INTERVIEW: New Kingston members ask fans to ‘Bring Your Rays’
Photo: New Kingston feature Tahir Panton, Courtney Panton Jr. and Stephen Suckarie. Photo courtesy of Connor Cook / Provided by Press Junkie with permission.
New Kingston, the reggae band based in Brooklyn, New York, are set to celebrate Halloween with their many fans at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. The special Oct. 31 concert finds the group opening for Tribal Seeds, and audiences should expect some new tunes in the set list. That’s because New Kingston have been busying releasing new material in their rock2roots single series. The latest is “Bring Your Rays.”
“That decision [to release singles] came about because of our previous album, A Kingston Story — we really crafted that one like a story, so a lot of detail was put into that one in terms of making all the tracks [connect] to each other and tell the story,” said Tahir Panton, keyboardist and vocalist for the band. “As we were finishing up with that album, we were thinking toward the next project. … We wanted to have more fun with the music and just create now, rather than create an entire body of work. Let’s just make some fun songs that we can just put out, and let’s see what happens.”
The songwriting for the band is extremely collaborative. Panton is joined by Courtney Panton Jr. on drums and vocals, and Stephen Suckarie on guitar and vocals. “I feel like a New Kingston song isn’t a New Kingston song unless we collaborate,” Panton said. “This song [‘Bring Your Rays’] went through so many changes in terms of how the music was going to sound. We wrote the song a while ago. It’s really the music that’s going to dictate the feel of the song.”
Panton has been into music as a hobby for quite some time, but he started to become interested professionally in the art form in his 20s. His journey to reggae is interesting and put into a unique perspective now that he has a son who is also growing up with these beats and rhythms.
“Honestly, I have a son, and he’s around the studio and music all the time,” Panton said. “I don’t really know if he loves music yet, so it makes me think about myself growing up because I was always in the studio. I was always around music. … [But] I think I actually fell in love with music later in life, maybe around my 20s, when I really appreciated it the way that I do now. I don’t want to say I fell in love with music when I was 5. I didn’t really understand it then, but in my 20s, that’s when I really developed a passion for the power of music.”
Now that the group is based in Brooklyn, they are able to foster that musical love in a borough that supports its artists. As Panton put it, everybody’s in Brooklyn. One can truly find the entire world in this beloved borough, a place he called a “creative zone.”
“I think before in New York, especially the Jamaican reggae scene was really prominent here,” he said. “We used to have festivals here every other month it would seem, especially in the summertime, but now all the different takes on reggae music is beginning to flourish differently, which is expanding the genre itself, which is good for Jamaican reggae. It’s good for American reggae. It’s good for the European reggae scene. It’s good for everybody. I love it. I love where reggae music is at right now. We definitely helped push the genre forward. We’re still doing that. It’s in a beautiful place.”
Panton’s father is originally from Kingston, Jamaica, the namesake of the band, and he used to play in a group called the Kingston Crew. His father’s band taught the current members of New Kingston the ins and outs of the music industry and how to create this art.
“Really and truly that was the band that taught us pretty much everything we knew about reggae music,” he said. “When that band reached its point, my father looked toward us, and we became the new Kingston Crew. Kingston does derive from Kingston, Jamaica, but New Kingston is from the Kingston Crew name.”
There are plans for New Kingston to travel back to Jamaica for a concert or two. It would also be a time for Panton to visit some family members.
“Nowadays because we tour so much in America and Europe, we don’t have much time,” Panton said. “The time schedule is tight, but we plan on doing a show in Jamaica some time soon. So we definitely want to touch down there again.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
New Kingston will open for Tribal Seeds Oct. 31 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. Click here for more information and tickets.
