Marin Reggae Band Delivers a Song for the Times

Many stressed-out Americans are in need for some deeply grounded inspiration right now. Some of the most admired humans in modern history – Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., young Malala Yousefzai – first surfaced during times of civil rights crises, political turmoil, and violence in the streets. The masses embraced them as saviors, and the species survived another day.

Now those revered figures and many more are namedropped in a new song by an upstart band with strong Marin County ties called Kana Mota. “A heart on fire cannot be slain,” sings Novato’s April Ryan-Grisman. “When love is militant, we’re courageous, like the sages and the saints.”

Yes, “Mr. President” certainly was timed to debut during this heated election season, but it has legs, too. (Watch the YouTube video here).

“Because of its name, we knew that some people were going to interpret it as being specifically about Donald Trump,” said guitarist and background vocalist Monroe Grisman, April’s husband of 26 years. “It’s actually more a message of positivity to tap into the guidance and leadership from people with higher ideals. Not just people from the past, but people who are still out there and still doing it … people who have put themselves in great disposition or even given their lives for the betterment of mankind. ‘Mr. President’ is the vehicle for that message, and that’s what we set out to achieve.”

A reggae music fan since the mid-‘80s, band co-founder Eric Chaffin wrote a song called “What Are We Supposed to Do” years ago, and gradually it morphed into “Mr. President.” The lyrics examined the feelings of powerlessness that build up, sweep through a community, and often explode in violent action or retaliation.

“I began to riff on the phrase ‘Mr. President’ and had the idea of an open letter to the President reminding him that a REAL leader values justice and equality more than they value their own success, power, or even life,” Chaffin said. “There are a lot of great songs that sing of Mandela, so I chose this as a jumping-off place.”

Bringing in the Grismans was a natural move. They first worked with the songwriter a decade ago when Chaffin was crafting an album under the guidance of producer and engineer Chris Manning of Terra Linda. The Grismans had performed all over the Bay Area in the Soul Jah Family Band, which played well-known reggae classics. Monroe is also a guitarist with the popular Tom Petty tribute band Petty Theft and has played in local bands since his teens. April is a vocal coach and has been featured alongside her husband on stage, plus a stint back in the day with the funk metal band Psychefunkapus. Chaffin made it a point to track down the couple whenever he was ready to create fresh material.

“Then of course the 2016 election happened,” Monroe Grisman said. “That inspired him. He found that old song and we reworked it over about 18 months. There were lots of different phases of the project. I had never worked on a song that long. We recorded, then re-recorded, then went through the mixing process. By then, the next election was right around the corner.”

Monroe Grisman channeled some South African guitar sounds into the final mix, and April Grisman poured her soul into the vocals. Chris Manning, best known as the original bass player for the short-lived but memorable Bay Area band Jellyfish, played bass and dialed everything in as chief knob-twister. Other talented friends from Marin and other parts of the Bay Area were pulled in to lend a hand.

“It sounds amazing,” Chaffin said. “The contributions of the other band members pushed it into another realm altogether and gave me chills. Before this, I had worked in isolation for a long time, so all this comes as quite the miracle and blessing.”

Chaffin’s wife, Sheena, is from Japan, and she translated the song into Japanese. A lot of the Japanese listeners researched the famous names in the song to learn more about them, “which I found gratifying,” Chaffin said.

The video is a jaw-dropper. It is the artwork of Manning’s brother, Tim, a film producer in the Lake Tahoe area who mostly works on skiing and snowboarding films. The clip was shot in a single, hectic, 20-hour workday, partly at the crack of dawn on the streets of Petaluma and partly at night on the beach in Inverness. It is peppered with images of human rights stalwarts and urgent turning-point moments in history.

“We really needed a powerful video to match this powerful song,” Monroe Grisman said. “It realized the vision of the song and conveyed what we thought was important.”

Kana Mota gelled during the pandemic, which put a lot of musicians out of work. Chaffin, who designs and installs custom home audio and video systems, was grateful to stay busy with his day job while simultaneously collaborating remotely with the band members. He used the lockdown to compose and write out of his Napa Valley home studio. Chris Manning loves to mountain bike near there, and he suggested the name Kana Mota, the indigenous name for Mount St. Helena that translates to “human mountain.”

The band is buoyed by the reaction to the song and video have the past few months. “I was expecting some backlash from people assuming it’s an anti-Trump song, but I’ve seen almost none of that. It’s mostly people saying it’s positive and uplifting, which is what everybody needs right now. That’s the thing about reggae in general. It’s international music and it has that effect on people.”

Post-pandemic, Kana Mota could be on track to record more songs and eventually perform on stage. Chaffin and Grisman agreed on the main point: They just want wisdom and peace to prevail one way or another in one of the most tumultuous and downright kray-kray eras in American history. They would like their new single, “Mr. President,” to spread that message of hope like, well, a contagious virus.

“I think there’s a lot of stress and negativity out there, and we’re trying to remind people that the path forward has been shown already,” Grisman said. “We all have to try and stay positive and tap into that energy.”

Follow Kana Mota on Facebook or on the band's website.