[Editor's note: This is the first of what we hope will be an ongoing series of features, following up on recent New Groove of the Month bands.]

The power funk-soul trio Soulive has been making huge musical waves since their inception in March. Their near constant touring schedule has won over numbers of people in the North East, and more recently in the South. The brothers Evans, Alan and Neal, and Eric Krasno all have roots in the jam scene, from Moon Boot Lover to Lettuce, and have had such notable performers as Oteil Burbridge and John Scofield join them on stage. I was lucky enough to speak with Alan over the phone in early November, and ask some questions about the band, the new album "Turn It Out" on Velour Records, and some future plans.

DA: How's the tour going?

AE: Good. It's going really good. Actually, we're out on the road right now with Robben Ford, so that's going really well. I got a day off so we decided to come home. But yeah, we're doing like twelve dates with him, or something like that. So it's going really well. Before that we were with Derek.

DA: Yeah I wanted to ask you about that. How was it?

AE: [Laughs] That was ridiculous. I mean, it was a great experience, man. Our first show with was in Nashville, and then we kind of hooked up and we dug each other, you know, each other's thing. So we scheduled some other dates down South and every night was packed with people really into it. We would have Derek and Kofi come out during our set. Then towards the end of their set, they would have us come out and do two tunes with them. There was definitely a connection between us. We're planning on doing another tour of the Northeast in January. You know, it's still an idea, but shit, it'll probably happen; it'll probably go down.

DA: How did you get together with him? Did it have anything to do with Oteil?

AE: Actually yeah, a little bit. I've known Oteil for a while now, a few years, and he'd always be telling us about Derek. I'd never seen him. I had heard about him. Actually what really hooked us was Derek's lawyer. He's a friend of ours; he hung out with us. He was kind of our lawyer too, back in the Moon Boot Lover days, you know. He's just a really nice dude. So he's always trying to hook different bands up that he thinks will mesh. So that was pretty much the deal; between Kelly and Oteil, they hooked it up for us, you know. I'm pretty glad they did.

The South is, well it's always hard to break a new area, you know. Either if you're from down South and coming up North, whatever, or vice versa. The crowds man, they were just into music, period. It was pretty much the best experience I've had down south, so far.

DA: You guys have had a lot of people sit in with you. Like Berkfest, when Sco [John Scofield] sat in. That looked totally spontaneous.

AE: Yeah it was, kind of. We played this, what was it called, The World's Fair in Central Square, in Boston. A friend of mine is playing drums with Sco right now. So I heard that they were doing the festival that morning. [I thought] "I want to hook up with Marlon [Browden], just to see what's up." So Marlon came over and he brought Sco down to check out our set. We were playing like first in the whole festival. And Sco just checked us out, he really dug it, and we talked to him afterwards. He was like, "Yeah, I'd really like to get together with you guys at some point in the future, or whatever. So the cat who put on the Berk Fest, he also put on the World's Fair. And he was like "Yeah, man Sco's gonna be there to do that thing with Bob Moses and Oteil." So we saw him and he was like "Yeah let's do it at some point this weekend." It just happened. We were supposed to do it the night before, but he took off cause he was just tired or whatever; he just got there that day. He surprised me cause I thought he took off, you know. He just showed up, sitting over there with his guitar. Man, it was on. And of course Oteil, man. Whenever we see each other we're definitely gonna play. We've been playing with a lot lately. It was really cool man.

DA: Can talk for a minute about the Professor and Radioactive? Because I just saw them sit in with Galactic the other night.

AE: Really? That's cool.

DA: Yeah I was totally surprised.

AE: We actually haven't been doing much with Profess lately, but we were back in the summer. He was coming, doing some shows with us. He did the Flash of Light Festival; he was just kind of hanging out with us. And actually Radio...

DA: He sat in one night at the House of Blues.

AE: That's right. But I guess since he's been doing the Galactic thing he hasn't been around. I guess he moved out West for a minute. So I didn't even know he was around, to tell you the truth. It's always a good time, hitting with those cats.

DA: On your new CD you guys recorded "Get Down" live in the studio right?

AE: Yeah, that's kind of an interesting story. Some might already people this but, Neal [Evans] and I, when we originally thought of doing this, we had a vibes player. He was from New York and he did one gig with us, our first gig, actually, at the Bad Girl Studios in Boston. But he decided that he didn't want a gig, he didn't want to be on the road. So we had already booked a bunch of dates and we had to do them. So we called up Kraz [Eric Krasno]. I'd been talking to Eric, and he was like "Yeah man, I'm just hangin'." I asked him to do the gigs with us, just to get us through until we found someone, a guitarist, you know. And he was like "Cool". So he came down to our house, I was living outside of Woodstock, New York at the time, and I had my studio set up there. He came down and started rehearsing some tunes, and I was like, "I have all the mikes set up, everything set up, might as well hit record." So we just started recording and before we knew it, it was done. And we were a band because we just dug, you know, it just all happened. That was it. That was the first album. We recorded March 2, [1999]. That was the first day that we actually, to you truth, that was the first time that I ever really played with Eric. I mean we've known each other for quite a long time. That's the first time really did anything together, and like a month later, it was out.

DA: Serendipity.

AE: Yeah. I dug it at first, obviously. Then after a while I was recording us live a lot so I could hear the growth. And I'd go back to the album and say, "Damn, that thing sucks." But now, I listen back to it, I just stopped listening to it for a long time, I listen back to it now, and it's got some shit on there that I dig, you know. There's just this certain, there's this thing on that album that we don't even, it's a certain kind of energy that we don't even have now. Things have changed, you know. We're growing as a band, together but there's also something to be said about cats who really don't know what direction they want to go in. And there's a certain, I don't know how to put it- listening back to it, we definitely didn't know where we were going. So there was a real raw freshness to it, you know what I saying? Which is good to hear in the beginning of a band's existence. We've definitely lost it, but we've gained other things in turn. By being together every night and playing, it's definitely tighter. But there's a certain thing, you know, that gets lost, which is cool. I'm glad it's on that CD. You know it's recorded. It's a part of us. Even like ten years down the line, people want to hear about Soulive, they go back to the first CD. If I listen to this first CD ten years from now, it'll be there, that magic, you know.

DA: I noticed at the two nights at Baby Jupiter in September that, especially the second night when Oteil sat in, things were stretched out. The "Soulive", that seemed so much more opened up.

AE: That tune, "Soulive" from that Baby Jupiter night with Oteil, that's on the new album. The thing is Oteil, he's just such an amazing player and person. He just makes you play. You cannot hold back with that cat. He definitely expands everyone's vocabulary, and everybody's idea of what the song can be at that moment. That's why I love playing with him; it's like I said before, you do the thing every night, and you definitely try to make it different. But I don't care who you are, you get in your groove. You find what works and what doesn't work, you know. You just keep growing, but when someone like Oteil comes in, it's just like "All right, let's flip it up!" Because he's such a great musician, you just can't go wrong. That's why we put it on the CD. I know exactly what you're saying. We started playing and we got into that groove, I was like "Holy shit!" That's the magic. That's it. That's it. I'm glad that got to be on the album.

DA: Can you talk about being out West with Karl [Denson]?

AE: Karl, yeah that's funny, I just got off the phone with him. That was a great experience, man. It was great for me because all the projects I've ever been in, I've not really been a leader. Pete [Prince] and I started Moon Boot Lover way back in the day. I was like, I don't know, fifteen years old. So that was just our thing. And then I had done a hip-hop thing that I started. With the exception of the occasional pick up straight-ahead jazz gig, that's always been the case. So with going out there, especially with the [Greyboy] All Stars, more so than the Tiny Universe, there was already an established group. They had their sound, they knew what they wanted from a drummer. So that was different for me, going into a situation [where] they knew what they wanted and I had to produce that. It's definitely more, I wouldn't say stressful, but you definitely have to know your instrument, know the music, know the history of where they're coming from rather than just starting something up.

Like Soulive, we just want to play some music and it just kind of took its own direction. So I learned a lot from Karl in terms of everything. Just seeing how successful the All Stars were, and definitely how successful the Tiny Universe was gonna be, just seeing how he ran things, you know. And to see how tight the organization was. It was cool for me for a minute, but I've always known I'm not really a side man.

DA: One of the things that really appealed to me immediately about Soulive is that everyone has such a distinct role in the band. All three of you stand and there's constant interplay; you know, no one's ever just sitting back a whole heck of a lot.

AE: Right, right. That's definitely easy to do as a trio, but not all trios can do that. To tell you the truth, that's one of the things about the group that's definitely beyond me, beyond my understanding. We just get up there and do our thing. It's comfortable. We never really had any kind of discussion, we don't really talk about anything in terms of "OK, you're gonna take this solo here," and this and that. I mean we obviously we think about those things in writing tunes and rehearsing but when we get up there we're just completely natural. I think it's just the perfect combination, just the three of us. It's definitely the best group I've ever been in. Because there are so many, just those outside forces that are working with us, those things that you can't really describe or put into words. [Pause] I don't know; like I said, it's hard to put into words. People have definitely mentioned that about us. My parents who have been to many more shows than most people that I know of, they've been there since the beginning, and for them to mention things like that, you know, it's really good. It makes me definitely feel like we're on the right path.

DA: It seems like you guys write a pretty even mix, as far as the originals go. What's the process like for you?

AE: In terms of the band?

DA: Both individually and in terms of the band.

AE: Personally, I write on the guitar. I taught myself how to play guitar. My brother is definitely the trained [one]. You know, he went to school, he plays piano, something I've never really felt comfortable playing, just because of him basically [Laughs]. He doesn't leave much room, so I picked up guitar. I write on that and I've always liked melody. I listen to so many different types of music. As long as it has a good melody, if it's instrumental or with a singer- obviously I dig tunes where people are singers. They're talking about something, you know. So that definitely influences me, having strong melodies and in terms of what we're doing right now, something that grooves, something that at least gets your head bobbing. But I write ballads and things that I want to do in the future, hopefully with this group, with strings or horns. You know things like that. But right now this is where we're at.

So we take the tunes to the group and Neal, I'll give him the chord structure, or whatever, and melody. Neal definitely expands on the harmonic end of the tunes. I'm not, like I said, trained. I know basic chords but he brings it to life. Neal's always had that talent. I can bring Neal anything, it doesn't matter what kind of piece of shit it is, and Neal can bring it to life. And in terms of Neal, he's just got it so pretty much whatever that dude works on, it's usually really good. And Eric, I'm just starting to see these things in Eric, but Eric is a good mix of myself, because he plays guitar, you know he write on guitar and keys and he's also somewhat trained in music theory, so like I said he's a blend between myself and Neal.

It just so happens we always seem to write around the same time, and the same number of tunes. And there you have it. Actually it's funny that you mention that 'cause today, one of my goals for to today was to write a tune because we're already working on our third album. The second one just came out, and we're already working on our third. We have to write all these tunes because the whole album is gonna be us with guests. So our first session, Scofield's going to be on the album. And then we have Oteil, Derek, DJ Logic, Ivan Neville, Karl- That's why I was just talking to Karl. It's going to be tight, it's going to be real tight. [Laughs] I've got to get writing. It's definitely a little pressure, you know, to have these heavy cats come in. I'm confident though. It'll work out, it'll definitely work out. So that's it on the writing.

Oh, and then we write tunes together. "Soulive", "Turn It Out", those are two tunes that we've written together. And basically writing together, everyone had some ideas. Neal had these chords he was messing around with, and Eric was like "Let's throw this melody on in," and they just all came together. That's something we definitely enjoy doing. It helped to get the direction of the music going. And then the originals that all of us write individually kind of base on the tunes that we wrote together, in terms of sound feel.

DA: What about the covers? I love "Jesus Children".

AE: The Stevie tunes, we do two, the one, "Jesus Children", Kraz used to play that at Wally's in Boston. That's a Lettuce arrangement of that tune. The other, "Big Brother", that's a really good tune and for a while I didn't want to play it all, because Larry Golding did a version of it on one of his albums with Bill Stewart. That was organ trio thing and we definitely do it a lot differently but I just felt weird about doing it. But I've grown to really dig that tune. And then we do a bunch of other cover tunes, like Grant Green. That's definitely been a huge influence on us, obviously. That was the shit, in terms of what we're doing: organ, guitar, drums. We've been doing this cover of "World Is A Ghetto" by War. Actually we've been rocking the joint with Derek and Oteil whenever we see them. That's another thing, we're going to get together some different covers, you know, keep it fresh. Definitely we like Stevie, just great tunes.

DA: You have been in the jam groove scene for a while. Like you said you were in Moon Boot Lover forever ago. Any thoughts on the scene?

AE: It's evolving, it's changing. I remember back in the Moon Boot days, you would always hear people saying "We're into music," or "We're into different kinds of music," but sometimes that really wasn't the case. I'd see a lot of cats, they were kind of outsiders to tell you the truth, If Soulive came around back in the day when I was doing Moon Boot, back in the early nineties, I don't know if we'd have the same kind of following as we do now. I think a lot of that has to do with Scofield getting on the scene, and it also comes back to Phish. I mean I've got to give those dudes huge props, you know. They've helped me out, helped Soulive out, because they dug Medeski back in the day. And that just stared the ball rolling.

People are definitely more open to different types of music than in the early part of the jam bands days. I see a lot more people getting into it. The other thing is, I think the scene is getting bigger because a lot of people, back in the day, didn't want to be associated with the jam bands scene. It was like "Aw man, just a bunch of hippies." People'd be dissing them because of where they're coming from, or how they dress. I mean that's always going to be around, but now it just seems there is a greater acceptance of people for who they are. I look out, there is a more diverse crowd, you know. I think a lot of that has to do with the internet, with technology. It's funny man. You talk to someone over the internet, email or whatever, you don't know what they look like. It's growing beyond just the music, and just the scene. It's becoming more. I don't know, it's just life, you know what I'm saying? It's weird to take it out that far, but that's what I see. Greater acceptance, of things, people. It's great man, it's great.