Hawaii loved reggae band Big Mountain and bandleader Quino, known for his mellow voice and charismatic presence, even before the group’s remake of Peter Frampton’s 1976 hit “Baby, I Love Your Way” became a hit in 1994.

The remake peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1994. Groups in Hawaii had been playing what was widely known as “Jawaiian” music for several years, and the success of a reggae band from California was taken as validation by some locals that you didn’t have to come from Jamaica or England to be a serious reggae band.

Just ask “Sheriff Norm” Winter, who met Quino and Big Mountain in the early 1990s when his radio station, Radio Free Hawaii, was putting on concerts in the islands.

“Of all the concerts I promoted, Quino and Lucky Dube were the most gentle spirits and the most vibrant, spirited performers,” Winter said. “Quino is a beautiful soul, he is for everybody. His biggest hit was the Frampton song, but his own songs are vibe-worthy.”

It’s been 15 years since Big Mountain last played Hawaii — they did two nights at Kapono’s in the Aloha Tower Marketplace in mid-January, 2003 — but the long drought comes to an end Friday when the group takes the stage at the Blue Note Hawaii. Big Mountain is riding on the success of their current album, “Perfect Summer,” and touring extensively.

Quino and the band were on the road — somewhere between the Philippines and Japan — when he responded to our questions, sending an audio file of his answers via email.

“We’re always ready to come to Hawaii, it’s always been a very important place to us,” he said. “I think the first time I jumped on a plane and went somewhere to play outside California was Hawaii. That was when (the single) ‘Touch My Light’ came out so it would have been 1992, and we played in a warehouse near the airport. We came back two years later and played the Waikiki Shell.”

Big Mountain worked and recorded steadily for the next decade but decided to take a break in 2005. Quino stepped away from playing music full-time and spent seven years teaching multi-media and sound engineering classes at a Southern California high school. He reactivated Big Mountain as a full-time working band in 2013.

Fans who remember seeing Big Mountain from a distance at the Waikiki Shell or other large-scale concert venue may be surprised to have the opportunity to see them close-up in an air-conditioned, 300-plus seat Waikiki showroom. They may not know that Quino and his younger brother, James McWhinney, have played showrooms and supper clubs in the past, or that when Maxi Priest played the Blue Note in February 2016, reggae music and reggae fans were a good fit there.

“We don’t do a whole lot of clubs; these days we’ve really been focusing our attention on Europe — the South Pacific has kept us very busy as well — and in Europe it’s mostly festivals,” Quino said. “Clubs are cool, though, because the people are right there up close.

“Festivals are a lot of fun because of the big crowds, but the technical situation can get a little hairy. You’re always a little surprised about what happens at a festival. The nice things about clubs, especially clubs like the Blue Note, is that you know the equipment is going to be good, the personnel are going to be professional, and everything is going to be on time.”

The big deal this weekend is an opportunity to hear songs from “Perfect Summer” — and buy a copy of the new album at the Blue Note gift shop for Quino to sign after the show.

The album lives up the high standards set by previous Big Mountain projects, with engaging love songs, songs that share the Rastafari religious world view, and remakes of well-loved hits: “Reggae Got Soul,” originally a hit for Toots & The Maytals in 1975, and George Harrison’s “Here Comes The Sun.”

”I loved the original version of that song,” Quino said of the Harrison classic. “If you listen to it carefully, it’s one of those songs that you don’t realize how complex it is until you sit down and you really listen to it. It turned out to be a really tricky song to record.

“We decided in classic Big Mountain style to take it in a radio direction,” the singer said. “It’s a crowd-pleaser, we have fun playing it, and its definitely one of my favorite Beatles tracks. I’m really happy we redid it.”

Big Mountain’s remake of “Reggae Got Soul” is a homage to a man Quino describes as “a legend.”

“I have had the pleasure and the honor to work with Toots Hibbert, and I’m always in awe of him,” Quino said. “I consider him a legend. I never miss his shows if we’re playing a festival together. I always know I’m going to learn something; I always know that I’m going to be entertained. We strive to play at that level.”

Quino has yet to meet Frampton but said their managers are trying to schedule a meeting the next time they’re both in California. He added that he’s been a Frampton fan ever since a friend gave him a copy of the original “Frampton Comes Alive” double-album in 1976. (Quino was born in 1966.)

“When I play ‘Baby, I Love Your Way’ solo, I play it his way,” Quino added.

The hot political song on the album is “I’m Calling You Out,” a song Big Mountain first recorded in 1997 for what would be their last album for Giant Records. The album, “Free Up,” didn’t do much, and the song got “buried” along with it, so Quino and the band “tweaked it around a little bit,” gave it a powerful bass line, and included it on “Perfect Summer.”

“‘Calling you out’ is what reggae bands I think are supposed to do,” Quino said. “I know a lot of people know us as a pop-reggae band because of ‘Baby, I, Love Your Way,’ but reggae music is not just peace and love, and our fans know that we always have that political element in our music.”

Quino currently makes his home in Mexico and said he continues to explore the Mexican side of his musical ancestry. His Mexican grandfather, a successful farmer and landowner, played “classical Mexican conjunto (band)” music — boleros, corridos and rancheras — but not mariachi music, as is sometimes reported. Quino’s uncles, Eddie and Oscar, also played conjunto music. They became his mentors.

In 2002 Big Mountain invited “some heroes of mine,” the San Diego-based folklorico quartet Los Alecrane, to join the them in recording “Tierra Idigena,” a song about racial prejudice within the Mexican community. Quino later played with the group’s leader, Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez, and can be seen with Sanchez in the 2016 documentary film, “Singing My Way to Freedom.”

Looking past this weekend at the Blue Note, Big Mountain will be doing another European tour this summer and possibly returning to the South Pacific. Recording “is a big priority,” Quino said, including some recording in Hawaii.

“I’m very inspired (and) we’ve got some great collaborations going on,” he said. “We may have taken a little bit too long of a break, but I’m glad we took a break, and it’s an exciting time for music.”