Talking Life and Music with ALO’s Zach Gill

An Early Morning Spent with the Frontman for the Animal
Liberation Orchestra

It’s 9:15 a.m., and I am knocking on the door of a tract home
adjacent to the Ellwood mesa. It’s an early morning for what was a
late night of watching magicgravy perform on SOhO’s stage at the
Santa Barbara Music Phreaks holiday party. I know the feeling is shared when Zach
Gill, who sat in with the band on keys, opens his door dressed in
what must be his pajamas: velvety blue sweatpants (the same ones,
incidentally, he wore when trying out to be Beck’s keyboardist) and
a pale blue shirt that says “Jamaican Sunset” backwards because
it’s inside out .

“Oh man,” says Gill, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. “I forgot
about you.”

As the frontman for the Animal Liberation Orchestra, or ALO as they’re
internationally known, Gill runs a busy life: he’s a husband,
father, constant songwriter, and go-to keyman for friend Jack Johnson. His
band, which also includes Seattle-based drummer Dave Brogan and his
childhood buddies Steve Adams on bass and Dan Lebowitz on guitar,
tours constantly to sold-out crowds. And in the middle of November at a
studio in the Santa Barbara foothills, they cut the songs that will
be on their forthcoming album. It will be ALO’s first big-time,
fully produced CD and is slated for an April release on Johnson’s
Brushfire
Records.