Interview: Meet Pop-Reggae Band 4th & Orange

Long Beach-based pop-rock-reggae band, 4th & Orange, just released their debut single, “Girl Next Door.” The band was co-founded by longtime friends Garrett Douglas and Chris “DJ Irey” Garcia with a goal of merging inspiration from hometown heroes, Sublime, with their own individual style to craft something altogether new and utterly irresistible.

Douglas and DJ Irey’s friendship began while playing high school football, their shared passion for music providing solace from their troubled home lives. Each soon went on to forge their own path in the music industry – Douglas took on the moniker ‘Beach Boy’ and became a successful songwriter, DJ Irey a successful producer. The two reunited in early 2019, determined to take their decade of industry experience and put their creative energy into a project all their own.

“The goal of our music is to bring light to others in dark situations,” says Douglas. “Both Irey and I came from a rough past, but that’s how we connected and created 4th & Orange. Our music reminds others that in the dark you can be the light.” We spoke with lead singer, Garrett Douglas about the band’s formation and latest release.

How did signing with Atlantic and Latium come about?
Our manager Charles Chavez has always kept one ear to the charts and the other ear to the streets so when he
heard our music doing well on Island Radio Stations a few years back, he reached out to DJ Irey and I to ask about
what else we had in the arsenal. Out of all the songs we played, Girl Next Door stood out to him and when that
happens, you just gotta put faith in knowing that he knows what he’s doing. At the time I was locked in to a hip-hop
project I was doing and we never moved on anything until the beginning of this year (2019). We met up again and he
insisted we still release Girl Next Door as a first single and that if we did, he’d take the project to Craig Kallman
(Atlantic Records) – Charles has always been a man of his word so we signed the dotted line and we became new
signees to Atlantic/Latium.

Do you think coming from Long Beach influenced your music at all?
It has almost EVERYTHING to do with the influence for our music. I’ve been a “rapper” for most of my musical
journey even though as a kid I would always sing to myself. There would be certain artist I felt like I could sing like
and one of them was Bradley Nowell from Long Beach’s Sublime. Sometimes I’d get caught singing out loud by
friends and they’d be like, “Yo, you sing that really good.” So in truth, I’ve never had singing lessons growing up all I
had was my headphones and CD’s to listen to and learn from. Being from Long Beach can be a different experience
for anyone. We have sides that are top notch living, and sides that are low-income survival. I’ve had to live through
both types of lifestyles and although having a four bedroom house was great for me as a child, learning how to be
independent and survive as a man was learned on the east side of town. Our music is about the basics, the struggle,
the things we have to say and do to be something other than the failed statistics society throws on people that come
from nothing. We learned that being from Long Beach and now our music tells that story.

Your music is pop-reggae, do genres matter to you or should they matter in general?
I like to say we are URBAN-reggae. POP is short for POPULAR which anything can be in 2019. People around the
world don’t care so much about genre anymore they just like something NEW to listen to. Take “Old Town Road” for
example. It came out of left field and wasn’t exactly fitting into one genre but it did numbers and everyone loved to
hear something new. So yes, genres matters when trying to describe your own sound and no, genre doesn’t matter to
those who are listening.

Your latest single you wrote six years ago, what made you decide to release it years later?
Listening to the ones that have done it one-hundred times before us. My first reaction was, “Let’s put out something
bad ass that the streets are going to love.” Of course Charles says, “No, let’s put out something that the WORLD is
going to love.” He had his mind made up about Girl Next Door back then, he knew it would still do the same thing in
our world today. That’s all I needed to hear to understand Girl Next Door was going to be our first release. Over a
million views in less than 2 weeks tells me that it was right for me to listen to him and out my trust in the OG’s.

How did the concept for your music video come about?
The video concept was given to us by the lyrics. While our other songs can be a little more abstract, Girl Next Door is
such an imaginative piece of art. Every line was almost a guideline or script for what was supposed to be seen on
camera. That plus a few clever twists at the end that Mike Garcia (Director) threw in was all we needed to get it done.
He’s an awesome capturer and I couldn’t be happier with the way he put a visual to the words.

You have your live show in Los Angeles on the 11th, what can fans expect from a live show of yours?
We’re an original band with original music. When coming to our shows don’t expect TOO MANY covers because
that’s now what we do. Of course we pay our homage to bands we love most sometimes and rock out a classic, but
we rock out harder to the songs we’ve put our lives into. Everything we’ve put into the music should come right back
out when we hit the stage so that’s what everyone should expect while being in the crowd, humble Southern
California vibes on top of smooth reggae instrumentals made right here at home.

Do you have any other music ready to release? What’s up next for the band?
More releases, lots of shows. We’ve got the internet going crazy over the new music video so now it’s time to hit the
coastline to deliver the music to their hometowns. A band has to put in their work on the road, especially a new band.
Our plan is to give more quality content to match the quality of the music. So just expect a lot of mastered music
bundled with dope visuals to feed on!