MAY 14, 2018
ROCKWiRED NOTES: ALLMAN GOLDFLiES

he band ALLMAN GOLDFLIES may only be a little more than a couple of years old, but it's two founders have stories to tell and rather large ambitions for their soulful brand of southern rock. There isn't a band alive that doesn't want their music to connect to a listener, but this band, started by singer-songwriter and guitarist GARY ALLMAN and bassist and producer DAVID GOLDFLIES have bigger ambitions - ones that will take their music all the way to the Great American Songbook. Evidently, in a time where music has been reduced to $0.99 downloads or less, songcraft is very important to these two. GOLDFLIES cut his teeth musically working with the likes of  BILL BARTLETT of STAR STRUCK and RAM JAM and THE ALLMAN BROTHERS before getting into orchestral work. GARY ALLMAN is the cousin of the late-GREG and DUANE ALLMAN and was under the tutelage of TOY CALDWELL of THE MARSHALL TUCKER BAND. These two men shared the stage together for the first time in the late-nineties doing shows with guitarist LUTHER WOMBLE (CLARENCE "GATEMOUTH" BROWN). Two years ago, the two rekindled their friendship and recorded their debut album SECOND CHANCE - a catalog of ten songs that are cut from all of lifes highs and lows. ROCKWIRED had a chance to speak with GARY ALLMAN and DAVID GOLDFLIES regarding their new album. Here is how the interview went.

The musical partnership between the two of you has produced one hell of an album in SECOND CHANCE. Now that it's out there for people to get a listen to, how do you feel about the finished work?
GARY: It's fantastic. It's better than anything I had anticipated. We spent about two years on it and DAVID did all fo the work with the engineering and the producing and it's just turned out to be phenomenal.

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DAVID: I love the album. It's exceeded my expectations. It was two years in the making. Sometimes you get so close to something because you've worked on it for so long that it's hard to see what you've done at the 60,000 foot level. But when we finally got the mixes just right, it sounded really good. That was when I knew I was finished with it. I went  what we had recorded half a million times and then we put it out. So far the reviews have been excellent. I knew the album was done the day that I said it was done. This album was record in a home studio all by ourselves. We turned the house into recording studio and got this amazing album off the ground.

Have there been any reactions ot the album that have surprised you guys or that you didn't quite see coming?
GARY: All of them.

DAVID: Same here. They've all been pretty solid reviews. It's such a great feeling and we've been fortunate and thankful. The reviews have been great but what is even more exciting is some the responses that the album has been getting from people that I truly respect in the music industry.  For the past several years, I have been conducting and I've made friends this country's greatest living conductor DAVID OTT. He's listened to the album and he really liked it. To me, that is the most important review. According to him, the choir on the single WHEN JESUS CALLS is really satisfying.

And for the establishment of ALLMAN GOLDFLIES, what was your musical experience DAVID?
DAVID:  I've been involved with music since I was four years old. I've had lots of musical experience. When I was in high school, I would practice CHRIS SQUIRE licks on the bass. After high school, I joined up with BILL BARTLET and his band STARSTRUCK, who had a hit with the song BLACK BETTY.  I also played with the bands GREAT SOUTHERN and I started playing with the ALLMAN BROTHERS when they did their concert in Central Park and after that, I was in the band from 1979 to 1984. In that time, I toured with them all over the world. They had a nickname for me. It was ROOK which was short for "rookie". Later on in the eighties, I was involved in a  couple of jazz projects and a few rock projects in the nineties. I learned to play double bass and started doing orchestral work for the last 12 years . A couple of years ago, GARY got back in touch with me and sent me the song GEORGIA RAIN. After I heard it, I thought that we should start this band.

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So this is a partnership that goes back a few years. This isn't anything recent.
DAVID: Oh no! It's a renewed friendship. We played together in the early 2000's for a while.

GARY: I had to do some Federal time. Throughout my sentence, I kept playing and taught music in prison - guitar classes. When I was close to getting out of prison, I sent DAVID an email of a song  I had written called STANDING IN THE GEORGIA RAIN. That was how it got started.

DAVID:  Yeah, I was blown away by what he sent me. I got this file in an email as I was driving with a friend of mine and once I heard it, I pulled over and called him back. He told me the story behind the song. From there, we decided to get a band together.

Explain the songwriting process with this band.
GARY:  Most of these songs were written while I was doing ten and a half years. I had a lot of time to write. At the moment we've got other songs that we're looking at for the the second CD. We've got a lot more material now  that we've written colletively as a band. DAVID's got this natural gift for putting stuff together. That's what we're going to do.

DAVID: You asked us about the process. GARY wrote seven of the ten songs on this album and  three of the songs are song that I wrote with lyrics from CINDY MENFI. For GARY's songs,  I would record him singing and playing an acoustic guitar  or piano and I would mic his vocals and the guitar or piano separately on different tracks. When I got him recorded I would take the recording and put it together in the studio and put some instrumentation on top of it. That was mostly the process for this album. It's not a real live album. It was made in a studio. For our next album, we want to take a more live approach with the band that we're gigging with now.

And since I've already asked DAVID, what was your musical history GARY?
GARY: I started out young. I never learned to read music. I always played music by ear. I lived with TOY CALDWELL of THE MARSHALL TUCKER when I was a teenager, so musically I studied under him. When I was sixteen or seventeen, I moved out to California and ended up living there for about twenty years before I moved back own South. Throughout that time I played with all different types of bands. I played with with the band TUMBLING DICE since 1976 and I formed THE GARY ALLMAN BAND. When I moved back to the South, I was out of the music business for a little bit and I got married. In the late nineties, I started playing music again with guitarist LUTHER WOMBLE. He was the one that got me and DAVID together on a  stage for the first time.

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DAVID, describe what it's like working with GARY?
DAVID: GARY is just a joy to work with. He's like an old goat. He never gives up. He's as stubborn as a mule. Between the two of us, it just works out. On stage, he really puts it out there. It doesn't mater how many miles we drove, once you get him playing,  he won't stop. It's the craziest thing that you've ever seen. He has an emotional attachment to the music and sometimes I feel like my connection to the music is too intellectual. So there is a balance there. He hears things in the mixes that are pure feeling and 99% of the time he is dead on. It's the combination of both of us to make the sound of this band. He is always there for me and he is always there for the band.

And GARY what do you think DAVID brings to the table that makes this thing work?
GARY: DAVID brings so much to the table. He's got a great deal of musical knowledge . He hears things and he puts it all together in ways that I couldn't conceive before we did the final production on this album.  He added horns, synths and strings to this album. He has this magical capability. He is very intelligent when it comes to electronics. He's really fun to work with.

What songs off of the album stand out for each of you the most and why?
GARY:  All of them. I can't put one song ahead of another one. I love them all for different reasons. Every song on the album means something to me and comes from a real life experience. STANDING IN THE GEORGIA RAIN is a redemptive song. I wrote it before I was released from prison. WHEN JESUS CALLS was a song that was written for my mother  who passed away six months after I went to prison. I wasn't able to attend her funeral which killed me. I wrote that some in memory of her. I can't just pick one song.

DAVID: There is not one song on there that doesn't have some deep meaning for each of us. This isn't a marriage of convenience. Real things have happened that have brought us together. The music stems from real things that have happened. We love all of the songs but the song that friends of mine keep bringing up is PRETTY GREEN EYES. That one has been like the sleeper hit for us. CAN'T TURN BACK NOW has been getting some airplay  and it's been getting some great feedback from the industry. It's a story about being on the open road  and the future being over the horizon. With a song like SOUTHERN IS ALL REALLY WANNA BE, we felt like the South needed a new anthem. There is a real honesty in the lyrics. They were written by CINDY MENFI. It's a very interesting song.

And what would you guys like for someone to come away with after they hear this album?
DAVID: That we're one hell of a band and that they like our music and that it's music that they can include in their life. If anyone is into southern music or rock music, they can add this to the music they they listen to. That is what I'd want for someone to come away with.

RELATED LiNKS:
http://www.allmangoldfliesband.com

rian Lush is a music industry professional and entrepreneur. In 2005 he launched the online music site Rockwired.com to help promote new music artists in conjunction with the weekly radio show Rockwired Live which aired on KTSTFM.COM from 2005 - 2009. In 2010 He launched the daily podcast series Rockwired Radio Profiles which features exclusive interviews and music. He has also developed and produced the online radio shows Jazzed and Blue - Profiles in Blues and Jazz, Aboriginal Sounds - A Celebration of American Indian and First Nations Music, The Rockwired Rock N Roll Mixtape Show and The Rockwired Artist of the Month Showcase. In 2012, Brian Lush and his company Rockwired Media LLC launched the monthly digital online publication Rockwired Magazine. The magazine attracts over 75,000 readers a month and shows no signs of stopping. Rockwired Magazine also bares the distinction of being the first American Indian-owned rock magazine. Brian Lush is an enrolled member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. Brian Lush's background in music journalism, radio and podcast hosting, podcast production, web design, publicity, advertising sales, social media and online marketing, strategic editorial planning and branding have all made Rockwired a name that is trusted and respected throughout the independent music industry.

CONTACT BRiAN LUSH AT: djlush@rockwired.com