Under The Sun

by Anais Alexandre

Folksy duo Raffa & Rainer (Photo courtesy of the group.)

Here at Under the Sun, we love collaborating with local bands to include their music in our pieces. This week we teamed up with neo-folk favorites Raffa Jo Harris and Rainer Davies of Raffa and Rainer, who are based in North Miami. You can hear their song, “Waterfall,” in the Miami Outlaw story. We also got to sit down and grab a quick interview with these two.

Under the Sun: So can you guys introduce yourselves?

Raffa: My name is Raffa, some call me Raffajo since Jo is my middle name, but either pronunciation is fine. I’m the vocalist and guitarist for Raffa and Rainer.

Rainer: My name is Rainer and I’m a guitarist for Raffa and Rainer.

You both have exotic sounding names. What’s your cultural background?

Raffa: (laughs) My name is actually Hebrew. Our cultural backgrounds are…(laughs) Miami!

Rainer: Yes! Our cultural background is Miami!

So how did you guys meet?

Raffa: We met around high school age. We went to separate schools. I was graduating from Killian when Rainer just entered New World as a freshman. And we met through Rainer’s older brother Jag.

But, Rainer was a little kid who always had his guitar on him and he was awesome.  In 1999, I was booked to do a weekly gig at Tree of Zion and I didn’t want to play alone so I asked Rainer to come with me. We ended up playing together every week for that.

Who would you say your musical influences are?

Rainer: I’m not sure.

Raffa: I know Rainer learned to play guitar to all the Nirvana albums (laughs). I was influenced by a lot of old folk songs. I’d say we are influenced by a lot of different things. When I traveled to the Appalachian Mountains, it inspired the song “North Carolina Boys.”

Do you feel Miami added a unique quality to your music? I think I heard some Spanish guitar riffs on certain songs.

Rainer: Absolutely!

Raffa: I would say Miami influences our music because it’s where we are from and who we are, so it influenced our music in that sense. Miami is a true melting pot. Stylistically though, I’m not sure it has though.

What’s next for Raffa and Rainer?

Rainer: We’ll be going on tour.

Raffa: Yeah, we will be touring around mid-March or April. We will be making a big loop by heading to California through Texas then across the U.S. to New York and finally back south to Miami. So we’ll be back in Miami around mid to late April for our tour.

For more of Raffa & Rainer’s music visit their website.