“It’s supposed to be like it feels like me writing the song in the span of a day and I’m selling it to the guys. It’s very fun, almost kind of tongue in cheek,” Kelly said.
It’s tongue in cheek because the song was written by Kelly but wasn’t penned in a single day. The lead single to the band’s approaching album, tentatively titled ¿Pa’Que Esperar al Tiempo?, is about 20 years old. It also represents a bit of a new direction for Dem, which singer/songwriter Louis Morales formed in 2016. The band now features a Houston music all-star lineup, including Kevin Bernier, Charlie Bubenik, Liam Haney and Allyson Lopez.
“’Can’t Wait’ sort of came about as a tune that I introduced to everybody as something that I had already written years before, but it’s an original tune and it’s totally in the vein of what we do,” Kelly said.
Kelly is one of this city’s most recognizable musicians. He’s been a member of prestige acts like Los Skarnales and The Suffers. He explained that “Can’t Wait” dawned during his days as a member of Sound Patrol, a Houston reggae group he and Khruangbin guitarist Mark Speer were in during the early 2000s.
“I had a four-track recorder that we were jacking with and I had come up with this sort of chord progression and I took it home and I made a song to this sort of chord progression that I was jamming and showing to everybody and it was something that never really saw any light of day with Sound Patrol, we were kind of doing other things and it didn’t necessarily fit that vein,” Kelly said.
After that, Kelly said, he started playing with another group, The Stingers ATX, which did release a version of the song in 2004 or 2005. “It exists out there,” he said. Dem's is a different, updated version and it’s as refreshing and sweet as cold watermelon on a hot summer day.
“The way that we’ve done it, it’s so awesome to come back and have a whole other concept of music, interpretations, all that sort of stuff, all these years later,” Kelly said.
“The resurrection of the song feels really good,” added Morales. “So far, the reception that people have had towards the song has been absolutely beautiful, it’s been positive the whole time.”
Morales is high on the song because in addition to writing “Can’t Wait,” Kelly is featured on lead vocals for the single. Those honors generally go to Morales, but he said fans of the band should expect more of these shared duties.
“For me, it’s been a beautiful experience because a lot of the inspiration that had me pursue music locally was from watching Pat whenever he was playing with the Skarnales a long time ago,” said Morales. “I still to this point fan boy out at the fact that we’re jamming together because I have so much respect for him.
“As we started playing and he started playing the drums for me and doing the background vocals, I started encouraging Pat to sing more because I knew that he sang,” Morales said, and singled out Kelly’s vocals on The Suffers’ cover of Bobby Brown’s “Every Little Step.” “Since then I’ve just really been encouraging Pat to put himself out there more as not just a background singer or the drummer but as a lead vocalist for a tune or several tunes.
"Can't Wait" has origins in a different Patrick Kelly band from 20 years ago
Single cover art by rootsviber
Kelly said the band went into SugarHill Recording Studios last year to work on more than a dozen tracks. Morales said the songs are in production now, with Tall Sky Studio’s Dane Foltin and Harris Nikkel from Fat Enough Studios handling those responsibilities ahead of a slated November release. “Can’t Wait” is the first of three singles Dem plans to drop before the full album's release.
Besides growing its discography, the band is also helping to grow Houston’s reggae music profile. Of late it’s been too hot for nearly anything, including the weekly Reggae Brunch the band hosts at La Grange in Montrose, but Morales said the brunch will return around Labor Day. The next chance to see Dem live is a July 29 date at Scout Bar with Los Skarnales, Indaskies, Soulfiya and WiDey.
Kelly said efforts like the Reggae Brunch are helping grow the local reggae scene “1000 percent” from what it was like during his Soul Patrol days.
“You can create your own sort of (scene) - where you’re playing and how you make it happen - if you put the effort into it in a city like Houston,” Kelly said. “You can make that happen. Like, we’ve curated the way our brunch happens a certain sort of way. We’re able to, through that, create a scene, to keep that scene happening.
“Whatever I put out and whatever I do, I want to make sure that I’m making it the thing that you touched on right at the very beginning, that there’s that person out there that sees it and goes, ‘Man, this is kind of cool. I want to either be in it or I want to see it again or I want to go get some sticks or a guitar or a keyboard or a computer and try to do it. I think I could put two chords together and a beat and make a reggae track.'”
“I feel like a lot of the things that we’ve been doing have been inspiring and we’ve been introducing new bands to a lot of new fans around here,” Morales jumped in. “To extend on that, I feel like as we create and we try to influence the newer or the younger musicians in town with new things, such as this album and this single, we also inspire how the quality should be with the music they put out and essentially create a standard that would have the proper representation of reggae music in Houston.”
That representation is important, according to Morales, because reggae music has often been seen as an aside to punk or ska shows here. When he started performing, he was doing his music in the city’s underground arts scene. But now, reggae bands in Houston are emerging and bringing others here to perform.
“It’s been promoting a lot of new bands and it’s been encouraging other bands from out of town to come into town to be part of this thing that we created from scratch because there was nothing before. And it feels wonderful,” Morales said.
Having Kelly drive Dem’s vehicle a little more on the new album shines light on the sort of inclusion Morales wants for all the bands in the scene, a kind that focuses on the talents of every individual member of every band.
“Again, being in the back seat and having Pat sing this song, or many songs if you go to Brunch, there’s many songs that Pat sings – it’s a beautiful feeling,” Morales said. “It’s a full circle for me. As I was there watching it as a fan, I’m there now performing with somebody that still influences me. And I find that to be a beautiful thing.”
Dem Roots with Los Skarnales will be at Scout Bar, 18307 Egret Bay Boulevard, on July 29. Doors open at 7 p.m., Show starts at 8 p.m. $15-$100.
