ZapTown

Sean Bones (born Sullivan) did not grow up surrounded by palm trees of the Jamaican countryside. Nor did he grow up embedded in any form of island culture. Bones is a New Englander who grew up in the punk music scene.

“I use the term punk very loosely,” said Bones. “A kid walking across the street with one shoe on is punk to me. Things like Elastica’s first album is punk to me.  Bands like Wire, Jawbreaker, Fugazi, Jawbox, The Clash — those are my conception of punk bands.”

Bones moved to Brooklyn at the age of 18. With the edgy punk band Sam Champion and a degree from NYU culminated by himself — an academic blend of documentary travel and journalism — it gave him an itch to do something a little different, explaining the need and want to constantly experience and explain things he does not understand. When he got into the reggae sound that inspired the punk scene from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, he scratched hard.

“I was getting frustrated with the way things were going with my previous band,” he said. “I just self-produced and put out a seven inch without thinking of the results. When I told people what the Sean Bones project was all about, no one believed me.”

Digging into the early fuzzed-out reggae sound, the seven inch was a stab at doing things his own way.

“Bands like Broadcast and records like that are all over my iPod. I’ll put it on shuffle, and whenever something like that pops up, the fuzzy rough recorded sounds make my ears perk up every time. That energy is what I wanted to capture, and it’s the sound my ear responds to the most.”

This seven inch also caught the attention of directors Ben Chase and Sam Fleischne for a chance to participate in an interesting indie film experience. At first Bones turned down the offer for the lead role, but he was later convinced when he realized he would have the opportunity to spend time in Jamaica. Eight days later, he was on a boat, watching the New York City skyline fade out and the beginnings of Wah Do Dem turn into a reality.

Bones plays the character of Max who has booked this dream Caribbean cruise with his girlfriend (played by Norah Jones), who breaks up with him days before the departure. He goes anyway, and the rest of the film is his experience in Jamaica, with its beauty and hardship.

“It’s more of a shoot ‘em up than say The Harder They Come,” he said. The Jimmy Cliff film is often a comparative factor.

“It was such a great experience. Unfortunately there was not much downtime while in Jamaica. At nights, we were able to hang out at these brush hut bars, drinking rum and milk and listening to Shaba Ranks while my hair would constantly vibrate from all of the bass.”

While shooting the film, Bones was working on material for his debut album Rings, out on Frenchkiss.

“During the filming, I was drumming up more material, but I did not want the album to be the soundtrack to the movie. Having that Jamaican experience was great. The country seems to develop and involve itself in a way of constantly pushing forward.”

This realization came when he got the chance to spend some time with ‘70s reggae icons, The Congos. When Bones expressed his fandom to them, they found it amusing that someone was obsessing over something they put out over 30 years ago when they are still making music for the future.

“To them, the past is the past,” he said.

But it was the early dub reggae sound that impressed Sullivan the most, warping the classic elements into Rings. When you spin through his carefree and sunnyside songs, you feel an organic rawness that takes you back to the early Specials-meets-Horace Andy days, especially songs like “Coco” and “Sugar In My Spoon.”

“The place where I worked on the album was a ramshackle place. When I was out visiting studios and talking to people, I realized I need to take the album some place that is fucked up and to not make it so nice. So I just kept it simple and recorded it live in the studio. As much as you plan for things to happen, you sometimes need a witch doctor to get things done.”

But if you go beyond the outlying reggae elements of the album, you find a genuinely East Coast soul mentality that flows in and out of each song.

“Reggae is kind of a romantic soul music. I was talking to someone the other day who said that ‘Cry Cry Cry’ was very un-reggae. As much as reggae is social and political, there is a lot of romanticism to it.”

Sean Bones