Inner Secret Takes Reggae a Step Beyond

There are those who were certain that reggae would die with Bob Marley. But seven years after Marley’s death, reggae’s newest generation is keeping the music very much alive. And in Southern California, the young voices of reggae aren’t necessarily Jamaican.

Take the group Inner Secret. Not one member is Jamaican. The band includes keyboard player Petr Hromadko, a Czech who defected; percussionist Ras Cimarron from Panama; guitar player Frizz Martin from Germany; a Latino, King David, on horns; Wadada, an Afro-American from Washington, on bass, “and me, an American Jew from the Midwest on drums,” Harlan Steinberger says.

“The movement is international,” Martin says. “We are of the second generation that will help carry reggae on. We’re not trying to compare ourselves to the Jamaicans because we don’t have the experience that they do, but we can agree with the message of the music.”

The message of unity and justice is what Inner Secret often sings about. “Except for maybe the Dead Kennedys and a few others, reggae is the only music that talks about social issues,” Martin says. “But it’s just reality. You walk around the streets and you see gang warfare and crack. . . . I feel music can change people; it can wake them up and bring them out of their ignorance. We sing that if you want peace you have to work for justice.”

Inner Secret has been socially conscious right from its beginnings. The band members met two summers ago on the boardwalk at Venice Beach. “We had anti-apartheid jams on the beach,” Steinberger says. “The only criteria was a desire to play; at times we would have up to 60 people jamming.

“But then it got cold,” Steinberger says, “and we began to see who the core of the jam really was.” After a few detours--some members played for a time with the reggae band Kushite Raiders while Steinberger, a political science major, and King David, who studied world arts and culture, took time off to finish college--Steinberger says, “We took Inner Secret off the boardwalk, into the clubs and into the recording studio.”

The band just released a single (available in record stores that specialize in reggae) and is currently raising money to put an album together.

The band also regularly plays the Woodland Hills sushi bar Something’s Fishy on Sunday nights. Reggae is a regular feature at the restaurant on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. “They’ve been real supportive,” Steinberger says.

“We get big crowds,” Martin says. “It’s a real musician’s scene. And people like that our music is versatile--it’s more like fusion reggae than rootsy reggae.”

People also love what Steinberger calls Inner Secret’s “one-man horn section,” King David. “He can play the trombone, the trumpet, the flute, and he does percussion, too,” Steinberger says. “He’s a monster.”

Inner Secret plays Saturday, May 28, at Sergio’s Cantina, 3835 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Westlake Village. There is a $4 cover charge; call (805) 495-7476 for information. The band also plays every Sunday night beginning at 9:30 p.m. at Something’s Fishy, 21812 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, 818-884-3880 ($2 cover), and every Thursday night at Miami Spice, 13515 Washington Blvd., Marina del Rey, (213) 306-7978 ($4 cover).