ALO

ALO, an American rock ensemble recognized for its improvisational leanings and easygoing West Coast atmosphere, took shape in the final years of the 1990s. The group quickly found favor on the jam band circuit and developed a lasting connection with Jack Johnson, who guested on the 2006 album Fly Between Falls. Energetic stage shows and stylistically broad recordings such as Sounds Like This (2012), Tangle of Time (2015), and Silver Saturdays (2023) helped the band maintain a devoted audience over the ensuing decades.

Keyboardist and vocalist Zach Gill, bassist and vocalist Steve Adams, and guitarist and vocalist Dan Lebowitz had been acquainted since their Saratoga High School years, though the decision to form a band came only after they relocated to Santa Barbara. While attending the University of California, the musicians met Jack Johnson and drummer David Brogan; the latter joined ALO during its Django period. Early stability proved elusive amid repeated name shifts, the brief addition and later removal of a horn section, personnel adjustments after Brogan’s temporary exit, and other setbacks, eventually prompting the members to return to Saratoga despite a growing local following. Additional drummers cycled through before Brogan rejoined in 2002, after which the band’s trajectory improved with the start of regular releases.

The EP Time Expander and debut album Fly Between Falls both surfaced in 2005. A year later Fly Between Falls was reissued on Johnson’s Brushfire label, coinciding with ALO’s high-profile opening slot on the Dave Matthews Band tour. Roses & Clover followed in 2007, with Man of the World arriving in 2010. For the 2012 studio album Sounds Like This, tracked at Mission Bells Studio in San Francisco, the group applied its live-performance methods to the recording process, shaping songs organically so the finished set mirrored the intensity of its stage shows. Tangle of Time, the fifth studio long-player, appeared in 2015.

Ahead of the eleventh Tour d’Amour—the annual February West Coast run launched in 2006—ALO issued the Love Songs EP, containing four covers that included the Turtles’ “Happy Together” and New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle.” The band marked its 25th anniversary by releasing Silver Saturdays, its ninth full-length and the first studio album to feature drummer and vocalist Ezra Lipp (Phil Lesh, Sean Hayes). Captured largely live at Sun Machine studio in Marin County, the ten-song collection arrived in 2023 and included the upbeat jam-pop single “Hot Damn.”