BR: I know Larry’s roots go right back to Jamaica and he’s played with a lot of folks over the years. Tell us a little bit about him; he sounds like an interesting cat.
DH: (laughs) He is, for sure. First of all, Larry didn’t actually start playing percussion until he was in his 20s.
BR: Really?
DH: Yeah – he’d been working as an accountant in Jamaica, actually … (laughter)
BR: Larry?
DH: Uh-huh. It’s this great mystical story that Larry tells about how he got into music. He and some friends were riding around and at a rest stop they changed seats. Five minutes later, they got into an accident and the guy who took the seat where Larry’d been sitting was killed.
BR: Oh, man …
DH: It was one of those moments where you start reevaluating your life, you know? “What am I doing? What do I want to be doing?” Larry had always wanted to play the congas and had never done it. After the accident, he decided to get a drum – and it changed his whole life.
He spent a lot of time recording in the industry down there in Jamaica. He tells some really funny stories of playing at the Playboy Club in Kingston – he was in a trio there. On any given night, they might be playing, like, in between comedy sets by Pat Morita, the guy that was in The Karate Kid or something … (laughter) Classic stories.
BR: Paying his dues, right?
DH: That’s right. And a lot of guys would have been happy just to stay right there in Jamaica, playing in the local reggae scene and getting what work they could. But Larry was just too musically curious to stay in Jamaica. The island was one thing, but he wanted to go to the US where all the best musicians were – he wanted to improve himself.
Larry went to the Bay Area in 1974 – I was born in Oakland in 1974, actually – and he ended up hooking up with Taj Mahal, touring around the country in an RV for a while.
BR: And at one point he played with Gil Scott-Heron, right?
DH: That’s right. That was in the late 80s.
Larry’s really somebody who’s “been there and done that” … it’s a really big compliment that someone that accomplished as a musician is involved with us, you know? The guy could be performing with lots of people, but he’s putting his time into Dub Is A Weapon and is such an integral part of the group.
I don’t really dictate what Larry does on stage. I write bass lines and melodies and stuff, but Larry is really there just to add his flavor – he can do whatever he wants. That may be part of why he’s with us; rather than be in some situation where you’re playing the same thing over and over and over for five minutes, he’s free to do his thing.
BR: That’s so cool. Let’s see … to get back to the band’s history, we should talk about when you had the opportunity to back Lee “Scratch” Perry on tour.
DH: I believe that happened around 2005 through 2007, off and on. I’d be lying if I said Lee wasn’t a big influence on what I do. Seeing him perform at the old Wetlands on Halloween of 1997 was definitely one of the things that got me thinking about performing dub live. The Mad Professor was doing the sound and dubbing out the band while Lee was doing his whole shamanistic routine on stage. It was all very cosmic, plus it was Halloween, so it was a really fun show. That night I probably thought, “You know what would be really cool? To start a dub band and work with Lee Perry.” It was amazing when we really did.
BR: How did you connect?
DH: It was almost like one of those classic “music business stories,” you know? It was like the scene in the movie when the band gets discovered. (laughs) We did this pretty lengthy tour that took us all the way down into Jacksonville, FL. And that Jacksonville show was … I don’t know … there were only about four or five people there. (laughs)
BR: Oh, no …
DH: Yeah, but there was one guy who was really interested in what we were doing. He bought, like, three CDs and four t-shirts and kept talking to me about the band’s history and all that stuff. A few months later, he e-mailed me and said, “Hey, I’m working on bringing Lee Perry over for some tour dates …” (laughter)
And that was it: we happened to play far enough south for this guy who had a contact with Lee to see us and he’s the one who made the match. He brought Lee over and hired us to back him.
It’s just one of those things: to be traveling that far from home and only have that many people come out to see you … and then everything come together. It’s all about timing and where you are.
BR: Everything happens for a reason, man.
DH: Exactly. And I think we played really well that night, even though there were only four or five people there.
That’s one of the things about this band: everybody is in it for the music and trying to make it be as good as it can be every night. We’re going to have a great time, no matter how big the audience is – five or five hundred. People who are just in it for the accolades or whatever are only happy if there are a lot of people – they need that.
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