One love, many sounds
Bedouin Soundclash is reggae-based but boasts many influences
John Kendle

So you’re a 13-year-old kid experiencing the Vans Warped Tour for the first time.

You’re psyched to see some of your punk-pop/emo/screamo heroes and you’re wandering through the concert site in the middle of the afternoon, gnawing on a tube steak, sipping a $6 Coke and you come across…

A reggae/rock band from Canada? What the …?

“Yeah, we threw a few people off out there,” says Pat Pengelly, drummer with Bedouin Soundclash, the Ontario-based threesome that spent part of its summer turning heads in middle America.

Booked on the Warped Tour by founder Kevin Lyman, Bedouin Soundclash survived by refusing to back away from doing its thing.

“We got a lot of musicians coming to see our shows,” Pengelly says. “And I think we gave people a break in the day… even some kids who came to see Fallout Boy or some screamo band eventually liked us. As long as people respected what we were doing, we were OK.”

Such has been the case throughout Soundclash’s short career. Since Pengelly, singer/guitarist Jay Malinowski and bassist Eon Sinclair first hooked up in the basement of a Queen’s University residence in Kingston, Ont., they have had to battle false perceptions and pigeonholing.

The first, most obviously, is that they are an ersatz version of The Police. Similar sound, same lineup — that sort of thing. But Pengelly points out that his group has always played originals and that they come by their sound quite naturally, given their ages and the fact Sinclair is of West Indian origin.

“In Toronto there’s reggae almost everywhere because of the size of the population. Eon grew up on reggae and dancehall music. Speaking on his behalf, Jay loved The Clash, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon… anyone who brought world music and reggae into popular music. When I was just beginning to play drums I played James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone, Motown and jazz stuff,” he says.

Indeed, the Soundclash style is more low-key than that of Sting and co., and there’s a definite dancehall vibe. If they align themselves with anyone, it’s with the likes of K’naan or k-os.

The band’s blend of influences eventually coalesced on the Sounding a Mosaic album, released earlier this on Montreal’s STOMP label (and distributed by Warner Music Canada). Now the group is earning itself a following in the U.K. after some favourable exposure on BBC Radio One and then playing at the Leeds and Reading festivals — two of the biggest gatherings on the calendar of British music fests.

“We played in the dance tents, and they were packed with people on each of the days we played,” Pengelly says. “And a lot of them knew the words to our singles.”

That enthusiasm is recurring in Canada, where Bedouin Soundclash is now finally playing sold-out shows on its “fifth or sixth” tour of Canada.
“When the album came out, we were told by a lot of people that they didn’t hear a single,” Pengelly says. “But now we can say, ‘OK, finally. People have finally gotten it.’

“That’s been our single goal since we started playing in the basement and touring in a mini-van. It’s starting to break through, which is amazing, y’know?”

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