NEWS
EVENTS
SOJA - Strength to survive
Monday 22nd October 2012 | Alexis
Mention folk music to the average listener and the list of usual suspects come to mind: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Woodie Guthrie, etc. Talk to SOJA lead singer/guitarist Jacob Hemphill, however, and you’ll walk away with a different perspective. They’re raising the bar with “Strength to Survive”, their fourth full-length album, an intoxicating mix of hot-rod reggae grooves and urgent, zeitgeist-capturing themes. The album, produced by John Alagia (Dave Matthews, John Mayer, O.A.R.), will be released for the first time in Europe.
Hemphill says the album was greatly inspired by Bob Marley's Survival. "That's the greatest reggae album ever made", he says. "It has the best basslines and the best lyrics ever heard on one record. Marley wrote it after he went to Africa. I was 13 or 14 when I listened to it for the first time and it triggered all these long-forgotten memories of when I lived in Africa as a kid. My dad was an IMF res rep in Liberia in the late 80's. I remember when the coup first started --- my family had to hide in these iron bathtubs for 3 days because the military was shooting at everything. I was 7 and that was one of my first memories. We made it out on the last flight. So Africa was always a big part of our lives --- it defined our family, in a way. Music came right after that, so, for me, music was always tied to Africa and music was always something powerful".
Over the course of the past few years, SOJA has sold more than 150,000 albums, headlined large theaters in more than 15 countries around the world, generated over 20 million+ YouTube views, amassed more than a half-million Facebook fans, and attracted an almost Grateful Dead-like international fanbase that grows with each tour, with caravans of diehards following them from city to city.
Among the album's many highlights is the ethereal "Let You Go", about the road not taken, "Mentality", the disc's hard-hitting opening track, and the one-two punch of “Be With Me Now” and “When We Were Younger”, the latter bringing together the macro and the micro with the simple yet resonant line, “All of my answers, now that I’m older, turn into questions”.
