Founding member, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Daniel Pak said while reggae music is what brought the band together, community service is where many of the members met.

Pak’s former roommate volunteered with the Service Board, a nonprofit group helping disadvantaged youth create a sense of community and responsibility, and Pak decided to get involved.

“I reached a point where I was so introverted in all the distractions and temptations in life I wanted to get out of it,” Pak said. “My roommate suggested I should sign up to be an adult mentor for high school kids.”

Pak followed his roommate’s advice and his life was forever altered. Pak met vocalist Carliss “Hema” Pereira while attending the 2006 Seattle Weekly Music Awards with students from the Service Board. Soon after, Kore Ionz was born.

From Seattle to Bellingham
On Saturday, Feb. 19, Kore Ionz will play at the Wild Buffalo House of Music with Rise N Shine. The show will start at 9:30 p.m. and the cost is $7.

“Bellingham is just one more piece of the puzzle,” Pak said. “Everywhere we go we are excited to meet the people.”

At recent shows, Kore Ionz has been leading their show off with a crowd favorite called “Blue,” bassist Branden DeMelle said. Everybody who listens to it thinks it is a love song, but “Blue” is about a near death experience, Pak said.

Pak was 2 years old when he fell into the deep end of his uncle’s pool in the Hawaiian countryside.

“I fell into the pool back first, looking at the blue sky,” Pak said. “I remember sinking into a blueness. My uncle jumped into the pool and saved my life. As a 2-year-old, you don’t fight for your life, and I just kept sinking into the beauty.”

While “Blue” might be a crowd favorite now, fans will soon have even more songs to groove to.

Kore Ionz will be releasing an EP in late spring and hopefully a full-length album later in 2011, Pak said. The big surprise on the new Kore Ionz EP is that MC Geologic from the Blue Scholars joins them on one song titled “First Avenue.”

“It is so cool to have somebody (like MC Geologic) that is connected to a skyrocket, yet so humble and connected to the community,” DeMelle said.

Not all members of Kore Ionz will be playing at the Wild Buffalo on Saturday. Trumpeter Owuor Arunga will be preparing to tour with Seattle hip-hop artist Macklemore and producer Ryan Lewis.

“We are blessed to have the horn players that we do. They are two of the nastiest soloists in town,” DeMelle said. “But sometimes you just have to tour with Macklemore.”

Humble beginnings
The name Kore Ionz started as a joke because Pak and a former member were both half-Korean, but the name stuck and a deeper meaning grew, Pak said.

“In this world you have positive and negative people, you have happiness and sadness, you have love and hate, you have peace and war,” Pak said. “I think it is a good symbol that only when some kind of positive progressive energy is able to compromise with some sort of negative or opposing energy can anything stable be achieved. As the songwriter I write simple stories that teach a lesson that we all have to get along.”

During a music showcase at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in Seattle, Pak met percussionist Ahkeenu Musa.  In 2008, Kore Ionz released their first album, “Half-Hour Revolution,” with the addition of DeMelle on bass. Fifty percent of the earnings from the album went directly to the Service Board.

In October 2008, Kore Ionz opened for The Original Wailers, composed of Al Anderson and Junior Marvin from Bob Marley & the Wailers.

“We were really encouraged because they listened to our music,” DeMelle said. “Sometimes when you open for a band, they hide out in their bus until their set. But they stood in the back and listened to us and were really complimentary.”

Pak and keyboardist Kiley Sullivan spent 18 years going to school less than two miles apart on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. They went to rival high schools and played in the same soccer leagues, but Sullivan and Pak didn’t meet until 1998, when they both started attending the University of Washington.

In college, Sullivan and Pak started a reggae band called Mystic Rising that covered popular reggae songs. The band lasted from the early 2000’s until mid-2005, Sullivan said. After he left Mystic Rising, Sullivan quit playing music all together because he got too involved with snowboarding and working four jobs.

In October 2009, Sullivan received a phone call. Kore Ionz was looking for a keyboardist to play Seattle Weekly’s Seattle REVERB festival. Sullivan learned their songs and began playing with Pak again.

“It was a real honor to be playing again, especially with those guys,” Sullivan said. “Playing in Kore Ionz has really changed my life, and I am glad to be back into music.”

On Jan. 8, Kore Ionz performed live on Seattle radio station 90.3 KEXP. Musa said it was difficult at first because there was no visible audience. The group gathered in a circle and began to play.

“(There was) such good energy and positive vibrations,” Musa said. “There was this point where we were looking at each other and we didn’t have to use words because we were speaking to each other through our instruments.”
DeMelle said they played four songs, including the world premiere of “Love You Better,” from their new album.
A little music and raw fish

For four years, the last Wednesday of every month has been Kore Ionz night at Ohana’s, a restaurant and sushi bar in Seattle.

“Usually it is packed to the gills and we have a really fun time,” DeMelle said. “We consider it our family night. We get to experiment here. We will often rehearse songs that we don’t play at other places so it is kind of a little hidden treasure for our friends.”

Even though Kore Ionz has to cram onto a miniscule stage at Ohana’s, the band said they are able to feel at home. Why shouldn’t they? Ohana means “family” in Hawaiian.