Cover Drive

Cover Drive were only discovered last year after posting just one video on You Tube and since then have signed a deal with Polydor Records, opened a one-off Rihanna gig and gained a UK top 10 single with track ‘Lick Ya Down’.

Despite these achievements already, it seems this is just the beginning for the Cari-pop group.

We caught up with lead singer Amanda and drummer T-Ray to find out more about the band.

Firstly, who are the band’s main musical inspirations?

T-Ray: We naturally made a fusion of Caribbean and pop music, we like to call it Cari-pop music. That is the sound of our entire album. It’s fun, fresh, feel-good, sunshine. You’ve got your reggae, your dub, your ska, and you’ve got mainstream pop.

Which artists you would alike yourself to in today’s music scene?

Amanda: No Doubt are a huge inspiration to us and we love Rihanna. If No Doubt and the Black Eyed Peas had a baby, it would be Cover Drive.

Do you feel moving to London influenced your music in any way?

Jamar: We’ve been working with some amazing people – Steve Mac, Future Cut, JR Rotem and loads of others.

Amanda: We’ve been around the whole world of the music industry. We’ve been teaching them our cari-pop sound. The whole album has that Bajan Caribbean influence but while we’ve been the in UK we’ve been listening to lots of Jessie J. We love her.

You have your own weekly online TV show, what can fans expect from this?

T-Ray: Yeah our Weekly Limes – you can find them on our Youtube channel. It’s just us hanging out in Bajan dialect ‘limin’ means hanging out with your friends – and fellow CD fielders!

Amanda: You get to see what we’ve been up to in the last week such as us in the studio or hanging out in Westfield.

What would you like to have achieved as band by the end of the year?

Amanda We’re going to shoot the video for the second single at the end of this month. We’re looking forward to that. Just hopefully good things. We hope the songs do well.