Blue King Brown’s Worldwize vison

Urban roots collective Blue King Brown have just released the first stage of their new direction in the form of double album Worldwize.

In an ambitious recording project Melbourne’s Blue King Brown are attempting to release one album for each direction of the compass to share their musical and social vision under the banner of Worldwize. We found out what’s going down with Blue king Brown with Natalie Pa’apa’a.  

yourGigs (yG):  What is it like to finally have the album out and what do you hope it can do for the band?

Natalie Pa’apa’a (NP): It feels great to finally be able to share this album that has been our labour of love for the past two years. We hope it will find its way into more radio waves, households, stereos, and throughout our global
community…

yG:  How closely does the album resemble what you first had in mind for it?

NP: Our initial intention as we started this album, was to record a solid group of tracks and release an album six months later. Along the way we realised that we needed more time to achieve the sound we were aiming for and made a strong decision to throw away our timeline and release date restrictions and just focus on crafting an album that we felt 100% confident in and something we could feel proud of and excited about sharing with Australia and the rest of the world. 

We came up with the concept for “Worldwize” mid way through our post production process and it gave us a great visual goal and some momentum to continue putting our best into each song. Worldwize means being conscious of the world you live in today, the health of the planet and the well being of the people. It means, understanding that you know very little of the worlds combined knowledge but that you are willing to learn and connect with others in order to better our collective future.

You can hear these sentiments throughout our album, as a thread, weaving it all together.we now have is a double disc, North and South, and the follow up; ‘Worldwize part 2 East and West’ is on its way!

yG:  Did the long gestation and the different places the album was recorded have an impact on the songs?

NP: Most definitely, we found that it was a real juggle to balance making our album at the same time as starting our international touring career. But consequently what happened was that we were able to let the songs sit and hear them in other parts of the world, getting an international perspective on our sound. I personally found this really valuable and productive, in hearing what we felt could be better or something that should be changed or a completely new idea for a particular section of a song.

yG:  How do you think the band has changed and developed since the release of your debut Stand up?

NP: We have grown in numbers, we are now an eight to 11piece band, also we have a good five years of touring and live performance under our belts. This has made us stronger as a live band and made pathways and opportunities available to us.

Sonically, Worldwize has a lot more production than Stand Up, I think that might be one of the main differences people will hear between the two albums. Stand Up captured who we were at that time and was a very rootsy album, recorded in ten days and released a few months later. With Worldwize we took our time and focused on getting the sound we had in our minds, to take our songs to the next level and craft an exciting studio album.


yG: There is an incredible array of guests on the album – were they bought in with specific sounds in mind and what did they bring to the Blue king Brown sound?

NP: We have Jamaica really well represented on this album with our choice of guests, partly due to the fact we went there to record all the vocals for the album and found ourselves surrounded by amazing artists. The other reason for that, is simply because we love the sound that has been coming out of Jamaica, historically and to date. What our Jamaican guests (Sly and Robbie, Jah Mason, Queen Ifrica) bring to Worldwize is a unique mash of Blue King Brown sounds with their own, we love the flavour they’ve brought to the table here.
Elliott Martin is the lead singer from an American group called John Brown’s Body. We toured with them last year and connected instantly. Elliott’s vocal on ‘Not Too Late’ adds a beautifully melodic and soulful element to that track, once we’d toured with him we knew we wanted to get him on the album. Voodoo Dred worked with us on “Hammer”. This is a song we had been looking for the right person to fill for a long time, when I performed alongside Voodoo Dred at a Haiti benefit in Melbourne, I realised his talent and brought him into the studio a few days later, we love his tone, vibe and the way his sound fit straight into that track.

yG:  Which guest was the best to work with and what did you learn from working with them all?

NP: Hard question! They were all good for different reasons, but it was a moment for us to be working with Sly and Robbie who are legendary artists. I learnt the importance of having a kick ass vocal to craft a song around, and that the next vital elements are the beats and bass. We knew this to some extent but hearing and seeing it from Sly and Robbie really drove it home for us.

yG:  What are you looking forward to about playing the songs live and is there much work and preparing them for the stage?

NP: We’re looking forward to taking the album tracks to the stage and giving them another dimension. We are a band that pride ourselves on our live show and are excited to dig into these songs that have never been played live before. As far as preparing them goes, we have to get a little more technology savy and start bring a few more digital instruments like Mpc’s and samplers, on tour with us…
that’s fun!

yG: How did the campaign with the Body Shop against Sex Trafficking come about – and what power do you think music has today to bring about social change?

NP: We were approached by Child Wise, an Australian organization who enlisted the support of the Body Shop, and together have embarked on a three year campaign to help raise awareness, to educate, and to lobby governments to give more support to the plight of children who’re trafficked and sexually exploited. We met with both of these groups and it didn’t take very long for us to realize the importance of this issue and to come on board in whatever way we could. We have given our song ‘Women’s Revolution’ for free download to everyone who goes online and
signs the petition, and raised this issue with our online community as well as numerous national media outlets.

 
We believe music is a special medium that can bring together a large amount of people at any one time and share a message in a positive way. When we enjoy music we are perhaps more open to hearing about different issues and there’s something about the rhythm and melody that makes it all the more digestible.  Please visit bluekingbrown.com and follow the links to the child wise/body shop campaign to help put an end to child sex trafficking and slavery.