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Floralorix – Arise (Rootfire Premiere)

When I started work on Floralorix’s album, their commitment was immediately obvious. It was manifested both in their pure love of classic reggae but, perhaps most importantly, in their intent to sound honest, with just the right amount of unusual creativity along the way. As the mastering engineer, it was a great experience, and the songs are still stuck in my head today. That says a lot. I hope you enjoy the album as much as I did. – Jocko More Sound Recording Studio

**If you live in Nashville and you want tickets to Floralorix’s album release show (TONIGHT MAY 6) at Exit/In let us know (email [email protected]) and we will put you on the guest list**


Building something beautiful – the story of “Arise” told by Dan Twiford, drummer and vocalist of Floralorix. 

The story of “Arise” is really the story of our band forming. Samantha (Sam) penned the lyrics so it’s her telling of things and she got it right. I met Sam by joining her last band prior to Floralorix when the drummer’s chair opened. It was my first reggae-rooted venture but more importantly our friendship hit it off right away. As it goes that band broke up not long after I joined (It wasn’t me I swear! haha), Sam and I were both really upset about it and in our devastation we decided to stick together and keep playing music. It’s hard to write to convey how beat up we felt after that break up because when I say it was sudden, I mean SUDDEN, and there were hearts involved. Playing music together was the obvious answer, especially positive uplifting music, especially reggae and rock. We knew there were reggae bands in Nashville like our now-brother-band Roots Of A Rebellion that we could play our own shows with. [In our last band] Sam and I weren’t writing much of the music, but NOW we could. And we had something to get off our chest. We had the blues. So we invited our talented friend Matt Daughtry who has fronted the Nashville alt-reggae band Paradise Daze for 10 years now, and he came over to my house to jam with us. We wrote a song that first day called “This is Real” which is on our album Bloombox and from that moment we knew we had a new band. A few months later we added our friend Kent Toalson on organ and the band really hit a stride. Now we all write the music and share the vision and it is like a superpower to be blessed like that.

“From the ruins we built something beautiful” are the opening lines to Arise. You can see what I mean, we did that. We stuck together, kept friendship and love at the center and knew that if we can pull ourselves up it would be something every single person could connect to.

We recorded “Arise” and the majority of Bloombox at Last Wave Nashville. Grant Husselman, the boss of Last Wave Nashville, recorded and mixed our sessions, gave us love and encouragement and shared culture with us daily. It turned into a record we are very proud of. What more can you ask for? Grant is a huge proponent of the Tennessee Reggae Scene. He built his own Sound System and pop-up Mini-Sound System called “Jah Judgement” and promotes his own events; Grant is very talented and deep into the culture. When it came time to master Bloombox we had each band member pick out albums we loved the sound of and find out who mastered them. Somehow Passafire’s most recent full-length Vines wound up on just about everybody’s list and that is how we discovered Jocko. Vines had a great continuity – Passafire has songs that lean more towards reggae and songs that lean towards rock or alternative, but they all fit together on Vines. We all loved listening to the music go round and round; props to Passafire and to Paul Leary who mixed and to Jocko who mastered that record.

We definitely don’t sit down and discuss genre before we write, we just write from the heart and we too have songs that are more reggae or more rock and that’s totally cool with us – and just as we hoped, Jocko brought it all together on Bloombox. I hope you all enjoy!

Peace and Love,

Dan

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“Arise” from the album Bloombox

Music & lyrics: Samantha Joelle

Performed by:

Dan Twiford- drums and vocals
Samantha Joelle- bass and vocals
Matt Daughtry- guitar and vocals
Kent Toalson- keys

Release Date: May 6, 2016
Album Title: Bloombox

Connect with band: www.Floralorix.com
Purchase Bloombox: iTunes | Bandcamp

Tour Dates

May 6 – Bloombox Album Release @ Exit/In – Nashville, TN
June 4 – Tin Dog Tavern Block Party – Nashville, TN
July 29 – Clyde’s on Main – Chattanooga, TN
July 31 – Opening for 311 @ Marathon Music Works – Nashville, TN
Aug 19 – Irie Vibes Music Festival – Long Creek, SC
Sept 23 – Tye Dye Festival – Adams, TN

 

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