POB has been touring around the West Coast region since 2007. Coming from a city which is currently regarded as the world’s largest Mecca for reggae music, this San Diego reggae band strives to play a unique and edgy brand of reggae. In order for a reggae band in San Diego to achieve notoriety in such an oversaturated market, they must be original, record, tour, and leave audiences wet and breathless. POB has done all of these things well. They have blended roots, dancehall, and modern California styles of reggae with early 2000’s metal, 90’s hip-hop, prog-rock, and electronica to create a melting pot of wicked sounds.
POB’s self-titled album released in 2009 gave birth to “Fire” which still goes down as a California Reggae classic. This debut album also featured POB’s first music video “Robot” which eventually lead to the creation of the bands beloved mascot. The POB Robot makes regular appearances at every POB concert and has been seen doing photo ops at many major festivals along the West Coast. The band later debuted a second music video for the song “Army” which mocked the corrupt music industry.
One of POB’s biggest claims to fame was being one of the original California Roots Festival bands that helped pioneer the festival into what it is today. The band was featured in the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th Annual California Roots Festival. In the 4th Annual Festival, the band played the official afterparty immediately after Matisyahu. The band performed in a pub on the festival grounds as the festival crowd flooded into the venue. They were supposed to play a 2 hour set but the star-studded crowd did not want to go home. The band did not want to let the crowd down so they played an uninterrupted 4 hour set that included guest cameos by Gonzo from Tribal Seeds, Matthew Liufau of Seedless, and many more.
POB’s second album “Love Tone” was nominated for Best World Music Album in 2014 at the San Diego Music Awards. “Love Tone” was accompanied by a music video for “Your Game” which had strange parallels to online dating and a girl toying with a man’s heart using several different board game metaphors. The album featured San Diego legend “Ivan Garzon” of The Devastators in the song “Primitive”. The band toured harder than ever during the release of this album and hit several cities in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, and even New Mexico.
From 2014 to 2019 the band has focused more on releasing new music through their new record label Roots Musician Records. With EPs “Sounds of Revolution” and “Forever” recorded by producer and record label founder E.N Young, the band found a whole new polished dub-reggae sound that had been unprecedented to fans up until this point. Sounds of Revolution features many big names in the scene including Nathan Feinstein of Iya Terra, Karim Israel of Arise Roots, and the one and only Pato Banton.
The band has recently released yet another E.P. with their trumpet player, Mister Midnight.
Looking to the future, POB plans to compile a greatest hits type vinyl record, as well as an acoustic album. Stay tuned!
