The Island's Jam Signal Band took time out of their busy Florida tour to come home for the Bermuda Music Festival 08.

They will grace the main stage at 7 p.m. and will support all of the local acts that follow.

Band leader and lead singer McCannon Cassidy spoke to The Royal Gazette about the name change, their music, their aspirations of a successful musical career and time spent with the recording artist Collie Buddz.

The Jam Signal Band, is better known on the Island as Home Grown Band, but they had to change their name, as there were copyright issues in the United States.

"When we went to release our first single, we ran into a copyright infringment," he said.

"That was the initial reason for the name change and then the name was not truly original, you've heard Home Grown before and we wanted that when you heard Home Grown, we wanted you to think of us, but it wasn't – here in Bermuda it was, but in the States it wasn't.

"We had a bunch of people show up to our show thinking that it was this other band and they were like, 'you are not the Home Grown that we know.'

"We caught a lot of flack here in Bermuda for it and even though we changed the name, people still call us Home Grown."

Regarding tonight's performance on the main stage, the Mr. Cassidy, who is now known as Maka, said: "Well you know we opened up for Beres Hammond a few weeks before so we are used to being on a main stage or opening for a major act, so there's no nerves involved, we are just excited to go represent Bermuda and get out ourselves out there more, as well as backing other Bermudian artists.

"It is really about putting Bermuda on the map any way we can. We love to work with the other acts, because they don't have a band that they can play with.

"So it is an all-round good karma for everybody, as well as the monetary value of it. We are super excited, we're looking forward to it obviously."

In the early days, he said: "We were Collie Buddz's original backing band and we love the opportunity that that gave us and the many places that we played with him.

"So big up to that!"

On another note, they also love to see musicians doing their thing.

"We are elated to see the other bands play and to witness the high level of musicianship, that is not always readily available on the Island," he said.

"So that is always a huge bonus for us, because it helps us. We are in school every time we go to a concert, because the things that they do, we can readily do."

On the tunes that they are planning for tonight's audiences, he said: "We will definitely be playing our latest single called 'Behind Babylon Bak,' and we will play some of our classic covers, and a few that we will leave to surprise.

"So get there early, we are on at seven o'clock, so if you get their at eight, you are going to miss us."

The Jam Signal Family includes himself on lead vocals, Justin Bernz-Weig, who is on bass and vocals,

Spencer Wood on drums, Ian Evans on keyboards, Oscar Deuss on sax, guitar and keyboard, and Dr. Neil Burnie, also on sax.

Speaking about his love for reggae, Maka said: "Just growing up on the Island it just really became a part of our culture, it was something that we just grew up with.

"I also had a kid in my class who was of Jamaican descent and he would bring in the tapes for us and we would listen to the mixed or session tapes, as they were called, out of Jamaica.

"He would bring those to school and we play them during lunch or during snack time and I started to fall in love with the music then.

"Then through Dub City I started a sound system with my brother One Draw called Death Row and we began to collect and would play them in the shed outside the house everyday and it started to became a part of everyday life.

"It grew from there to getting our own equipment and playing every birthday party or school dance and stuff like that."

He then attended Harris Institute for the Arts, in Toronto, studying production and engineering.

"When I came back to the Island I was still throwing parties, then I met up with the band, as it was back then and we were doing a bunch of little gigs.

"I would go out and mix the sound and make them sound good. We did that for about two years and toward the end I would get up and do a little chat during a few songs. It started to catch on and we could see that the crowd was really loving it.

"I always sang and was used to being in front of a crowd, so it was like second nature to me to just jump up and sing."

Also Home Grown was initially a rock band, because at the time no one wanted to hire a reggae band, because of the huge amount of DJs playing reggae out there.

"They didn't want to hire a band," he said.

"But we lied to our initial venue and told them that we were a rock band and that is how we got the night.

"We opened up and we sold out the place and he didn't ask a question and they said, 'you guys should have did this a long time ago,' and we said, 'you didn't want us to play reggae,' because of the more urban crowd that it brings and they were looking for an older rock crowd.

"They ate us right up and we didn't really have any competition at the time and I don't want to get into the racial side of things, but us being white was a shocker every time."

About this time Maka and Collie Buddz were together.

"At that same time Collie was growing in his success and we came up together and worked together long before we were a band," he said.

"And it was kind of cool that were coming up here and he was blowing up internationally and that is how we initially got the gig.

"He couldn't get a hold of a band and we were waiting in the wings, because we were working together this whole time before he got big.

"We would have loved to have gone on tour with him, but due to the international acclaim we couldn't but it allowed us to concentrate on our personal act and has allowed us to get our first album done.

"And we are still in the same show, so it is pretty funny.

"I think if it was up to him, he would have kept us."

A few of the band members attended Berklee College of Music, in Boston.

Although they are on tour, they fly in for big shows on the Island.

"We are currently on tour in Florida, as there is not much work here for us during the winter season," he said.

"We are building our fan base in the States, we have all of our fans here, but we are spreading our wings."

For more information on Jam Signal, their music and scheduling, visit Home Grown Band Group on Facebook and on www.myspace.com/thehomegrownbandbda