Review Fix Exclusive: Roots of Creation Talk ‘Livin’ Free’ And More

Review Fix chats with Roots of Creation’s Mike Chadinha (drums), Tal Pearson (keyboards) and Brett Wilson (lead vocals + guitar) about their new single “Livin’ Free,” off their upcoming “Struggle” EP as well as their origin and cool reggae/rock sound.

Review Fix: How did the band get together?

Mike Chadinha: The band started at Franklin Pierce College mostly playing college parties and just having fun.

Pearson: Mike, Brett, and I all met during our freshman year of college and started playing Sublime and Phish covers. Brett had some original songs he had written so he showed them to us and we started playing those. It was just a natural progression from there. We did some touring and made a couple of albums, and after a couple of lineup changes, Nick, Andrew, and Billy joined us.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Chadinha: Usually Brett will come to rehearsal with lyrics and a chord structure.  From there we all write our own parts and develop transitions, intros and outros.  Instrumentals are a different process, they usually start with a free form warm up jam at rehearsals.  We pick out some parts we liked and start developing a song that way.

Pearson: It varies. Sometimes Brett will write an entire song and then bring it to the band to flesh out. Other times, we’ll jam on ideas or grooves that we have and piece together ideas as we have them. We used to experiment with some of these ideas in a live situation to see what worked and what didn’t, but we don’t do that too much anymore. We try to present new songs as finished ideas these days.

Wilson: Usually I start with a bolt of lighting idea on my acoustic guitar and a vocal melody in my head, then I scramble to find my phone to record it on my voice memo then start building a demo with my ideas for different parts. From there it could take days, hours, months, or years to finish. You can’t rush the creative process. Once the skeleton is in place, it’s time for the band to add the spice that flavors the song.

Review Fix: What makes “Struggle” a special track?

Chadinha: Being able to have a collaboration with the Grateful Dead world (Melvin Seals) and the Sublime world (Ras MG) on this track is amazing.  That’s our bread and butter!

Pearson: To me, the obvious answer to this is the special guests we have involved. Ras MG and Melvin Seals each contributed to track which gave it an instantly recognizable feel and sound. Further than that though, it was one of, if not the last song written before we started recording the album so it was the freshest material to work with in the studio. Now that I can go back and listen to the finished tune, I like the song even more than I did at the time we were recording it.

Wilson: It was an amazing experience to work with Marshall and Melvin. We have never released a track this close to when it was written; usually our songs are road tested. The freshness of this song makes it even more exciting. The lyrics are incredibly personal for me, but hopefully listeners can relate ‘cause the Struggle is real.

Review Fix: How would you describe your tunes to someone who’s never heard them?

Chadinha: Heavy Reggae dance rock.

Pearson: I would describe our tunes as reggae rock, with a jam band background.

Wilson: When random people ask who we sound like I usually say “we have an Umphrey’s McGee meets Slightly Stoopid sound with a Michael Franti vibe.”

Review Fix: Away from Struggle, What’s your standout song? How was it written?

Chadinha: Off of “Livin Free” I would have to say “Uplift.”  For me it has everything that I look for in a song; solid hook with a great message, killer groove, tight horns

Pearson: Hm, tough question. I think “3X a Lady” is going to be the big hit on the album! The song I’ve been listening to the most though would probably be “I’ll Be There”. This is another one that has taken on a new life for me in recorded form. I think the feel of this tune is absolutely perfect on the record. This song was written pretty much entirely by Brett.

Wilson: I’d have agree with Tal and say “3X a Lady” Yeti Beats really took it to the next level with that track. It started out as a demo that Tal and I recorded at my house and we played it live at festivals. The hook is super tight but it needed a little extra something to reach its potential.  I went out to LA to hang out with our Silverback family and we visited Yeti at his studio just started bangin on his MPC beat sequencer and smokin mad spliffs and went to town on rearranging and making the track super dope. He said it needed a third verse so I wrote it sitting out side on a nice day in NH and spit it in my home studio, emailed it over and Yeti just killed the remix.

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2016?

Chadinha: To get “Livin Free” in as many hands as possible and go out there and bring it on stage every single show.  The energy with this band is the best it’s ever been and it shows.

Pearson: Our goals for 2016 are to share our music with as many people as humanly possible! We are super excited for this record to come out, and we really want everyone to hear it! We hope to tour throughout the US and beyond in 2016.

Wilson: We would love to continue to tour the world, make people think, smile, dance, forget their problems, and sing along with the lyrics. Music is the universal language.  It’s truly a gift to be blessed to be able to do what you love for a living.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Chadinha: We like to party but we also recognize that there are a lot of things wrong with this world and want to talk about that too.  We hope people walk away from our shows covered in sweat from dancing their asses off and donating $10 to the Nature Conservancy, or signing a petition on Change.org on the way to their car.

Pearson: We like to make people dance. We want people to hear our music and get excited, feel like they want to move and dance. Hopefully they find something meaningful or relatable in the lyrics as well, because I think that’s how a lot of people really connect with our music.

Wilson: Music is healing. My songs are my therapy. I have had people tell me a song helped them through a death in the family, heroin addiction recovery and depression. Extremely humbling and inspiring stories. That’s the power of music. Endless. Blissful. Unity through sound. Mike always says our shows are a “conscious rager.” Something like that. I alway’s like my wife’s description: “The band is raising the bar at every performance with the intent of delivering a true rock show cleverly disguised as a reggae dance bash.”

Review Fix: What’s next?

Chadinha: We have already started tracking for an instrumental Dub EP to hopefully be released sometime later this year.  I think we are all excited for people to hear this album and we are also stoked to start playing some more shows.

Pearson: Another record! With the momentum we picked up on this record, a next one is already in the works.

Wilson: Reconnecting with fans on the West Coast, Mid-West, where we have toured extensively but haven’t returned to for WAY too long.