{"id":6228,"date":"2012-05-11T13:12:32","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T20:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/?p=6228"},"modified":"2022-06-28T19:30:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T02:30:58","slug":"allman-talks-about-the-true-soul-of-the-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/11\/allman-talks-about-the-true-soul-of-the-south\/","title":{"rendered":"Allman Talks About the True Soul of the South"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Interview with Devon Allman<\/h2>\n

by Casey Pukl<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m pretty sure Devon Allman and I were at one point the same person in another life. It’s rare that I pick up the phone to interview someone and instantly find myself pouring out my heart about my favorite place to eat in Nashville, TN and what I think of co-writing. So truthfully, this interview has far less to do with music than usual, but it has everything to do with who Devon Allman is, what he’s all about (hint\u2014 barbeque may or may not be a key player), and just what we can expect to see from his latest project.<\/p>\n

Did I mention he’s helping kick off my new favorite blog feature ever? You’ll have to read to the bottom to find out just what it is, but I’ll give you a hint\u2014 it’s DELICIOUS!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Royal Southern Brotherhood is the latest project that Allman (yes, son of the legendary Gregg Allman) has embarked on, and this one is not to be missed. The line-up itself should be enough to grab your attention. Think of this group as a supergroup of the swampy blues persuasion. Teaming up with Cyril Neville (yup, The Meters. Are you listening yet?), Mike Zito (winner of a 2010 Blues Music Award), Charlie Wooten (he jammed with the Woods Brothers), and drummer Yonrico Scott (heavy hitter from the Derek Trucks Band), the project just looks too good on paper to be true.<\/p>\n

Yet Tuesday morning, the record dropped, and there I was hitting the gym rocking my face off to what I think might be in my top 5 albums of 2012. Did I mention that it’s only May? Can you tell how excited I am about this? DO I NEED TO START WRITING IN ALL CAPS? Let me just stop typing and let you dig into the interview to read for yourselves.<\/p>\n

CP:<\/strong> I\u2019m really looking forward to hearing about this new project because the album preview I saw on Youtube looks awesome, and I would love to just get right into it. How did you guys decide to start this band and start this project?<\/em><\/p>\n

DA:<\/strong> My manager was sitting around and somebody said, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t the Allmans and Nevilles ever do anything together?\u201d He just kind of laughed and said, \u201cThey might not have back in the day but we could make it happen now.\u201d That was pretty much the genesis of it. From there, it was like let\u2019s see if we can write some songs and we wrote some really good songs. And then we were like, \u201cLet\u2019s see if we can actually jam,\u201d and then, “Let\u2019s see if we can go do shows,” and then thirteen months later, we had a record coming out.<\/em><\/p>\n

CP:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s awesome. It\u2019s a pretty quick turn around too.<\/em><\/p>\n

DA:<\/strong> Crazy quick, it\u2019s pretty unbelievable.<\/em><\/p>\n

CP:<\/strong>\u00a0Tell me about the record. Did you guys start working together, and then just realize you had all these songs that could make a great record, or did you set out to make a record?<\/em><\/p>\n

DA:<\/strong> I think we really took a methodical approach to ramping up this band. Obviously to a music lover, and even not just for musicians, an Allman and a Neville together looks great on paper. But you don\u2019t know if you\u2019re going to be able to write a tune together. It can look great all at once but if you can\u2019t write songs together, you don\u2019t gel, and then you have nothing. So we went methodical. We took it one phase at a time. We wrote, and then we rehearsed, and then we wrote more upon our first meeting. And then we were like, okay, let\u2019s book a couple rookie shows, went and killed those, and then I was like alright, this is for real. It was kind of like going on a date with somebody that you\u2019re interested in and you\u2019re like, wow this one\u2019s great, but let me check this out a few times. You know, you\u2019ve got that cautious but optimistic attitude that you can\u2019t just dive in here, you need to take it seriously and see how it plays out. The record came together very very quickly after taking that approach. It was like song after song after song because we had developed trust and we had developed something that had a lot of sync.<\/em><\/p>\n

CP:<\/strong>\u00a0Did you guys co-write the entire album? Or did you bring in some songs, and he brought some in, and you just kind of worked with that?<\/em><\/p>\n

DA:<\/strong> It was a mixture of all of that. There\u2019s a couple where the one of us brought in the tunes and the rest are all co-writes. It\u2019s a very equal mix.<\/em><\/p>\n

CP:<\/strong>\u00a0Awesome. And what was that writing process like? I know you said you guys really developed a trust and clearly you worked well together. Was it kind of awkward at first? Was there ever that moment of like, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t know how you work.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

DA:<\/strong> \u00a0[Laughs] Um, the first tune was crazy because Cyril, I hadn\u2019t even met him and he sends me over some lyrics. And I pulled up the guitar, I wrote a couple things really quick, and it came together like in ten minutes. Then I emailed it right back to him and he was like, \u201cDamn! That was fast and it was exactly what I pictured.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cCool.\u201d And that was the first time I knew we had something special where we were putting the song craft above any ego or any self-serving desire. It was like what can we create together, what\u2019s bigger than us. It wasn\u2019t awkward at all. After we wrote those first couple, we went down to New Orleans, got a studio, and we wrote the half record right there just there on the fly. Like, \u201cAlright let\u2019s jam,\u201d or \u201cHey I got this one little part; let\u2019s expand on it.\u201d It was very organic, and it just flowed.<\/em><\/p>\n