Dub Scouts: In Conversation with Gentleman’s Dub Club

Gentleman’s Dub Club

Back in 2004, when vocalist Jonathan Scratchley was first intro­duced to reggae and dub music by his older sister, he remembers liking reg­gae, but being completely turned off by dub. Says Scratchley, who is the founding member of eight-member dub/reggae band Gentle­man’s Dub Club from Leeds, “She played me the likes of [Jamaican reggae artist from The Wailers] Peter Tosh and I really loved it. I was on board straightaway. But then she played me some dub music like [Sixties and Sev­enties dub music pioneer] King Tubby and I didn’t really understand it. I had a small cheap hi-fi and when I played dub on there. It would just make it a bit boring, a bit slow and I’d move on.”

But when Scratchley later on went to a dance club that had a big sound system, he began hearing dub differently. It made him understand the culture of the dub sound ”“ that it had to be heard live. It’s no surprise that Gentleman’s Dub Club was formed in 2006 when their founding members met inside a local club at a dub night hosted by Leeds-based event organizers SubDub. Scratchley says three out of eight members in the band were all school or neighborhood friends, but they were encouraged to form a band after they played at SubDub in 2005. “After we’d been doing that for a while, there was another friend who was also a big fan of dub reggae. He said that this is brilliant and we should try and make something of it. So he knew another four or five guys who’d been studying music at the local college and so he just bought them together. The next year, we just developed the sound, going to house parties, going to dub nights and building up the family.”

While Gentleman’s Dub Club have re­leased a couple of EPs, singles and mixtapes, they took their time to release their debut album, FOURty Four, in 2013. A tribute to the number of the house they originally jammed at in Leeds, FOURty Four was an­other mark in the still-popular reggae and dub scene in the UK. Scratchley says there were atleast two reggae singles that posted big sales and climbed to Number One on the UK charts in 2014, including reggae band Magic!’s song “Rude.” Adds Scratchley, “To see it on that pedestal gives you confidence in the fact that it [reggae] can be [relevant]. But I suppose it’s just all about the musicians, y’know? If people are making honest, good music, they’ll be recognized for that. I’m con­fident that’s still the case.”

And the band is taking their own second swing at keeping reggae relevant.Although they’ve wrapped up recording their second album, The Big Smoke, Scratchley says a re­lease in March is planned, right ahead of their first America tour. Adds the vocal­ist, “We’re really excited about it. I can com­fortably say it’s the most accomplished we’ve sounded on a record.”

After playing across festivals and club shows across Europe, the band played their first show outside the continent at India Bike Week 2013 in Goa. Says Scratchley about play­ing at headline set in India, “It was amazing. I’ve been a bit further on in Asia once before, but when you go that far from where you grew up, everything is so different.” The band now returns to India in February to play at wine and music festival SulaFest in Nashik, with a couple of club shows in the works. Following their India show, Gentleman’s Dub Club heads further out for their first North American tour with festival and club shows in the US and Canada in March. Festivals also provide an opportunity to scout talent says Scratchley, who is also the creative director at Croatia’s Outlook Festival and electronic music festival Dimensions Festival. Says Scratchley about wearing two hats ”“ that of a performer with Gentleman’s Dub Club and of a festival head, “I use the fact that I go and play a lot of festi­vals as a way of seeing how other people do it. It’s all very positive. I feel very lucky to be able to do my market research while I’m also play­ing with my band.” Scratchley says he’s got a hang of managing his schedules to get enough time to plan festivals as well as play shows and more recently, go into the studio to record new material.

This story appeared in the January 2015 issue of Rolling Stone India.