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Christopher Hawley Channels Reggae, Spirituality, Surf Culture and Lived Wisdom on New EP Jah Rollers
For Christopher Hawley, music has always been a vehicle for building community, sustaining friendship, staying open to inspiration, and turning life experience into something others can feel. On his upcoming EP Jah Rollers (set for release June 26, 2026), the Venice, California-based singer-songwriter, guitarist, surfer, yoga teacher, and longtime road musician brings those threads together in a warm, spiritually minded collection rooted in old-school reggae, West Coast wellness culture, and the healing power of space.
Hawley’s path as a musician began early. After studying classical guitar at age 12, he landed his first paid gig when one of his teachers hired him to play during a marriage proposal. “She said yes,” Hawley recalls. From there, he moved quickly into songwriting, high school bands, jazz ensembles, and eventually the exploding Boulder, Colorado, jam-band scene of the early-to-mid ’90s. At CU Boulder, he formed the band Mucis, toured in a converted school bus, made a record, and spent countless nights rehearsing and writing in the basement of the band house, the Mucasa.
After that group dissolved, Hawley booked himself and then-partner Heather on a three-month European tour in 1999, playing across Spain, Germany, and the U.K. Soon after, he relocated to California, where his solo project gradually became something larger: The Christopher Hawley Rollers. More than a fixed lineup, the Rollers became a far-reaching musical family, with players connected across Los Angeles, Colorado, Utah, Costa Rica, Brazil, and beyond.
“It’s like a family,” Hawley says of the rotating collective. “People who know many of my original songs, a bunch of the covers that I like to play. And it’s just so much fun to be able to go to these places.” Many of those bonds, he explains, were formed outside music as much as within it — surfing in Mexico and Costa Rica, skiing powder days in Utah, and sharing life experiences that deepen the chemistry when the musicians finally meet onstage.
That spirit of connection sits at the heart of Jah Rollers. Though Hawley has released roughly 10 albums over the years, and many have included reggae-influenced songs, this EP marks the first time he has gathered a set of reggae tunes into one focused release. “I’ve always felt the power of reggae,” he says. “From the very first music I loved, that was part of it — Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, that whole scene, old Jamaican reggae. Most of the albums I’ve released have had at least one or two reggae songs. So it’s not something new. I’ve always been playing with that genre.”
The EP also reaches back to Hawley’s childhood experiences in Haiti, where his grandparents lived and where he spent time around Haitian musicians. Though the music he heard there was more closely tied to compas than reggae, Hawley says the island rhythms, melodies, and relaxed feel helped shape his own approach. “I think that has really helped me find my own way of playing reggae,” he says.
For Hawley, reggae’s power lies in its restraint. “It’s such a sparse groove,” he says. “The instruments allow the meaning of the lyrics to really come through.” That openness gives the songs room to breathe, and for an artist whose writing often carries spiritual and philosophical weight, the space matters. “There’s a spiritual aspect to reggae that I really love,” Hawley says. “I don’t like to beat anyone over the head with my own spiritual practices, but I think music is the highest form of communication.”
Recorded at Santa Monica’s Fourth Street Recording, Jah Rollers also carries a direct lineage to reggae history. Hawley recruited legendary drummer Santa Davis, known for his work on Bob Marley’s Exodus and with Ziggy Marley, to play on all four core tracks. Davis then connected Hawley with Ziggy Marley keyboardist George Hughes Jr., who added piano and organ. “That was kind of the green light for me,” Hawley says. “When those guys decided to play, I said, ‘All right, we’re doing this.’”
The EP’s songs each reflect a different facet of Hawley’s life and worldview. “Like An Echo” began as an older voice-memo idea that resurfaced during the uncertainty of early 2020, when Hawley had been displaced from his apartment due to construction just as the pandemic lockdown began. “I found ‘Like An Echo’ and was like, ‘Oh, I forgot about that groove, and I decided to reggaefy it’” he says. “The reggaefication worked! It’s a simple, fun call-and-response type of thing that is really fun to play live..” Compared with some of the EP’s heavier, more introspective material, Hawley calls it “the Type A personality song on the EP” — light, immediate and full of movement.
“Best Things” is a co-write with a longtime friend who works as an occupational therapist and uses music in events for autistic children and young people across the spectrum. Hawley first heard her version years ago and never forgot it. When he revisited the song, he reshaped the lyrics and phrasing, making it more singable while preserving its optimism. “It comes from a place of optimism,” he says. “And I can relate to that song, especially becoming a dad at 49 — the best things come to those who wait. I feel really lucky to be doing this at this moment.”
“My Mother’s Voice” turns toward nature, memory and healing. Hawley, who has long found spiritual grounding in the mountains, ocean and open air, wrote the song around the idea of hearing a mother’s voice through Mother Nature. “I’ve always found healing and spirituality and peace in Mother Nature,” he says. “I wanted to play with the idea of being able to hear your mother’s voice by tuning into Mother Nature, no matter where you are.”
“Rise and Shine,” previously released in acoustic form on Hawley’s 2013 album of the same name, is reimagined here in an electric reggae setting. The song was born during a yoga class in Santa Monica, when an instructor said the phrase “rise and shine” during a pose. By the end of class, Hawley had written the chorus. “It’s about unity,” he says. “The idea of interconnectivity, the fact that we’re all one. We all have the same needs, wants, and desires. We’re not as different as a lot of people, a lot of institutions, want us to think we are.”
Across Jah Rollers, Hawley brings together the many lives he has lived: the touring musician, the surfer, the yoga teacher, the father, the traveler, the friend, the seeker. It is a reggae record made from the vantage point of Venice Beach rather than Jamaica, but it is grounded in deep respect, lived experience, and a lifelong love of the form.
“The space that reggae music leaves,” Hawley says, “is similar to the space for healing.” On Jah Rollers, Christopher Hawley steps into that space with patience, gratitude, and a belief that meaningful vibrations can still do real work in the world.