The Aggrolites

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If not for the great Jamaica ska singer Derrick Morgan, the Aggrolites would quite honestly not exist. The band was borne out of a small collective of Southern Californian reggae and ska artists who, after backing the singer in a local concert, came together about four years ago to record music for a new Derrick Morgan disc.
While that project never ended up seeing daylight, the various recording sessions gave rise to the Aggrolites, an amalgamation of two area bands, the Vessels and the Rhythm Doctors, a band that originally came together purely by accident, says lead guitarist/vocalist Jesse Wagner. “We were having fun in the studio, so we just said, ‘Hey, why don’t we book some shows and do our own thing.’ We were just five guys enjoyed playing music together.”
Beyond having a good time, while cutting the Morgan tracks the band—Wagner, bassist J Bonner, rhythm guitarist Brian Dixon, piano/organist Roger Rivas and then-drummer Korey Horn (who has since been replaced by ex-Hepcat skinsman Scott Abels)—knew they were onto something.
Reflecting the deep love for rocksteady, ska and reggae in Southern California, this new fusion of two bands was hitting on something that sounded truly authentic: from the classic, keyboard riffing recalling the great Jamaican keyboardist Jackie Mittoo to the swinging, horn-filled rhythms of Morgan himself.

They decided to run with it, booking shows throughout L.A. and Orange County, during which they were mixing originals with Mitto and Upsetters covers. The band took its name from the 1960s British slang term “aggro,” meaning “tough.” During that era, aggro was a term used to describe the tough reggae sound getting more and more popular in the U.K. It was a perfect fit for the Aggrolites: a tough name for a tough band.
In between gigs, they reentered the studio and began cutting tracks that eventually became their first record, Dirty Reggae. “We were recording the album without even knowing it,” says Wagner. “Before we knew it we had an album done, before we had even really honed our sound. Released on the tiny Axe label, Dirty Reggae is a collection of one-take tracks cut “within a matter of hours, instead of weeks or days,” Wagner laughs, noting that most of the lyrics came right off the top of his head.
Recorded in L.A. at Signet Studios, the former relocated, West Coast home of Motown, the tracks were cut using some of the same instruments employed by the likes of The Jackson Five and Smokey Robinson, some of the very records that Wagner and his bandmates grew up on: While their love for Caribbean rhythms is deep—they share a particular affection for the likes the Upsetters, Delroy Wilson, Toots, Ken Boothe and Alton Ellis—the band’s sound and style was informed by everything from the Clash, WAR and James Brown to Tower of Power, Wilson Pickett and the Meters.
Finding Dixon, a sound engineer at Signet, sculpting the sound—using older microphones and tinkering with retro recording techniques—Dirty Reggae laid the bedrock for their The Aggrolites, the band’s Hellcat Records debut.
Taking Dixon’s retro approach one-step further, The Aggrolites is a 19-track mix of sing-a-longs and instrumentals that not only sounds straight out of Kingston, circa 1967, but one that with great respect and style recalls such pillars of island music as Toots & the Maytals, the Ethiopians, Mittoo and the early Wailers.
It’s that rare kind of album that really, truly sounds like a bona fide homage, a disc that sounds like a group of guys genuinely in love with the great, late ‘60s music of Jamaica, guys who are interested in reviving rather ripping off those classic records.
Indeed, if the band members had a collective goal, it would be to increase awareness of reggae music—to show Americans especially that there’s a whole lot more to Jamaican music than Bob Marley, ganja and growing dreadlocks, says Wagner. “We’d love to help put it more on the map.”

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