Changing The World

Based in Arlington, Virginia, the band's name, SOJA, is an acronym for Soldiers Of Jah Army, which tells you straightaway that their music is reggae, pure and simple. Essentially a band of school friends, the six-piece started gigging around their neighbourhood about 15 years ago, releasing a debut EP in 2000, a debut album, Peace In A Time Of War, following in 2003. There have been another EP, five more albums and two DVDs released since, but something has changed since the release of last year's Strength To Survive album.

“It's interesting what's happened recently,” SOJA's lead singer and guitarist Jacob Hemphill admits. “We saw ourselves go from a band that played for a thousand people, two thousand people, to a band that plays to eight to ten thousand people. I mean, not in all markets, but some of these markets, and it's crazy – these kids are writing in to us and saying 'I don't think locally, I think globally', or they say, 'I'm not a nationalist, I'm a globalist'. I mean, people are writing us this stuff from all around the world. I think the world is sick of getting fat and sick of leaving a path of destruction; I think kids see that as, like, something old people do, you know. I think that's happening with the environmental issue and the climate change issue, and that being all that we really sing about these days has, I think, made this band pretty popular.”

Kids certainly “discovered” SOJA in a big way online, generating more than 20 million YouTube views, while the band's Facebook has amassed more than 850,000 fans, with some of that interest translating into respectable – for an independent band playing what is still considered a “minority” genre, reggae – sales of more than 200,000 albums. But, as Hemphill suggests, things have kicked the band up to the next level, and a lot of the reason can be heard on Strength To Survive.

“I think the members of the band are finally figuring out what SOJA is,” Hemphill suggests. “We spent about ten years kind of trying everything we wanted to try and we put out all the albums we wanted to put out, and then, when we were done, we kind of looked at each other and we were, like, 'we know what we really wanna do', and then we made Strength To Survive.

“There was a lot of pretty stuff put on top of it – guitars and keyboards and back-up stuff – but the basis of it was supposed be kind of a roots reggae record which was 'we're changin' the world'. That was the idea anyway. Everything Changes, about the human race, and Strength To Survive, about the Earth that the human race lives on – those were the two songs that, for us, kind of started the whole album. We've translated Everything Changes and featured artists from six different languages and dropped it in six different markets, because we believe in this stuff. We want it to take over, and now they play that song on Brazil's hit radio station, the biggest one. It's crazy because before this album, we never had stuff like that kinda happening.”

That sort of overseas recognition has turned SOJA into a stadium band, whereas in North America, where reggae has never really gained much in the way of mainstream attention, they'd been very much a club band. “As far as I'm concerned, Bob Marley had the biggest global influence of any musician who has ever lived,” he says. “So to me it was like, 'Hey, if I'm gonna change the world, who am I gonna try and do it like?' Well, the one guy who'd done it – Bob Marley.”

Soja will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 30, Sunday 31 March and Monday 1 April - Bluesfest, Byron Bay NSW
Wednesday 3 - The Zoo, Fortitude Valley QLD
Thursday 4 April - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast QLD
Friday 5 April - The Metro, Sydney NSW
Saturday 6 April - Prince Bandroom, Melbourne VIC

Strength To Survive is out now.