Top Shelf, a band that plays multiple genres with an emphasis in reggae and rock based out of Ukiah, will play at Concerts in the Plaza today. The band’s Cal Poly performance will be its first show of a month-long international tour.
Normally when you hear someone say top shelf, they’re talking about the highest quality of booze at a bar, lead singer Carter Lane said. The band played on that by making it mean that the members provide the highest-quality music, he said.
“Lyrical inspiration for us comes from all sorts of different things,” Lane said. “Anything from the struggles that we have individually, to the struggles that we have as a whole — just anything related to life; basically how I relate to the world and how the world relates to me.”
During the band’s time at Cal Poly and on tour, Top Shelf will be playing its new songs as well as older ones.
The newer music will be off the album called “The Sound,” which came out last year and was rated No. 15 on the reggae Billboard charts and No. 9 on the iTunes reggae charts, Lane said. It won Best World Music from the San Diego Music Awards, he said. Top Shelf will also play its new single, “Earthquake,” that will be on an album set to come out on May 29, he said. “Earthquake,” can be downloaded for free off of their website.
Top Shelf also had a music video of its song “We Still Burn,” from its last album, aired on MTV, Lane said.
At this point, Lane said the band’s most popular song is probably “Moonlights” from “The Sound” album.
In addition to the success of the last album, having opportunities to play with several huge bands, landing tours in Mexico, Hawaii and Asia, are the band’s biggest accomplishments, Lane said. But as far as college performances go, Lane said aside from playing at California State University, Chico, Top Shelf hasn’t played at big colleges.
The business varies with what season it is, Lane said. During spring and summer the band is on the road a lot, but during fall and winter, Top Shelf is at home working on music a lot, Lane said. After today, the band’s tour will keep members on the road until June 10.
“I’d say the biggest challenges are balancing life on the road with life off of the road,” Lane said. “The differences of being on the road and off of the road have been really challenging.”
After today’s show at Cal Poly, Top Shelf will play in Santa Barbara tomorrow night and then be back in San Luis Obispo on Saturday night to play at SLO Brewing Co. (SLO Brew). After that show, Top Shelf travels to Asia with Mystic Roots, one of the bands Lane said inspired his band when it was first starting out.
Top Shelf has been together as a band for nine years, Lane said. Aside from a guitarist from Santa Rosa, all the members grew up in Northern California together and moved to Chico when their drummer, Drew Nicoll, decided to go to school there.
The band then got serious when the members saw Mystic Roots playing big shows and parties in Chico, Lane said.
The tour that Top Shelf and Mystic Roots will do in Asia is to benefit U.S. Military Troops, Lane said.
“We’re going over there for all the troops,” Lane said. “It’s our first time doing anything like this. The military is paying for the whole thing. It’s just some sort of military service that’s part of their budget I guess. I don’t think, necessarily, that we have a huge draw over there; it’s more of just a service that we can provide for the troops to give a little something back.”
Mystic Roots will be headlining, and Lane said Top Shelf is going to be the support for them.
“I think the military has been providing stuff like this for a long time,” Lane said. “Mystic Roots has done it before, and this time it just worked out for us to go with them.”
When contacted, Top Shelf’s drummer, Nicoll, was practicing for their upcoming collaboration with Mystic Roots, in Asia.
Top Shelf will play the opening set for an hour, Nicoll said. Everyone but the singer is learning Mystic Roots songs because the band will be playing with them for the tour, Nicoll said. He said the members will play with cootdog — the manager, producer, singer, keyboard player and rapper for Mystic Roots — the other singer, Cat, and two horn players, Nicoll said.
“We’ve never done it before, and we just got the offer a week ago,” Nicoll said. “We have to learn 25 songs in a week while we’re doing our own tour. We had to book some rehearsal space in SLO to practice.”
For Nicoll, watching his personal favorite artists perform is his biggest inspiration, he said.
“We’re not just a reggae band or a rock band, we just sort of take whatever kind of influences we’re listening to at the time and make our own music,” Nicoll said. “We’re all over the place. Reggae and rock is the foundation of what we play.”
Nicoll said Top Shelf stays true to its roots but plays various types of music, even electronica. The band’s most recent music is a culmination of where Top Shelf has been and where its going, Nicoll said.
Mystic Roots fell in love with the Top Shelf vibe back when the members lived in Chico, and they’ve been working together for five years, cootdog said. He said Top Shelf feels like his band’s brothers in the industry.
“The biggest thing we’re doing is taking them to South Korea and Japan,” cootdog said. “You can always count on seeing us involved in each others’ projects.”
He even produced Top Shelf’s second album, “The Sound.”
“Sometimes I fit in with the band and play keys for them if we’re ever in the same place at the same time,” cootdog said. “I produced their last album, so I was all over that on keyboards and vocals. It’s been all good, the only challenge is sometimes we want to play together and one of us is booked somewhere else. Whenever we’re in the same place it’s all good.”
In addition to Top Shelf releasing a new album this year, Mystic Roots is also releasing a new album called “Campfire,” cootdog said.
“Watch out for Top Shelf and Mystic Roots blowing it up in 2012,” cootdog said. “We’d love to play at Cal Poly, all somebody has to do is call us to book us. We’ve got a lot of love for Cal Poly; we’ve played at SLO Brew numerous times and made a lot of friends in that area.”
The Top Shelf concert is today in the University Union from 11 a.m. to noon.