Robin was saying that one ain't making it. You see that one? I said Robin that that one ain't making it. You see that one. Yeah, is it? I said Robin that the person him singing in key. He said trust me, you know the word. He was never wrong, never what kind of record is that?
Corie:Yeah, yeah yeah, once he says it's going to make it trust me to pick Dollar Wine then to open. He had to know something you know what I mean.
Colin:If he had to okay, anybody.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now his song Writing in Dollar Wine, I think, is one of the things that I have. We were talking about missing the band era, right, I feel like in today's music you miss a lot of what you would have done in music then, because if you listen to the song, you listen to the song, the dollar, dollar. It looks so powerful, but if you listen to the song it's really, it's a story. It's a story Beginning to end yeah, full, complete story. So you almost listen to the song and you have to find out what happened next when you you know the chorus, you hold on to the chorus. There you do the dollar, but you're waiting to hear. It even ends by saying, um, five to one. I want to ask you, where are you feeling going Up? Nowhere, I don't know. But it's a five to one. It doesn't mark the time too?
Corie:So it's such a, it's such a. That's what I mean when I say the literary part. You know a real story and um, deliberate, when he was writing, then yeah.
Colin:Just as beats are. You don't sit down in your home three months after a song is no longer repeatedly playing on the radio and remember a beat in. That's true, you remember a story. You know, yeah, when the beat, when the song is on and that drive in you, but that appeals to you at a particular level, right driving you, but that appeals to you at a particular level. Stories go much deeper into your psyche because it forces your brain to make links. So come in the party and you're going to say I like how you're moving and show me how now, and say, well, hello, gosh, also you're teaching her, and so on and so on. So, yes, I'm now. The story allows you to reconnect with the joy you had for this song and move into the song and dance into the song. So even the stupidest of songs I will write must have a story, must have a story.
Corie:Let me ask you about that because a lot of people refer to songs like um, you had um iowa butterfly shadow. Remember when you released this song there was a story behind that. There was it is it connects like the first time I heard I said, but this song in like you're just trying to find a dance. Again I said, but but that song now, even today in France, you know people would. Can you give me the backstory to?
Colin:that I was with Sound Revolution in Toronto. I was not a member of the band by then, but I used to gig with them.
Corie:You know they would call me and say oh, so you used to perform with them, so I used to gig with them.
Colin:Yeah, Went up to do this gig in Toronto. Mm and the sequencer God. I used to use the sequencer for certain things and the sequencer broke down Right. So all that could happen was the rhythm Right. So we're trying to fix it down and the crowd started to get a little restless. So Derek said what are we going to?
Corie:do. Do you want to stop? Oh, this is the onstage. This is not before. Okay with you. So this is your on stage. This is not before.
Colin:Okay, with you On stage and crowd watching, crowd watching. So I say here what happened, let me do some dances. I say everybody know the Iowa right, jump up and kick up. This place is a tamash up. So after four I want everybody doing the Iowa. So the two Iowa we played the full with Iowa Butterfly had come out that year too. I'm with Byron.
Corie:E Butterfly butterfly.
Colin:I said, all right, I do the butterfly. And between butterfly minutes going, I'm looking back shadow, shadow jump up on one spot, this place, and everybody know it. A wave mashup and everybody know to wave. All right, okay, all right, let's put all together now. So I were butterfly, shadow wave and we did that and the crowd went totally crazy. So directly heard me and say, hmm, yes, I'm using that because I gonna gig with them.
Colin:But I'm of course, of course he said using home, of course, of course. He said are you using that? I said oh, I mean of course. Derek came back. When the band came back in December and Derek called me. He said listen, since you leave, we've been using that Iowa Butterfly Shadow Wave every single time we play out. We don't have to have any technical problems, we just use it because it works so well. Yeah, people respond yes, you know, Colin, you think it was bad the day you did it. It's like part of our thing now. You said you were going to write a song. Have you written a song? I said well, no, I didn't remember that. You say I think you're going to write this song. He said because if you don't write it, I want to write it Because it's guaranteed it. I said give me a couple of days now and I'll tell you. And he called me back. He said made up your mind? I said yeah, I think I'll write it. And he said okay cool.
Colin:Now how many people would have had the decency?
Colin:Yeah, I suppose You're sitting on something that you're now working because you've been doing it for months. It's a guaranteed hit. Basically, you've been seeing I wasn't seeing it, they were seeing it but yet he picks up the phone because I was the person who had the idea first to do it. And he picks up the phone and calls me and says are you still going to do it? And even though I said, well, I hadn't done it yet, but I think about it, and he gave you time.
Colin:He still gives me the time to think about it. And then, when I said, well, yeah, I'm going to do it, he says, well, he's going to. How many people you know?
Corie:would have done that, not many. That is special. That is special, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I suppose he has fertile ground to test it every time. He knows, he knows, so he knows how to work out. So you're telling me you write this song, live at the end of the day. This is the chorus, right In real time.
Colin:Yeah, it was written in real time, just in real time, just so.
Corie:Yeah, I love it when I hear the like. The first time I listened to it on the air. You know, you know the highway, you know the butterfly. Then they say jump up on one spot. One time you had jump up on one spot. You think shadow. But then they say the song Rev Crew.
Colin:You know how that is right. I tell you they had a song that was to shanley and it was a jump up on once, but this place started, so they actually had released that that year, I understand.
Corie:so it's a lot of which, yes, but that's what I mean with these stories. You know them, things is connecting away, and then them days you put videos out, to which, in that era, so it's sticking, even if you get, well, radio playing here, tv playing, like you see mommy, come and see you. And I wonder sometimes about the music today, like, maybe you put it right, like it get very rhythm focused, even if the idea of many, many artists singing on one rhythm and then there's not much, well, definitely not enough. Four verse and chorus and thing Again a whole song is a minute and a little bit, no long intro.
Corie:Neither you had to get to it quick and I wonder how you feel about that. Like you feel like this story is missing and I wonder as well, with Dollar Wine being such a global or globally recognized hit, and the joke was the joke. The story is the story, but I should say without this story I don't know if it would have reached that far.
Colin:I doubt it yeah, I think all music now is one of these things that might be keeping it back from going as far as it is yeah, yeah, honestly, and it's difficult for someone like me to have credibility saying something like that, because there are artists out there making millions from what they're doing. Now I make millions.
Corie:So who am?
Colin:I to be offering advice on how to attain success, but the fact that we haven't really toppled that international market yet speaks volumes. We need to listen to that silence. You know we need to listen to that, yeah.
Corie:Yeah, I see it more and more where the song is not that this, I mean the songs people fetter and they're having a good time and them kind of things. But the staying power I know, I just talk more internationally the staying power of a song week to week during the carnival, or sometimes carnival to carnival. They die off. They die not fast, it's not I don't know how much forever music we still make.
Colin:A friend of mine coined the phrase once minimal residual value. So, after the fact, there's nothing that you can take away, nothing you can keep, you know your vibes and your vibes, your hype and your hype. And then your vibes come out, go on and you go home. Next month, next week, next year, something else?
Colin:Right, it's difficult to introduce a new genre to the world without memorable music and not memorable from the party last night, memorable from months ago. And yeah, something must resonate with the new. You know, to make millions of people out there who are not privy to the culture every day and the music is what's going to be their connection. You need to have something to draw them to that connection. Of course it must be memorable.
Corie:Yeah, it's like and you know, sometimes even like Dollar Wine. You know some songs, the hook's so strong that people might not have listened to really get the story. They might have never heard it. It's just so strong and I wonder if now the focus is so much on the hook. I try not to name no song, right.
Colin:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of these songs this year. It's strong Hook-centric.
Corie:Yeah, that's it, and some of them are great. It's great songs too, but I wonder if you feel it's the audience Like today listen to a story and a song well, the audience is being taught not to listen for certain things this is what you're saying about the Chinese music right we being, yeah, with you.
Corie:Was it also the rhythm thing, though? Because that was not something that you I think you all as band leaders. You're so iconic in your music and your presentation, your sense of style and everything. Everybody was so focused. You presentation, his sense of style and everything. Everybody was so focused. You know the personal brands and you talk about Colin Lucas or Ronnie or Carl David rather.
Colin:There's nothing or no one in this world that is all good or all bad. Right Right, one can argue that writing in rhythm gives several artists an opportunity to interpret a rhythm differently and deliver on it differently. Quite often, though, if you play them one after the other, unless the voice is very unnoticeably different, you don't know where one stop when where start?
Colin:where one stop, yes, and that could undermine the very thing I'm the undermining, the opportunity I'm talking about. So it's not. It's not a mechanism that appeals to me personally. Right, I prefer to write stuff from scratch so that you know it's like a little baby and you give it its character and you know you fashion it from start. Right, if you give me a baby template, then All the babies will say yeah, yeah, you know it's like I heard you say in an interview.
Corie:You say almost like per capita, we have the most, most amongst our talents in the country in the world in the world if you count all the musicians, including all the panelists and so on, and put that, divide that by 1.5 million, there's no other country in the world that has that high a fraction of musicians and of creatives, yeah, yeah, and I think now carnival is like, I don't want to say reduced, but what you see when you look at the credits for songs that make it in a carnival season is you see a handful of writers two or three people. You also see a handful of producers two or three people who produce all the rhythms, they play, they write all the songs and they give it to a handful of artists. So they kind of all. You know, I'd turn here one time and he said turn. I say we need more of us. I love the way he put it, because it seems to be just getting smaller, you know, in terms of the net, and it's making me worried, you know, when I look at it.
Colin:So now, when your grandson carnival monday on tuesday, you will hear three Sit down on the Grandstand. Carnival Monday. On Tuesday you will hear three if you're lucky songs. You'll hear one 400 times. You'll hear another one maybe 30 times. This year was, I think, slightly different. Yeah, at least I had a race this year and you'll hear a third one.
Corie:Four times In my day. You hear one song 300-something times.
Colin:Another song 300-something times. Another song 200-something times. Yeah, in my day you hear one song three and run something times Another song three and run something times Another song two and run something times you know. So you got variety. Yeah, you know. Now it's well, there's the one that's supposed to win roadmats. Everybody had to play that.
Corie:Yeah, that could have happened all the time, with bands, men like Robin deciding what they want to play on the stage. It's not that thing.
Colin:Well, you could decide what you want to put forward to the people. But then the people are so engaged by again, the airwaves, the airwaves telling them this, and you actually have presenters now going out there, a couple of days before carnival, and saying, yeah, this is the one only choosing for roadmatch, right, this is come on, man they're playing on the trucks, you know.
Corie:So they're setting it up, you know. I mean, you see a lot of it now playing on the truck.
Colin:You play it on the truck. Yeah, they're coming in, shows that are, and shows on radio you see it a lot.
Corie:It's something that you see a lot and especially I love the way you describe it like I would have never thought of it. But when you look at a pan side, how much musicians there and untalented people all around the pan side so even the ones who have been playing on the night you really we have a large pool of talent, so it's unfortunate sometimes that it comes down to such a small yeah, small you know now I have a story to tell you before we go about my time in the band room right there.
Corie:Yeah, I have a story to tell you. One more song I want to ask you my tune because frontline singers long time men whining, encouraging people whining and things.
Colin:But you have a song called Do Whine, yeah gyrate, rotate, oscillate, and the story of that really is oh god, everything is whine, whine, whine, everything. Everything.
Corie:I see, that's right, I got done really so it's really a response to the guy she was mad when she cornered me in the party.
Colin:You're going too far with this whining ting, ting. Oh god, that's ok. From now on, gyrate, go behind. Make your body rotate, that's fine. Make your bumsy oscillate. Now roll your belly.
Corie:Roll your belly one more time you know how people responded to that back then people take it in. That one, bro. How people responded to that back then People take it in.
Colin:Yeah, no, that one really pulled through the last, last, last week In terms of people recognizing this guy, this DJ. We were real close Milton Primus, I forget, he was a big, big, big DJ name. Close, Milton Primus, forget it, he was a big, big, big DJ name. But Milton Primus, right when I brought out the song you know the season earlier, I said Milton, you see, when people know coming in and down, just get a little play now and see what will happen. And then Milton said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But all due respect here, milton, I wasn't hearing it, you know, because we'd come and you know. And I said Milton, he said boys, them young boys and them controlling the sets yeah, yeah yeah, I didn't name but them controlling the set.
Colin:Come down to the weekend before carnival weekend. Right, we finished play a set and I'm walking through the crowd and thing you know, just getting the vibes in, all of a sudden I reach by Milton, where he set up. Right. I say he say cool. He say production sounds.
Corie:Ah, okay, okay, okay, right yeah.
Colin:He said wait, wait, wait. Next thing I know he put on Gyrate. Should I watch him? So he said wait. When it reached the chorus he just pressed mute and the whole crowd, gyrate, put back to the song Mute Rotate. I said I'll watch him. He said it surprised me too or a song mute rotate lock, lock lock or sell it. I watch him for the why he say it surprised me too, he say.
Colin:But since last week this was happening, he so cool and it ended up being one of the three most played songs on the road. I did not really on the road all through Tonga going on this gyrate and people singing, I was really pleased. That was that is nice. That is nice, I matured.
Corie:That that is something else, boy, and I like I heard people referring like somebody writing and those things they say it's parody when you're writing you. You had that in mind, like yeah, yeah, I do.
Colin:Oh, you had a lighter side of it yeah, if you, if you check every, every song I've ever written, the last verse is what I call reverse, reverse, right. So, like in Dola, I was teaching her to whine first and second verse, but in the third verse she's looking to teach me Gotcha Right, put your hand in there and shake it. Last verse, she pulls her hand. You ready.
Colin:I know how to do this and she's telling the corner, put your hand in there and shake it Stay. You know I sing oh God, stay. In the last verse she is okay, stay. Almost every single song I've ever written there's a revert, because I like humor, parody. Everything was you know, something there must hook you. Subconsciously, that's the intention that something must hook you, so that Subconsciously, that's the intention that something must hook you, so that some little trigger will say, oh yeah, I remember that song. You know I remember that song. Yeah, why again? And your subconscious will start to push the memory up to the conscious.
Corie:Same thing like rewind fast forward, jack, yeah, yeah, man cussing like hell them time infected, right, but to hear them. Songs stay around a long, long time.
Colin:But that idea was Roger Boothman's, you know. Yeah, brother, roger had actually written a whole song, but his song wasn't my style to sing, so I, when he brought it to me, I said I love the idea, but can I rewrite the song?
Corie:okay, and he said okay ah, nice, nice, I see them. Stories behind these songs. Important Roger God Okay. And he said okay, nice, nice, nice, see them stories behind me Song's important God rest his soul.
Colin:May he rest in peace. He was good. He was a good one.
Corie:You know Mark Laquan as well.
Colin:I knew him yeah.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was talking about that too.
Colin:But I'll give you a joke. So I was a member of Court Board, right, right and. And the day I come in this meeting and see this new guy, I said hi, please, let me join you. And we had a meeting. After the meeting, we sat down in line and talked, all of us, and we talked about the music, because it was carnival time. Talking about music, and I started to talk about this song I can't remember the name of the song that I found was the most perfect song I'd heard for the year. It was so amazing the structure, the words, everything, how the chord moving, everything, everything and everybody looking at me and laughing, smiling, kind of thing. They thought I was mama, guy and mark. It was a song mark had written it was mark. I didn't know, I see, I didn't know who, I just know this song I hear him.
Colin:And for me it was just this blissfully perfect song, right, right. And I thought so when I somebody said, realized like wait, maybe they say you know, there's a guy who I said no, they say yeah because you know him, but not connected. So you really didn't know. I said no, I was being totally genuine there. I was like fuck, he was boy. You really do understand life sometimes.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was sad, but I remember this person.
Corie:Yeah, the parallel between me and Mark Luke one is an interesting one to me in terms of that creative side and that corporate side, like being able to balance both. You know, it's always one that, like you, would be in a fap where people come to see you and pay to see you and you perform for them and watch them down in the crowd at night and you have a meeting with them the next morning and the minister somewhere is a real juxtaposition. Well, let me give you a ridiculous story. You know, got a ridiculous story.
Colin:You know, got a new border report Right and I'm making some point. Mm-hmm, some people are presenting so on and so on. And a female um commissioner, mm-hmm, I must be done five, seven minutes in the thing, right. I said, um, she looked kind of quizzically at me so I said are you with me still, commissioner, before I go ahead? And she just said you have to forgive me, mr Lucas, I'm still trying to extract from my mind. In my truth, with psycho shots whining on the stage telling me put my hand in the air, just give me a few minutes and start again. And she said that couple of the other new commissioners said I have any same problem.
Colin:I was a completely new born man so they didn't have, you know, benefit, knowing me for years of course. I was having the same problem, I can't even say, but he used to tell benefit, knowing me for years, of course, of course he said I was having the same problem as this man. But he used to tell me wine and things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what?
Corie:I mean All those new serious presentations and so on.
Colin:Rosalind product yeah, yeah, I mean he said just forgive me, yeah. Just give me a few more minutes and I will, so I'll get that image out of my mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Corie:I don't know if we'll know we lost in Mark, you know, because he was such a, you know, just straddling both sides, and he wasn't average on either side. No, he was excellent.
Colin:Now he's on a different class from me.
Corie:I know everybody right, that's what you say the whole time.
Colin:You know every time no, no, no, no, no, I don't know Honest and modest rhyme, but it don't mean the same thing, you understand. I am not saying that I have not made a contribution. I'm not saying I am without talent, right, but I don't know. You know To be grounded, I don't know where exactly. I wouldn't hire me now to go and put on keyboard tracks and a song. No, no, right, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. You know, I forget this. I drum too.
Corie:I wouldn't hire me as a drummer, so I have a story for you Give me a bit of a story, so I'm going to scale one.
Colin:Yeah, you may have this one.
Corie:As I look. I was born in 1980. And I remember going into that band room, that. And I remember going into that band room, that song riff band room, where it says it's in Country Crossroads and it is the single loudest sound I've ever heard in my life. I never hear nothing like that. I was so confused because I mean, I guess I like music, I know what I want to do at that point in time, but I didn't know what part of the culture I would play, Just small and while people might be going, if that's on hearing music. You could hear a saxophone, you could hear the lead singer. I couldn't hear nothing.
Colin:Just loud.
Corie:I just hear a noise. It's one of the most powerful things, and what remained with me over the years is that, more than hearing it, you felt it. It's just a kind of hitting.
Colin:It's not a big, big room, right? I guess musicians are in tight spaces, right? Yeah, yeah yeah.
Corie:So I say, when I come and talk to you today, I'll tell you about how would I end up. I compress your chest. Yeah, a little bit. You know what I mean? I was telling Colin before we started I'll go into a chest doctor as soon as we leave.
Corie:You might be part of the reason for that, especially when you do a good job. So I want to tell you how I end up in some of them places. I want to give you some names and see how good your memory is. You know a fellow named Ken Kobe.
Colin:Of course, ken. Well, I'll give you another story. Tell me Now. Sunwave was, apart from vocals and horns and things in the bed, was keyboard-centric. There are two keyboard players right, one guitar player. There are two keyboard players right One guitar player. There are two keyboard players. So the bed was very keyboard centric. When Ken joined the band, willie made it more guitar centric. The bed became for Soka, because Ken was just so remarkably talented that the bed that he created was a little more exciting for Soka than the bed we created. Yeah, yeah. So the, the, the, the, the, the, the. The timbre of Sunrev changed a little bit when Ken joined the band.
Corie:Yeah, yeah. So that's how I end up in that band room. Ken is my band. Yeah, yeah so that's how. I end up in that band room.
Colin:Ken's my father. Oh, that's why you look like him Slight.
Corie:Slight. So they was like Ken called me Linda Shepherd and she listened to every episode. They too excited to hear that. They hear yeah, so they give me a long listen, though they say boy, to call him Morda. He had to talk to call him Morda. So that's back then. That moment. I'll never forget Ken's sad, you know you know he's sad.
Colin:He's how he hears so good. It's just from the first time I heard him play.
Corie:I said yeah, yeah.
Colin:And from the time Willie heard him, willie was like wow, you see, for a long while Tony Voisier, you know that, yeah, I know Tony. Oh god boy his interpretation. He and Warwood. You know Tony was the roots. Imagine one band had two guitar players like that. Yeah, I can't understand. Well, our answer was Ken.
Corie:Yeah, I can't send this man to the hospital. I can't let this man hear this.
Colin:No, no, no, it's phenomenal, phenomenal how he heard things, how he heard chord progressions, you know, and how I can't even explain it. He was just, you know, and so Willie just used to make sure yeah, that was that became the new bed for the song of Soca Sound. Yeah, and oh God it was. It was beautiful, it was lively. It was yeah, yeah, yeah, God it was, it was beautiful, it was lively. It was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, who are willing to come and talk about some of these stories. I feel like sometimes they're not as documented as they should be. You know what I mean. And I mean there's no amount of time we could take to really cover your story, but I'll give you a glimpse into it and I appreciate that a little bit. You're very welcome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like a little boy back in that band room doing this today, so I appreciate it.
Corie:How old were you when you came in band? Could it be Well, when he told me the time he was in Stronger if he was talking about in the early 80s 82, 83, 84, so I might have been five, six years old maybe and I just passed him through. You know what I mean. He used to pick me up. My mom lives in St James. She was living on Anderson Street Still. We still have the house on Anderson Street so. So sometimes he'd pick me up and they'd pass back in the band room and whatever it was rehearsal or whatever, I'd just sit down and I'd take it in. Maybe it's why I'm here now, you know, because I can't escape. I can't escape. It's amazing to me now, like going back and listening to some of the music. Now I try to say I wonder if I was there when they was playing Stay boy, you know that's why I was here.
Corie:It's just like one loud sound. Yeah, you know so it was a special time, special, special time. Thanks very much, brother.
Colin:You're very welcome Appreciate it Thanks.
Corie:This was nice, thank you.