by Howard Campbell
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Nothing has been conventional since the coronavirus peaked in March. All sectors, including the music industry, have felt the brunt of the pandemic’s global lockdown.
The ATF Band released its debut EP, Yardie, on July 10. Unable to do live gigs to promote it, the quartet has held weekly sessions at their base in Kingston, Jamaica to not only expose their songs, but fine-tune the band’s sound.
These jams can be seen on YouTube with ATF Band members jamming to songs like Michael Bolton’s Soul Provider and Sadie, The Spinners classic.
“We started our tune a week from our rehearsal room about two months ago whereby ever Friday we put out a song which could be reggae, Ska, R&B, soul, dancehall etc. We just decided to put out many different types of music,” drummer Stephen Lee explained. “The idea came from the band and our video man Courtney Panton; as we can’t do any live shows we figured it would be nice to drop a tune a week. The feedback has been great and more people are checking us out and subscribing to our social media pages.”
Yardie contains seven songs including the title track, which was a hit last year. It was followed by a cover of The Brotherhood of Man’s Say A Prayer; Irie High is their current release.
The ATF Band was actually formed five years ago by Herbie Harris, who plays keyboards and handles most of the vocal duties. Lyndon Webb plays bass and Courtland White is on guitar.
Lee, a former South Florida resident, returned to music when he joined the band. A nephew of Dragonaires founder Byron Lee and former Third World drummer Willie Stewart, he and Harris were bandmates in Kotch, which had hits in the 1980’s with Jean and Cruisin’.
He said the songs on Yardie came from their regular rehearsals.
“The Yardie EP was recorded over a one-year period. We recorded a lot of tracks as demos and whenever ideas and lyrics started to flow we would record the tracks in the studio.”
