The Pier: It is cool to see John Brown’s Body hook up with Dubmatix again, who remixed one of your songs on Re-Amplify. You must really like working with him then?
Tommy Benedetti (drums): It’s great to have Dubmatix on board for another remix. I’m a real fan of his work and his version of “The Gold” on RE-AMPLIFY really inspired the band and has been a great addition to our live show. We hope to keep collaborating with him well into the future. I feel like we’ve laid a great foundation to make that happen.
The Pier: What was the lyrical inspiration for the original Make Your Move track?
Tommy Benedetti: The song is sort of a dig at the music industry, about how rigid and self serving it is. “Make Your Move” is a call to action for people to become self efficient in doing their art.
The Pier: I see JBB is bringing The Black Seeds out for an upcoming US tour. How was this put together?
Tommy Benedetti: We are truly psyched to be bringing The Black Seeds to the US. We were turned on to them last year while we were on tour and they instantly became our pre-show music. The last bunch of tours that we’ve done, we really have tried to bring a quality support act to make it a full show. Passafire, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, and Blue King Brown are all good friends and killer bands and those tours were a lot of fun. It seemed like The Black Seeds would also fit the bill so our manager reached out to them, and with a lot of work by both teams, made it happen. I really can’t wait to meet them.
The Pier: What else has the band got coming up for the rest of 2009?
Tommy Benedetti: The rest of the year is looking real good. We’re heading out on a 13 date run with our friends Passafire that takes us from Philly down to Orlando; then we gear up for 11 US dates with The Black Seeds. In October, we head to the UK to support the Easy Star All Stars for three weeks and after that, amazingly enough, we are heading to New Zealand for three weeks!! The Black Seeds are returning the love by having JBB support them in their homeland. We finish 2009/kickoff 2010 on Jam Cruise, which is rollin to Jamaica and Grand Cayman Islands, not bad, not bad at all.