"For us, ALO is more than just a band and we're more than
just a group of great friends making music together… ALO is our lifestyle."
With this simple aphorism, keyboardist/vocalist Zach Gill sums up the unique
dynamic that defines ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra). Born from a friendship
nurtured during their days at the University of California Santa Barbara, the
four-piece collective includes Steve Adams (bass/vocals), Dan Lebowitz (guitars/
percussion/vocals) and David Brogan (drums/vocals).
Part musical explorers, part pop songsmiths, all-around dynamic performers, ALO
made waves in 2005 with their soulful California style and feel-good, danceable
grooves, prompting influential Triple A radio station WXPN to call them an
"Artist to Watch." Convinced that the band could be huge if they got in front of
the right audience, college buddy Jack Johnson brought ALO on his successful
summer tour and asked the band to sign to his own Brushfire Records so they
could release a reworked version of Fly Between Falls, which the band put out
independently last year. The CD will be out to all major retailers on April 18,
2006.
Zach, Dan and Steve have been playing together through various incarnations of
different musical groups for years, forming the "Animal Liberation Orchestra and
the Free Range Horns" with their college jazz band director on drums. Originally
a nine-piece outfit, the band began drawing enormous attention in the Santa
Barbara area with their rousing stage shows. When Zach, Dan and Steve returned
to their hometown San Francisco, they stripped back down to a quartet, playing
with a wide variety of different drummers. Finally, in 2002, the trio reunited
with drummer David Brogan (with whom they had previously played in college) and
the ultimate version of ALO was solidified.
ALO was quickly labeled the golden child of the West Coast's buzzing underground
scene, never losing the garage band energy that makes every one of their shows
an event rather than just a performance, laying soulful melodies and swirling
improvisation over precision funk grooves night after night. The band skillfully
weaves quirky California soul with shape-shifting explorations, introspective
lyrics with sun-soaked funk, all infused with the uplifting vibe that ALO's ever
growing legion of fans live for. Many genres have been thrown around to capture
what the San Francisco Chronicle ultimately dubbed "sex-music boogaloo." But in
the end, ALO's sound is always changing. One thing that never changes, however,
is the fact that this is a band composed of four top-notch musicians at the top
of their game. Trained equally in the classics, jazz, pop and funk
craftsmanship, ALO's music is a hybrid of the best of all worlds - songs
composed, refined and performed by multi-talented artists with a passion for
quality musicianship and creativity in all they do.
Dan concurs, "All four of us share a real interest in continually learning about
music - new styles, new ways of playing, new ways of engaging an audience - and
that's something that we never want to stop."
And, indeed, engaging the audience is what ALO is all about. Each of the band
members can list many favorite "live" moments in which the group and their fans
have bonded in concert. From their show at San Francisco's famed Independent
club, where they broke the venue's all-time sales record and then proceeded to
whip the crowd into a climactic disco frenzy with their take on ABBA's "Dancing
Queen" to their New Years Eve 2005 celebration, a three-night, sold-out run in
Santa Barbara that culminated in the Divine Ball, an event co-created by the
band and its community of fans.
"At an ALO show, we want to create a happy, uplifting environment - a safe place
for the audience to feel free to be themselves," says Zach.
ALO has been able to bring those good vibes to huge audiences, thanks to
constant touring and major festival runs, and will have an ever wider reach with
the release of Fly Between Falls, which is being distributed through Universal.
The album includes reworked versions of two of the most popular tracks, "Girl, I
Wanna Lay You Down" and "Barbeque" and a brand new track, "Walls of Jericho,"
with David on vocals.
"The thing that is special about Fly Between Falls is that it is kind of an
exercise in reinventing the band, using both old and new material as the
building blocks," said David. "It's a very forward-looking album - it's both a
history of where ALO has been, as well as a launching pad to where the band is
going from here." Steve echoes this sentiment: "ALO is an ever-evolving group."
The album, which has also been resequenced, now leads in with the playful music
and self-reflection of "Spectrum" followed by an irresistibly catchy tribute to
their college town, "Wasting Time (Isla Vista Song)." Jack Johnson joins in on
back up vocals on a smooth, sultry number, "Girl, I Wanna Lay You Down,"
followed by the feel-good summer swagger of "Barbeque." Other highlights include
the Latin-tinged "Pobrecito" and "Waiting for Jaden," the epic narrative of the
birth of Zach's daughter and a crowd favorite. Fly Between Falls is a complete
musical journey that combines the finest elements of this talented group's
myriad of influences and fuses them into the unique blend that defines ALO.
All four members agree that Fly Between Falls is a new beginning - an album
about "hopes and dreams." David is quick to note: "Each song improves every time
we play it as a result of the input all four of us bring to the musical table.
Even though we all have our own music tastes, we are truly in synch with each
other and support each other's creative ideas."
Perhaps Dan sums up the collective's credo best: "We care about each other as
much as about what we are creating. If we weren't making music together, I'm
sure we'd all be doing something else together." Fortunately for the world, the
four members of ALO are making music together… and it continually promises to be
like nothing you've ever heard before.
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