The Wailing Souls is one of the last original reggae bands. Risen alongside Peter Tosh and Bob Marley, the Jamaican duo has been there since the beginning. They’ve grown and changed with the genre, but they continue the tradition with a wholeheartedness rarely found in any form of music. They believe in its power. After all, reggae is a music of love. Lloyd “Bread” McDonald spoke with Lake Tahoe Action about the roots of the genre and where it’s going.

Q: You’ve been performing for 40 years or more. Do you love reggae as much now as when you started?

McDonald: I do. I do.

The Wailing Souls are certainly part of the core group of original reggae artists. It seems each year, that group becomes smaller. How do you view the future of reggae?

“Reggae music is a music of love, a music of teaching people to how live amongst each other from the earliest days, from the earliest days. It’s a spiritual thing. Reggae music is almost like gospel music.

Lloyd “Bread” McDonald

The Wailing Souls

I think the future is very great. Most of the time people are getting exposed that are not really doing the right work. These people aren’t all that talented. You have a lot of youth that are coming up out of Jamaica now. But they’re not getting that exposure for some reason or the other.

Money is good and bad. The deejays that spin the records in most places in the world have to be getting money. Sometimes these record companies will pay these deejays to play their artists’ records whether it’s good or not. If a record is not good and you keep hearing it, hearing it, hearing it then it grows on you. A lot of that happens today.

You hear that reggae is dead. But reggae is not dead and it’s not dying. There’s a lot of youth coming up. They’re just not getting the exposure yet. Even established artists like myself and others, we are not getting a lot of exposure either. We’re not getting radio play either.

 

Were there artists that you would’ve liked to work with that you never had the opportunity to?

Oh yes. There’s lots of artists we would’ve liked to work with. There’s some that we worked with, but didn’t work with enough and now they’re not with us any more. For example, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, we grew up with them in the same neighborhood. We were almost like family. We worked with them, but we didn’t work with them enough.

 

What younger artists are you listening to?

There’s quite a few. I don’t want to go name too much. Tarrus Riley, I enjoy listening to him. I enjoy talking to him. That’s a very cool youth. Then you have people like Shaggy, who’s a very respectful youth. There are quite a few of them. They’re very professional in whatever they’re doing.

 

How do you feel about the way reggae has changed with the times?

We live in modern times. Everybody has to grow. We’re growing with the times we live in. We have a lot of computers now. Music is being marketed in a much different way than before. We have television. We have Twitter. We have Facebook. We have all kinds of different media. Back in the day, all we had was radio and television. Now, there’s so many different ways of being exposed. The artist has to adapt to all of that.

 

Have you learned to use those tools?

I have. My wife is a very computer literate lady. She helped me along the way. Me, myself, I’m always looking for the new thing. As an artist you have to have an open mind about everything. Pro tools and all of those things. You have to utilize them or you’ll get left behind. You have to move forward.

 

Are the Wailing Souls working on new music?

Ya, ya we are. We’re demoing songs right now with the intention of getting something out early next year. Probably a double CD early next year. We’ve never stopped writing songs. The last thing we did was a project with Disney that was released a couple of years ago. We haven’t done anything since then

Where do you find inspiration?

It comes in many different ways. We observe the things that are going on in this world. It comes from meditation. We sit down and meditate a lot and think about what’s happening and what we would like to see happen. You talk to people and read books and get inspiration from those. Sometimes, you’re in a conversation and it hits you. They may say a phrase and you build upon it. Sometimes you’re just playing the guitar and it’s just that. You’re just running melodies, and God just gives you the music. Inspiration comes in a variety of ways.

We try and think a lot about the future and what’s going on. We try to enlighten the oppressed people. We always like our songs to have up messages, one love for humanity in general. We should be able to live in peace with each other, love each other. That’s the reason we’re here. Help each other. Whenever one is down, help him up.

Would you say that’s the message of the genre?

Reggae music is a music of love, a music of teaching people to how live amongst each other from the earliest days, from the earliest days. It’s a spiritual thing. Reggae music is almost like gospel music.