Positive vibes and Island roots run deep in the Common Kings, a southern California foursome with ties to tropical islands in the Pacific Ocean. A mix of royal Samoan, Hawaiian and Tongan ancestry, the bandmates met through the Islander community in Orange County and formed the band four years ago. In that time, they have done several international tours and opened for the likes of Justin Timberlake and Cee Lo Green, put multiple singles into heavy rotation on the Island airwaves, and dropped an LP, Hits and Mrs., in April.

Led by the rangey melodies sung by bandleader Junyer Maliga, Common Kings center their sound in a common ground that touches reggae, traditional Island music, classic rock, and an overarching pop sensibility. The band is currently on tour, a string of US dates and a one-off show in French Polynesia smack-dab in the middle of it—such is life on the road for the Common Kings. We caught up with Maliga and talked about the band’s latest single “Ain’t No Stopping.”

Hometown and homebase: Orange County, California

Last year at about this time, you were coming off tour with Justin Timberlake and heading into the studio with some major producers. What has been going on since then?

Man, we've been on a serious grind finishing up songs for the album in between touring with some big acts like Fifth Harmony and Cee Lo plus a few of our own headlining runs. It's been both crazy and fun to say the least.

Is there a such thing as a big break in music these days? What would that even look like for Common Kings?

Not sure--if there is we would love to know! For us, every small step we take forward is a break within itself. Musically we are somewhat in a lane of our own, turning out feel good vibes into big band hits. We’ve seemingly made it work in our live performance; now we just have to figure out how to translate that into the album.

How does Island culture manifest in your approach to music?

It plays a big part in how we approach music. There is definitely a different atmosphere when we are all together in the studio. In all our music we've injected a "feel good" vibe that seems to convey our natural outlook on life. Even when we expand our musical outreach and begin creating… I guess you could say, non-traditional island music… you will almost always hear some island influences.

Tell me the story of how you guys met and started jamming together.

Our guitarist, Mata, played music with each of us individually at church, school, Polynesian dance troupe, and other band rehearsals. He introduced the idea of starting a band together and we went for it.

Why are you guys called the Common Kings?

We feel it's a perfect description of who we are as common people here in America while paying tribute to our roots and rich heritage of kings and high chiefs from our individual ethnic backgrounds.

Describe the moment you knew you wanted to do Common Kings for a living.

We always felt we would be doing music one way or another. But if you were to pinpoint an exact time, it would have to be when we started seeing covers of our songs being posted on YouTube and seeing that people were actually loving our songs and our shows... it was an amazing feeling. Shortly after, we all quit our day jobs and went all in… this was about three years ago.

What is the craziest thing that has ever happened at a live performance?

We seem to have a habit of ripping our pants on stage. Not by choice of course, but it seems to happen on a regular basis. Mata actually left in the middle of a song after ripping his pants from front to back and came back like 30 seconds later with different pants… fastest wardrobe change ever!

How do you describe your sound to someone who hasn't heard the band?

Feel-good music.

Tell me about “Ain't No Stopping”--what is it about, and touch a little on the how the production came together.

“Ain't No Stopping” is about our journey to this point...the daily hustle and grind, sacrifices etc to get to a point where we can one day relax and enjoy life with our families and closest friends.

We worked on production with one our closest friends in the business, Supa Dups. He has a laundry list of big artists he has produced for… Bruno Mars, Eminem and Estelle and the list goes on.