Building Hermosa’s Resin Music

As Hermosa Beach’s music scene has produced local and international superstars, a consistent presence has been Dave Resin and his renowned company: Resin Music.

After working at Kent Blackwelder management and Dino M 3 Studios, then sales at JDC Records in Hermosa Beach, the entrepreneur decided to start his own record label in 1998.

What was Resin’s inspiration? An affinity for reggae music, he said.

"Growing up in Palos Verdes, all of our high school and backyard parties had local reggae bands like World Tribe. The fun vibe with the beach party style gave a good vibe and the music and message were something I connected with," Resin told Hermosa Beach Patch.

The "good vibes" that reggae music solicits is the element that connects Resin’s artistic vision with the culture of the South Bay, he said.

Resin Music has evolved since its early days. Resin started out focusing on sales at the company, and placing albums in major retailers, working with JDC Records. After releasing his label's first record, which was from Isaac Haile Selassie, Resin was in charge of a reggae section of JDC Records, which included Slightly Stoopid, Ky-Mani Marley and Eek-A-Mouse.

"Being a distributor, you’re pretty close to being a record label," Resin said. "It is one of the big things that a record label does is to get your album into a store and I had certain projects that I wanted to get out there, so I started putting it out through JDC Records, while starting my own record label, Resin Music."

Distributing Reggae records wasn’t enough for the budding entrepreneur—he then began to grow Resin Music by putting on concerts and CD release parties.

"We started filming them as well, sort of starting our own production company. Out of that, we documented the [music] scene and put together DVDs called the Reggae Nation series," Resin said. The first one was 'Reggae Nation Island Movement,' which was the first ever reggae-surf movie.

"Things have evolved so much over time that we’ve had to keep adjusting over time… that’s why we started to put on shows. We had to adjust with the industry," Resin said.

Just like that in the early ‘00s, Resin Music became a one-stop shop for bands to have their records released, shows organized and films produced—it’s how the company cemented itself as a pioneering brand in reggae culture.

"Everyone can get down with reggae music and feel good about it," Resin said. "That’s why it’s been very successful and why people like reggae shows in the area. It’s positive and something people like to get behind."

Resin Music recently has established its own Internet-streaming radio station, Surf Roots. The station, which is available all the time, plays reggae rock and is the only station of its kind to focus on West Coast artists as opposed to artists from the Caribbean.

Now the next logical step for Surf Roots to expand, Resin said, is to build apps for Droid, iPhones and other mobile devices.

"It has become the number-one reggae radio station on the Internet," Resin said about Surf Roots. "Our station is playing the bands that are relevant to California and takes local bands, for example Tomorrow’s Bad Seeds, that we’re playing on the station all the time and you would never hear them on other reggae stations since they’re only playing what’s hot out of Jamaica, while we’re playing what’s hot to the Beach Cities."

Surf Roots works directly with bands, getting the music first without having to go through the red tape that companies such as Pandora have to. "We’re playing different stuff and we’re playing it first," Resin said.

As both a tastemaker and the founder of one of the most successful music oriented companies in the South Bay, Resin said he’s still a music fan at heart. Like any other fan, what makes his job so rewarding is watching bands that he knew in their formative years explode into the mainstream.

"When we first started booking bands like Rebelution in Redondo Beach, there would be only 20 or 30 people there," he said. "Now you go to their shows and there are thousands of people there… knowing you had a little something to do with helping them achieve success makes it all worthwhile."