(upbeat music) - I grew up in Indiana.

Was really into bands like Aerosmith and ACDC and Metallica.

(jet roaring) Joined the Air Force, went to Japan for three years and really got into the indie music, into Ska music.

(jazzy upbeat music) Just kind of fell in love from there.

I work for US State Department, but we had bands coming through, you know, cultural events.

It was a lot of fun.

And then like went straight into working for a nonprofit that was running events in Iraq.

Came back from Iraq.

The government closed down so we had a couple weeks, I'm like thinking maybe we could do a festival.

(jazzy upbeat music continues) We had one of our favorite artists that was like touring the East Coast and he was playing house parties.

He's an acoustic guitar guy.

We approached a brewery owner about doing something small at his brewery and kind of went from there.

We liked the way the 2014 worked and so we expanded it out to a two-day festival that we called the Virginia Ska Festival.

We had a whole bunch of East Coast Ska bands that came down that year.

In 2017, we ended up kind of rebranding it, thinking that we wanted to do something international, where we brought in artists from the UK and Jamaica and all over.

(jazzy upbeat music continues) We decided to crowdfund for the 2020 show, but 2020 obviously never happened because of Covid, so we decided to have a virtual music festival.

- We wanna thank the Supernova 2020 Quarantine Sessions for having us.

(upbeat music) (singer singing in foreign language) - [Tim] And we had about 75 bands from around the world give us tracks, live tracks, rare tracks.

♪ And to connect bright lights now ♪ - And we did a virtual festival that benefited the Alpha Institute.

The Alpha Institute is in Jamaica.

It's been around for more than 150 years.

It's one of the birthplace of Ska.

- The Alpha School of Music is a continuation of a long legacy of music education in Jamaica.

In 1880, Sisters of Mercy in Jamaica started an orphanage for boys and one of the things they taught them was music.

A lot of significant Jamaican musicians have come from that school, and also out that school was most of the original members of the Skatalites Ska Band.

- We wanted to have that connection to the past of Ska and to kind of give back to that lifecycle, to that history of the music, and so we've been raising money for them ever since.

(upbeat jazzy music) We relocated the festival to Hampton in 2021, and Hampton has been getting more involved each time in a great way.

They've been providing us with financial funding, which is phenomenal.

They've been providing shuttles for the bands.

(singers singing in foreign language) About 80% of our fan base is coming in from outside of the state of Virginia.

People are coming in from all over the country.

People are flying in from as far as Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, to join us.

they're staying in hotels.

It obviously benefits Hampton, but they're a very great host.

A lot of the festival is just, it's arranging the bands to appeal to people that saw the Ska taken off in the '90s that maybe are in their 40s or 50s now.

Appealing to them, but also appealing to the younger demographic, like bringing in 20-year-old kids, seeing some of the up and coming bands that are out there that are the same age as them and not old men like me.

(singer vocalizing) (upbeat music) - Very family-oriented.

You see all kinds of ages here, and you see kids, you see teenagers, you see older people.

(upbeat music) (singer vocalizing) ♪ Get taught to decide ♪ - A lot of it is people finally getting to express themselves.

Some people in this community exist more on like the fringes of what society considers acceptable.

My band itself, a lot of it is mental health, anxiety, depression, that sort of thing and just kind of bringing that to the forefront, and with this community, so many people are so supportive, no matter what the issue is, so I would say that's a really big thing with music in general, but especially here with Ska.

(upbeat jazzy music) (singer vocalizing) (upbeat music) (singer vocalizing) - Being there for the outcasts and representing 'em and having a place for them to go to with people that feel out of place at school or within a certain community of music, and we feel like that too, a lot of times.

(upbeat music) (singer vocalizing) - [Tim] What connects this whole community is music and love of music.

♪ Out on the street ♪ - [Tim] Music is kind of our life.

Ska's part of it.

(upbeat jazzy music) (singer vocalizing) ♪ Out on the streets ♪ ♪ Running high out on those streets ♪ ♪ Running ♪ (upbeat jazzy music continues) (singer vocalizing)