{"id":107486,"date":"2022-05-25T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T13:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/?p=107486"},"modified":"2022-05-25T15:40:25","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T13:40:25","slug":"bottling-the-caribbean-with-kes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/bottling-the-caribbean-with-kes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bottling the Caribbean with Kes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cSunshine in a bottle\u201d is how Kes Dieffenthaller describes the music of Kes The Band, the group he has headed up with his two brothers and a lifelong friend since 2005. Crowned International Soca Monarch at Trinidad carnival in 2011, the band blend up pan-Caribbean `island music\u2019 and with over forty million plays of their single \u2018Hello<\/a>\u2019 on YouTube their overproof punch of soca, afrobeat and calypso has seen them collaborate with the likes of Snoop Dogg, Wizkid and Major Lazer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kes is a family band and I read somewhere that your first gigs were on a little stage in your backyard!? Take us back to how the band got started.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would go back to when we were really young. I was probably around five or six. My oldest brother Hans, he was about ten years old and my other brother was like seven when they got their first glimpse of MTV. One of their friends had a (Satelite) dish and they could get MTV and saw all these bands like Van Halen, and Def Leppard. Van Halen stuck out because they were brothers and they were a band and my big brother got the idea of: \u201cYo! let\u2019s start a rock band! I’ll play drums, you learn the bass\u201d<\/em> and as I always liked to sing and was the youngest one I just used to be bopping around and doing everything that they were doing, and so you know we kind of stumbled upon music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our parents were sort of pushing us along quietly, you know, slowly programming us! We were in Trinidad `the land of Calypso and steel band\u2019 and we’re there playing punk rock!. We tried to build a stage and my dad felt sorry for us and he got somebody to help us with the stage and we had a switch for the garden lights and invited our friends and school friends around and so that was like our first little jam-out you know!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So when did you first sort of get the feeling that this could be a career? Was there a tipping point?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music has always been a friend, It’s always been around.  It has always been an escape for us in our family in some form, or a meditation or source of calm or fun. It’s just been around. And that’s why I knew it was always going to be around<\/em> because it always has you know? We’ve obviously had moments in time like when my brothers quit their day jobs and we had our first tour in Grenada. We were on a beach drinking beer and eating pizzas and were like: \u201cThis is my job!?\u201d <\/em> and those moments are always powerful. But music has never left me and it’s always been with us and blessing us in different ways. So it’s just like the natural order of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You just mentioned being in Grenada. One of the things that everyone hears when they encounter your music is that it\u2019s pan-Caribbean music. Was that part of the master plan?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well I’m glad it was part of the master plan! In a sense the Caribbean raised me. Mostly Trinidad, but the Caribbean has had such an impact in my life and my influences. I know what ackee and saltfish in Jamaica tastes like, l know what nutmeg in Grenada tastes like, and I enjoy discovering those islands and those people and realising that we are all one ting\u2019 you know. So the music comes out like that, and I’m happy that it does, because it couldn’t only be what I feel and experience here in Trinidad, which is substantial, but seeing the world and applying it has connected a lot of dots. It\u2019s freeing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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