Late one night after his wife and kids were asleep, Scott Aiges started strumming Tom Petty’s “Refugee” on guitar, but with a reggae lilt. A light bulb went off: Wouldn’t it be great for a band to ...

That fall at Tipitina’s, they opened for another New Wave reggae band, Talking Dreads. (Aiges had originally considered that same name for his band, before settling on a mash-up of a Jamaican pun and ...