In Defense of Ska Ep 56: Steve Borth (Link 80, Satori, Chllngr)

Link 80's debut record, 17 Reasons, gets a lot of attention, rightfully so. But the group has other records worth your time, particularly their excellent 2000 album The Struggle Continues. On the album, you can hear the group's maturity as musicians, and their broader influences, which include deeper hardcore, and even some nu-metal elements. Our co-host Adam Davis was very involved in the band during this record, as was our guest today, Steve Borth. 

Steve joined Link 80 on sax shortly after Adam started playing guitar in the group. Steve brought a lot of skill to the group. After his time in Link 80, he joined RX Bandits and contributed to a handful of their best records from the early/mid-2000s when they were balancing prog-metal, math rock and a sprinkling of ska. Later Steve moved to Denmark and has continued to play music, generally keeping his foot in reggae/dub projects. (Satori, Chllngr) 

Today we discuss his groups in great detail and even dive into his father's career as a traveling Christian musician in the '60s and '70s. We also discuss Steve's current project of bringing together Danish and Jamaican musicians together to play reggae music. We also devote some time to the Sacramento scene that Steve grew up in and talk about the first ska band he ever played in: Lesdystics

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.