After more than 25 years, Aswad still are making great British Reggae and touring the world.

Aswad, Britain's most influential and enduring reggae acts, formed in the Ladbroke Grove, West London in 1974. Along with their contemporaries Matumbi, The Cimmarons, and Black Slate, the band was among the UK Acts to have success with reggae music. Aswad reached No.1 on the UK Reggae Charts in 1976 with their debut release, 'Back To Africa,' 'Love Fire,' their popular anthem released in 1981. The group's 1983 Island release, Live and Direct, is considered one of the quintessential live reggae albums.

In 1988, Aswad earned international acclaim with their reggae version of 'Don't Turn Around,' which sailed to the No. 1 in the U.K. Charts.

In 1994, Aswad captured a host of new fans with the release of the album 'Rise & Shine', a recording which saw the band's first Grammy nomination for 'Best Reggae Album of the Year.' A major hit in the UK and Japan, the album also gave the band another No.1 hit with the now famous summer reggae anthem 'Shine.'

The itzcaribbean team caught up with Aswad to find out more.....

How was Azwad formed?
The band was formed in 1976, originally with 11 members. It was a group of talented musicians, who were friends and associates from West London, the Ladbroke Grove area, who had a desire to be a collective and make reggae music. We wanted a name that was strong, powerful and represented us and one of the guys found the name in a book and it stayed.

Who was your inspiration?
At that time it was primarily Bob Marley & The Wailers. We want to emulate them and make reggae music that would touch the whole world. The money and fame didn't even come across our minds. It was a true love for the music.

What difficulties did you overcome?
To be honest there was only one major issue we had to tackle and that was getting noticed / signed by a record company. At that time the British Reggae scene was seen as powerful entity. However we made a demo tape got an appointment to see Richard Williams, who was an A&R rep from Island Records and he gave us a chance and our first record deal at Island records and we have never looked back ever since. So we became the first UK reggae band to be signed by a major label.

Do you feel reggae has influenced other genres?
Definitely, you can hear how the music in most genres has been influenced y reggae, the heavy base lines, even with the way artists sing/rhyme with their lyrics this was all originally done by Reggae. If you research you will even find out that hip hop took elements of Reggae and embraced it for their genre.

What Changes have you seen?
Primarily it's the music and studio recording, when we first started every instrument was played live, and our sessions would be recorded on heavy duty tape reels, which would need to be transported via vans. Now you can get instruments electronically played, the new digital era with .mp3 & .mp4 files is amazing. It so easy to send music around the world and get other artists to perform on your music by emailing the files, so much easier and cheaper than getting a flight across to another country.

What moment or event will you never forget?
Aswad has toured numerous countries and continents, Germany, France, Africa, Japan to name a few and had amazing experiences and much admiration from thousands of fans globally. However playing for Nelson Mandela in his concert in the UK is the highlight of their career, Mr Mandela said he listened to our music in prison and that was inspirational for us.

How do you feel about the industry?
Reggae has broken into all genres and has evolved, these days it has Dub, Dancehall, The sound systems, Singers, Dj's with such talented producers and writers, How ever we need more Artists, Camera Men, Managers, PR & marketing people as the industry is huge and can grow more.

What does the future hold?
We are currently working on a new album due to come out later this year, also looking forward to performing at the One Love Festival 2011, with Sean Paul, Busta Ryhmes, Shaggy and many more. We will playing some of our new material along with classics.