ALO: Unleashing The Beast Within

ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra) is a California-based band. They put on an amazing live show. ALO is performing at Wakarusa 2012.

Bassist/vocalist Steve Adams recently wrote in to discuss how ALO came together, their songwriting process and applying the energy of their live shows on their albums.

For more info on ALO, check out http://www.alomusic.com/.

 How did ALO first get started?

In 1996, we traveled out to Augusta, GA for the summer.  We were called Django back then.  One of our college friends was singing in the James Brown band and she offered us couch space for the summer at her house in Augusta and we thought such a trip would be a fun adventure.  We made a 4-song demo, mailed it out to towns en route to Augusta and booked a modest tour to get ourselves out there.  We also made it our mission to connect with James Brown.  We made it there, set up our couch and floor spaces, took some part-time jobs, toured the Southeast as much as we could, met the Godfather a few times, who was very encouraging of us (but also insisted we finish school!).  It was a magical summer and the four of us felt a real bond.  We came back to Santa Barbara and Dave decided he needed to move to Seattle.  Inspired by the funk, as well as the free-spirited adventure we had, Dan, Zach and myself eventually found ourselves rallying five horn players and our Jazz Band director on drums to create The Animal Liberation Orchestra & The Free Range Horns!  Over time, the name became too confusing to explain, so we adopted the short name for which people were calling us anyway, ALO.  We also found our way back to Dave in 2002, and have been playing together since.

What do you love most about the music scene in California?

It feels very supportive and intimate, especially in the Bay Area.  Musicians come out to each others’ shows, guest on each others’ records, call each other if they need help with something.  I love all that.  Not to mention, I love the music that is being made.  There’s a strong appreciation and respect of old music, yet bands and musicians continue to bring their own personality and new ideas forward.

How did you first meet Jack Johnson?

Dan, Zach and I met Jack our first year at UCSB.  We were in one dorm and he was in another.  He and some other guys put together a band called Soil.  We had Django, so the two bands naturally became rivals for a minute.  We eventually met the guys and became good friends. We’d set up in garages and jam, record weird demos together. I was listening to an old recording the other day of Django playing live on KTYD, the local radio station, and in between songs the DJ was announcing a show in the park.  He was reading down the list of bands and got to Soil and said something like, “I like those guys, they’re pretty good!”  It’s interesting how things evolve.  If father time had told me back then that I’d be in a band called ALO and signed to Jack’s record label, I probably would have thought father time was a little crazy.

How do you approach songwriting?

Over the last few years, we’ve really been trying to dial in a collective writing approach.  We’ll get together for writing sessions where we simply free-jam, rarely stopping to refine much of anything.  Sometimes people sneak ideas in that they’ve been playing with, but the context is not so much “let me teach you something” but rather, “let me see what happens if do this”.  We record everything, edit down ideas, pass them around for people to play with.  What I love about it is that you get some really natural grooves and melody parts, which hopefully allow for some kind of song to be written from that.  Lyrically, it seems that most of our lyrics come from our personal notebooks.  Although we definitely riff off each others’ lyrical ideas, so songs often relate well.  Occasionally we’ll edit lyrics together, but it can be a little awkward sometimes since lyrics can be so personal, so we try to tread lightly in that area.

Do you remember the first album you bought?

I’m trying to remember if it was a cassette or a used record.  By early High School, I definitely had bought up some cassettes and records from Little Feat, Steely Dan, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stanley Clarke.  We had a lot of music around the house already so I didn’t need to buy a whole lot, at first.

Did you come from a musical family? Were your parents musical?

I grew up around a lot of music for sure. My parents encouraged me and my sister and brothers all to take lessons on some instrument or another.  My sister played piano, my older brother played baritone horn for a bit, I taught my little brother bass guitar at one point.  I went from piano to violin to alto sax to bass, from ages 5 to 13.  My mom liked singing songs to us as kids.  My dad played oboe and his dad played tenor banjo and his mom played organ.  No one really ever played too professionally, it was more part of school or just for fun.  Still, I think the appreciation and presence of music growing up played into my interest of it.  My favorite thing to do when I was a kid was sit at the piano and try and figure out familiar melodies.

Where did you play your first gig together as ALO?

Dan, Zach and I played our first gig together in 7th grade at the intermission of the school play, which we also had to be in in order to play the gig.  We brought Dave into Django in 1996 and played our first gig at the Isla Vista Brewing Company, I think.  ALO, in it’s original 9-piece format, played its first gig at Giovani’s Pizza in Isla Vista in 1998.  And then our first gig back with Dave in ALO was in 2002, opening for Jack Johnson at the Fillmore in Denver.  It was a last minute call from Jack, his opener couldn’t play the second night that got added.  Dan, Zach and I were in between drummers and we thought what the heck, let’s call Dave.  The timing was perfect since it turned out he was in between things himself.  We picked up Dave in Portland and drove to Denver, rehearsing in hotel bathrooms along the way.  We did the gig and it’s been the four of us ever since.

You never play the same set twice. Do you follow a certain process when writing setlists?

A bit… We have a log of all our setlists.  We look at what we played last time we were in town.  If it’s an album tour, we definitely like to play some of the new stuff.  We do a number of themed tours, which play into our setlists as well.  This last Halloween, we did a weekend tour dubbed “A Haunted Carnival of Traveling Freaks and Frights” in which each night was a corner of the carnival – animals, superhumans, magic, etc.  So we sprinkled in some covers that fit the themes.  This February will be our 6th Annual “Tour d’Amour” which honors the themes of love and music.  It’s tradition we pick some choice love songs for the sets.  There’s even more science behind the setlists, in terms of shaping the energy of a set and writing in good transitions.  We also try to keep our repeats down if we’re doing multiple nights somewhere.  All of the above make it so it’s almost impossible to repeat a setlist I think.

What have been some of your favorite times on the road?

We’ve done several long tours supporting Jack, both in the States and abroad, all super fun!  Our tour through Europe back in 2006 was definitely a memorable one.  We’ve been to Japan a few times.  Even though I hardly know any Japanese, I kind of love it there.  Our last few tours on the East Coast, Southeast and Midwest have been super fun.  It’s inspiring to see how excited people get when you actually make it to their town.  We’re lucky if we make it there each year, but when we do, it always feels worth it.  California tours are always a lot of fun too.  We get to see lots of old friends and family members at shows. The California shows feel like homecoming or a family reunion.

What has been your strangest night out?

Maybe the night I got super sick in Sebastopol.  We were touring hard and I think I was just a bit exhausted.  I was losing my voice a little and by the end of the first set, I was starting to feeling a bit fever-ish.  Hot, cold, hot.  By the end of set break, I was freezing cold so I started the second set out wearing someone’s fur shawl.  I think I had to take it off after a song or two.  The rest of the night was a surreal blur.  We had two more shows the next two nights.  I survived, but Sebastopol was the peak of strangeness for me on that tour.

Did you find it hard to transition from the live show to the studio?

For our upcoming record, we intentionally tried to write the record for our live show.  We feel like a lot of people come to our show to “liberate their inner animals” (our first slogan we used when we created the band).  People wanna dance, let loose, sing, be engaged, have fun.  As a band, we like to experiment in all sorts of writing styles and sometimes a certain song works great on a record, but maybe not as well live, at least for how our live show has evolved.  With this new record, we really tried to hold on to that live experience and bring it into the studio.  So our transition this time had a real specific bridge.  Generally speaking though, going from one to the other I wouldn’t describe it as hard.  Usually by the time we’re tired of one, the other is right around the corner.  And each time you transition, you bring a little bit of the other into the next.  It’s actually more inspiring than anything else.

How has your approach to recording albums changed over the years?

It seems more and more we’ve been trying to record songs as a band, with all of us playing live together.  We’ve even experimented in laying down a full band recording, then going back and recording over that as a full band on different instruments. Magical things happen when you play live together.  There’s real time response to things that are happening, there’s the crossing and blending of instruments that might just not happen when you’re overdubbing one at a time.  Of course, there comes a time to overdub and correct things, but we try our best to keep the live takes there as much as we can.  On this new album that we have just about wrapped up. we also did a lot of experimenting playing to custom drum loops.  We wanted to make an energetic album that translates well live.  The drum loops layed down a nice immediate and consistent foundation for us to play on top of.  The machine became another member of the band.  It allowed a lot of cool things to happen.  I can imagine playing with this technique even more down the line.

What have been the biggest struggles you’ve had to overcome in your career?

Making very little money, especially in the beginning, was a big struggle.  I’m sure that’s a big one for every band that’s starting out.  Balancing personal lives and relationships with the band has been and probably always will be a challenge.  Being so invested in such an on-going art project like a band, it gets really hard to know when to take a break.  There’s always something that you feel “needs” to get done.  Also, our band is set up in that we all have an equal say on how things go.  The benefit to this is that you get everyone working on a problem together.  The challenge is to focus your collective strengths to produce something that is better than any one individual.  That’s the goal at least.  It gets emotional and hard sometimes to make a decision when there are differences of opinion.  We do our best to keep in mind that that is the challenge but the potential pay-off is there if we finesse it just right.

Do you have a quote or motto that you live by?

It doesn’t get any better than – “Have a good time, all the time.”

What advice would you give to bands just starting out? 

Practice a lot, stay open-minded, support each other’s ideas, find your strengths, have fun, be creative, follow your imagination, live together for a while if you can!  Record rehearsals, play parties, do it because you love it.  Keep a job as long as you can, be responsible, be respectful, make friends with other bands.  Encourage friends to learn the music business with you. Watch School of Rock and Spinal Tap. Eat well, don’t get a big head, lift with you legs.  Be patient, take it all in stride.