Breaking the stereotype
Kes the Band...
By Mark Pouchet
Story Created: Jan 15, 2011 at 10:47 PM ECT
(Story Updated: Jan 15, 2011 at 10:47 PM ECT )
Kees Dieffenthaller, lead singer and frontman of the self-titled band Kes The Band, is all against stereotypes in life and in the music industry.
When the Palmiste native plays for audiences in the US, they expect him to don a flower shirt and play notes on a steelpan. Here at home, he is the Trini red man, at the helm of the "white boy" rock/soca band.
For Kees and his family-filled band that includes brothers Hans (drums) and Jon (guitar) and step-brother Riad Boochoon (bass guitar), Kes The Band are underdogs who can't be described that easily.
"We used to be like who are we? Well, we are who we are. At the end of day, we said 'Let's just do a whole album'. I think we are the first band deeply involved in Carnival that is releasing two albums and one that is outside of the season.
"We dare to do that because we don't really care, because we "wotless" like that," he said. Wotless is the name of the 2011 Carnival album, while the ironically-named Stereotype is their pop album for post-Carnival.
The "Wotless" song, produced by Kerwyn Dubois in Toronto last October, has come to personify how the band members feel about their development to this point after their break from Imij and Co (they were part of that band from 2000-2005) and the public's spirit at Carnival.
"This one, 'Wotless', really exploded on the Carnival scene in a different way, in a new way," said Kees.
"Wotless is really about a lot of people, we really wanted to get back to Trinidadian roots in Carnival and what better way to do that than through music and through the vibe of the music."
"Wotless" is a very Trinidadian phrase for the Kes The Band, it is a twist from its more negative dialectical meaning.
"It really emphasises not being wotless but being you and you don't really care. So wotless is really for everybody. It is more about expressing yourself. It encompasses how people feel during Carnival time where they say 'I come to party. I working whole year. This is my time.'
"And it is also for the band as well. We doing us right now, I think the people felt that within the music and we have to give props to Kerwyn Dubois," he said.
Kees collaborated with Dubois for ten days in Toronto on the song. He had also worked with Dubois after Caribana on a collaboration entitled "Ah Ting".
Kees said he and Dubois were talking about what they liked about calypso and soca as well as their favourite performers such as artistes like Charlie's Roots and David Rudder when they played the guitar riff that started the birth of the hit song that is "bubbling" on the airwaves and in the parties.
"It was a kind of a Baptist mixed with folk and we said let's do this and 'Wotless' came out. Kerwyn had a line first, 'I feel like I just win a million dollars' and, funny enough, that is the line that everybody gravitates to and the crowd sings," he said.
But Kees, the son of George, a Carnival ole mas stalwart, and Deanna, the classical singing mother, said soca is just part of the band's repertoire and talent.
"We very much see ourselves as the bridge in music because we have refused to be seasonal," he said, "We have spent a lot of time and energy in breaking the seasonal barrier...trying to be relevant 365 days a year.
"It wasn't easy pulling the two worlds together. It was really hard because a few people enjoy putting us in a box as in—are you a soca band or are you a rock band? We are neither. We are us. We are Kes The Band."
He said local artistes should do other music because once it is made in Trinidad, it is Trinidadian. "Made in Trinidad music is us," he said.
The band decided to follow its own advice, making the 2011 Stereotype pop album that includes tracks like "Let me Know" (played on American Airlines in-flight radio and Six Flags radio as well as being available on iTunes), "Loving you", a collaboration with Jamaican songstress Tessanne Chin, and Red Light.
"T&T has seen me grow up. Even in Maroon 5 (concert), I told the crowd, you have seen me grow up, seen me go through my growing pains, my experimentations. Seen me grow from boy to man. Life forces you into that.
"I feel more in control now of my art and where I see the band and music going...so I am growing into a man but I still have a lot to learn, of course," he said.
Kees's eclectic taste in music, which he says includes R&B, reggae and dancehall, started from his teen years.
He got his first taste of on-stage performance as part of the Presentation College, San Fernando, choir directed by the husband-and-wife pair of Cynthia and Anthony Mack.
He formed a group called KLAS with former Miss Universe/T&T Faye Alibocas, Michael Zefferin and Mark Alexander.
He also combined with his brother to perform at backyard concerts and at weddings and tea parties to assist his family during a tough financial patch when he was 14 years old.
"That money actually paid for a lot of things for me, including school books, in those days. So I have been treating music as a profession since then with my brothers," he said, adding that it was his wish to take some of the burden off his parents's from a young age.
In 1998, Kees and his brothers formed a rock band, Limestone, and went on to win the Benson and Hedges Pop Rock competition, singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" at Anchorage. A year later, they transformed into Rydimorai after they decided to do the music full-time and ended up living off doubles and Smalta.
"I was going to be a vet," Kees said, describing himself as a nerd who got seven 1s, one 2 and an A at CXC while he earned two As in Biology and Chemistry and a B in Mathematics at A-Levels.
Kes The Band has travelled to Los Angeles, worked with producers like Derek Bramble who did David Bowie's hit album Tonight and songwriters Dianne Warren, who's written for Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake, and Desmond Child, who's written "Living on a Prayer" for Bon Jovi and "La Vida Loca" for Ricky Martin.
Expecting a successful year, personally and for his band, Kees advises that local musicians should think about more innovation and do more work outside the box for the success of the T&T music brand worldwide.
And he wants the Government to generate more links for artistes worldwide and to help them attend the yearly ASCAP Music Conference.
"We (local musicians) are ready for the world but we have to believe in ourselves and have the backing.
"I am going to do it with or without, I'm telling you that. But we could do more in opening the right links to new markets," he said.
