With the year coming to an end, Ben Hill Griffin being soaked in champagne, Facebook being soaked in pictures of girls in white dresses holding champagne and the bars at midtown being packed like cans of sardines, it’s a time for reflection — a time to look back at what’s moved, shaken, rattled and rolled us over the past year.
I’ve come to a variety of epiphanies in this beautiful city — some reached while sober and others during inebriation — but the epiphany I’d like to share with you today is that The Savants of Soul is the best band in Gainesville and, damn it, if you get a chance to go fucking see them.
Gainesville’s loaded with musical talent with artists like Morning Fatty and Bells & Robes making names for themselves. Hell, you may have even heard of Grit, who just released their first album “Tangerine St.” (This is a shameless plug. Grit is my band; check us out on Facebook). But there’s something special about an 11-piece soul band that elevates your spirits to the heavens and brings you back to the good old days of Stax and Muscle Shoals. (A reference to Stax Records in Memphis, popular for making people like Otis Redding famous, and Muscle Shoals in Alabama, a recording studio in which the soul sound of the 1960s was, arguably, created.)
For Alex Klausner, drummer and one of the band’s three founders, it’s been a long time coming establishing the right group of people to make the music they want since Savants first started out four years ago.
Via: facebook.com
Early on, Klausner said the band peddled along with music that wasn’t quite there yet and no legitimate fans to speak of.
“Band success is like getting to the moon, but first you gotta build the rocket ship,” Klausner said.
Though the band has gone through lineup changes even since the start of the year, they finally seem to have the right group of people to achieve the kind of success they’d like to.
The newly-formed Swamp Records recently picked up the band as one of two featured artists. Though Swamp Records does not function like a traditional record company and is not in a contract with the group, they will be helping immensely in the distribution of the band’s debut album, which they have been recording over the past several months.
Although I couldn’t be more excited for what the band lays down in the studio, I’ve gotta say their live performances are some of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve had in Gainesville.
Via: vimeo.com
The band controls a crowd in the most uncanny of ways, feeding off the energy and throwing it back to the audience 10-fold.
Jason Bontrager, the band’s keyboard player, explained the relationship with their crowds by saying, “Playing for a live audience and having that jam flowin’, between the audience and us it’s a dance.” He continued, “They’re dancing so we gotta move.”
The “jam” is essential to the band’s formula, according to Bontrager, highlighting the chemistry between the members of the band, the band and the audience and the music and the energy surrounding everybody.
“Jam is the conclusion of the illusion of the effect that we give,” he said, “If we jam individually, we’d be jelly.”
So do yourself a favor and check these guys out. Don’t be jelly, and get yourself involved in the jam. You’ll be happy you did.
Featured photo courtesy of: Facebook
