Punx bring hip hop / ska influences to stage
Dirty Reggae Punx is a bit smaller than Kelly Randolph’s other band.
Randolph, whose stage name is PunkRawk Kelly, is number 343 of 700-plus members of punk / comedy / rock act Green Jello, best known for the oddball hit “Three Little Pigs.” The group is in the Guinness World Records as the largest band in rock ‘n’ roll history.
Randoph, who is the founder, guitar player, lead singer, puppet maker and manager of the Minnesota-based DRP, said it originally began as just a side project.
“We never planned for DRP to become what it has, but we embrace all the love we have felt,” he said. “We started in 2013, but really got serious in 2014 when we released our first album, ‘Throbbing the Woods.’ I was in a few other projects when DRP was first taking off, including Green Jello — I am still currently working with Green Jello and joined that band in late 2011 — Primer 55 and Jamie Cooper’s Band from Hell.”
Dirty Reggae Punx includes two other Green Jello members — Jake ( Nagle ) Borja (number 408) on bass and Zack Edwards (number 639) on drums — as well as Amanda Estrem (aka Amanda Panda Soulshine) on ukulele and vocals, and Missy Simon (aka Missy Mars) on vocals and kazoo.
Randolph said that the band is promoting four-song EP “Smoke Sessions,” recorded at Igrisomnia Records and Productions in Millersville, Minn, and that tour includes a performance next week at Chippers Sports Bar.
“A couple of highlights on it are the new song ‘Too Late,’ which is our song standing against addiction, focusing on, but not limited to, heroin and the downside of waiting until it’s too late to sober up,” Randolph said. “It’s really a more serious side to our normal, playful writing style, but we felt we had a message to share with music communities abroad.”
In addition to releasing an EP this year, the band will begin filming a full-length documentary on June 30 called “#TourLife,” which Randolph described as an in-depth look at independent touring. The documentary is presented by DRP and Live and Amplified.
DRP takes influences from everywhere it can, he said, so there are a lot of different styles blended together in their music. Randolph calls it “feel-good music,” since the band plays what makes its members feel good. But if he had to classify it, it would fall under the ska / reggae / punk genre.
“Musical influences for the band have been spread wide and far through the genres of music,” he said. “We have a huge influence from our Green Jello ties in our live show. We have taken influence and even written in tributes from Sublime and Brad Nowell (the late lead singer and guitarist of Sublime) and have also done tribute to Cypress Hill, as I personally grew up on ’90s hip-hop and ska.”

