This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCSB chapter.
Zach performing at Santa Barbara Earth Day this past weekend. Picture from Jenn Birchim.
Her Campus got the awesome opportunity to interview Zach Gill, band member of ALO and Jack Johnson’s band!
What did you major in at UCSB, and why?
I majored in history and minored in ethnomusicology. I started out UCSB as a music major, but it wasn’t a good fit for me. At the time, I was more interested in playing at parties and writing my own songs, than I was in learning music composition and theory. History came relatively easy to me so I switched majors, I still ended up taking a lot of music classes though. My thinking at the time was that if my music career didn’t work out, maybe I could do something with history. I’m not sure what exactly that would’ve been, maybe teaching, but it sounded good and helped buy me time until I figured out how to make music work as a career.
How many bands were you part of in college? Any good stories?
I played in lots of bands in college, a lot of them shared members. For three years, we had a house with a garage on DP and live music was always happening. All of my house mates were into music and they exposed me to a lot of stuff I otherwise wouldn’t have heard. Lots of good times and good stories. It was a rowdy and experimental time. The living room walls had paintings of ships, that we had picked up from a thrift store. They were all framed and titled to the left, so it kind of felt like the room was bending.
How did ALO meet?
Myself and two of the other guys, Lebo and Steve grew up together, we started our first band in junior high, and we all went to college together. After a couple years at UCSB, we met our current drummer Dave. At the time he was in another band that we really looked up to and we convinced him to join us. We did some touring and eventually retired that line up, and Dave moved away. A couple of years after that we formed the Animal Liberation Orchestra and the free range horns, with UCSB Jazz ensemble director Jon Nathan on the drums and a bunch or our friends playing various horn instruments. That line up didn’t last too long, but we ended up keeping parts of the name and a lot of the songs, and moving up to San Francisco. In 2002, Dave rejoined the band officially and we started touring as ALO.
Where did you live during your time at UCSB?
My first year I lived in the dorm San Miguel, after that I moved to 6606 Del Playa. My last year in IV was on Sueno, I don’t remember the exact address, it was the 6700 block I think. The spot had once been the wee care day care center, it had a play boat in the front yard. I loved that house, we called in the Sueno research institute. It was basically a garage with a couple of rooms attached, our living room/kitchen was also our rehearsal space. I had my own room, which was amazing after years of sharing a room while living on DP.
Best memory at UCSB?
I have more than I can count, I met my wife at UCSB and some of my best friends too, so many fond memories. I used to love walking along the beach starting at the 6600 block and going all the way over to sands beach. It felt so far away. Now I live in Goleta, very close to Sands, but I come from the other direction.
If you could be one instrument, which one would you be?
I’d probably be the piano.