Davey Allen Interview
Doug Burke:
Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host, Doug Burke, and today we're here with Davey Allen of the band, Davey Allen And The Midnights. Davey Allen is a Los Angeles based touring musician with the Rock N Roll Hall of Famer, Eric Burdon and The Animals. Unable to control his personal creative instincts and surrounded by fantastic Los Angeles session musicians, Davey formed Davey And The Midnights and began writing and arranging songs for the band to perform.
He combines traditional country, blues and psychedelia to create an eclectic highway sound in the vein of Gram Parsons, JJ Cale, and the Grateful Dead. This is Doug Burke with Back Story Song. I'm here with Davey Allen of Davey Allen And The Midnights, and we're going to talk about your new EP and some of the songs on it.
Davey Allen:
Sounds great.
Doug Burke:
So, first off, why did you become a songwriter?
Davey Allen:
Well, I see life in a very particular way of a group of stories and I love songwriters and specific people that are able to tell a story without being too right on the nose about it and can create a vibe around a story. And I think because of my outlook on life I'm able to use songwriting to see the world. Otherwise, if there's no filter it's too right on for me as a person. So songwriting helps me digest the world around me.
Doug Burke:
And when did you get hit with this muse?
Davey Allen:
As early as I can remember singing songs before I could write or read.
Doug Burke:
Really?
Davey Allen:
Forever. Yeah. I mean, for as long as I can remember, I've been writing songs of melodies in my head and it's always been there.
Doug Burke:
In kindergarten.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah. There's a... I would be embarrassed if they found their way to someone that could listen to it. There's cassettes that my parents recorded of me singing and there's videos, home videos of me writing songs as a three year old or a four year old and singing into my grandmother's cane like it was a microphone. Really bizarre stuff.
Doug Burke:
Almost from birth, huh.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Truly.
Doug Burke:
So we're here to talk about your new EP, which is eponymously named, I guess, Davey And The Midnights.
Davey Allen:
It's not on there, but it's the Full Moon EP.
Doug Burke:
The Full Moon EP. Okay. Which song do you want to start with? The Science of Gravy?
Davey Allen:
Let's start from the top.
Doug Burke:
Okay. So tell me the backstory.
Davey Allen:
Right. Right. It's a very interesting name. My grandfather, Paul David Allen the first. I'm Paul David Allen the third legally, not Davey, but since I was born, just like the music I've been known as Davey, not Paul. But my grandfather, Paul the first, we would sit down to dinner and he would say, "I don't use butter if I have gravy." And I just accepted that for my entire life until I got to, I don't know, my teenage years, my early adult years. And I was like, "What does that even mean?" And I don't know. And I'm not... I don't even know if he really knows what it means, but it took on a life of its own, the saying, "I don't use butter if I have gravy." So as a way to honor my grandparents, who I love very, very much and were very important to me growing up, I wrote this song for them. It's about my grandfather, but it's more about them as a couple, my grandparents and their relationship. And the first verse is their routine that I remember as a child. So my grandfather who was still working at the time would get up at 3:30 in the morning. And my grandmother would be up right before him cooking sausage, cooking eggs, getting breakfast ready, getting his lunch ready. And he would leave as a truck driver. And he would drive to Chicago, which is two and a half, three hour drive. And he would drive back and maybe do that two or three times a day. And that was the routine. And that's basically what the first verse is about.
Doug Burke:
Did you grow up in Indiana? Were they in Indiana as well?
Davey Allen:
Still are.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Northwest Indiana.
Doug Burke:
Northwest Indiana. What town is that?
Davey Allen:
It's Monticello.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Davey Allen:
It's Monti-cello. And even people who founded it named it after Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, his estate. But for some reason, I don't know if it's the dialect or whatever, but it's Monticello. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
So Monticello is two and a half hours from Chicago and your grandpa would run a rig?
Davey Allen:
Yep.
Doug Burke:
A 16 Wheeler?
Davey Allen:
Yep.
Doug Burke:
18 Wheeler. Sorry.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Up there and back. He hauled for a company called... He worked for many different companies. He worked as a private driver, he was working independently. But then when I was born and he was in his last years of work, he was working for Landis Plastics and they had plants in Chicago, in Louisville and in Monticello and Ohio and other places. And yeah, there's a bit of a folklore around the family in our hometown because they were very wealthy and they had a vacation home in our hometown. It's pretty wild.
Doug Burke:
And your grandparents had some messages, I guess, that are in the song for you, that you observe. They gave you love without pretense and always handing out food and compliments.
Davey Allen:
Right.
Doug Burke:
They also told you to pull on through, what does that mean?
Davey Allen:
Pull on through, I think the lyric before about someone's got to lose. I can vividly remember them at a basketball game of mine when I was young, and the team that I was on was very good and we were winning all the time and then we lost. And I can remember in the moment being near tears as a child, upset about the loss and they immediately took me aside and said, "Well, someone's got to lose. Think about all the times that you won and someone had to feel that, and trying to see the reverse of your situation."
Doug Burke:
I like that message. And they had a dog.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. They sure did.
Doug Burke:
And what was the dog's name?
Davey Allen:
Chloe.
Doug Burke:
That didn't make it to the song. You left it anonymous. Is that right?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah. Initially I think it did have the dog specific name, but I think it's easier for people to wrap their own situations and hang their hat on it if it's more anonymous.
Doug Burke:
And what kind of dog was that?
Davey Allen:
A Shar Pei.
Doug Burke:
Oh, really?
Davey Allen:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And so this is a note to your grandparents. Tell me about the... How did the song come to you and how fast did you write it? Did you...
Davey Allen:
I think it started as a project. Some of my songs come to me right away and they're written in a matter of minutes. This one was more over weeks. I was writing a verse here and a verse there and it got up to seven or eight verses and I took it down to... I think the song... That version has three or four... I have just a few years old version that had four or five verses. So it's got to the core of it now over, I guess, years. Yeah. Still reworking it.
Doug Burke:
And you're a multi-instrumentalist.
Davey Allen:
That's correct.
Doug Burke:
What do you play on this song?
Davey Allen:
On this track I play guitar and I think that's it. There's a piano in it at some point, it's very low in the mix. I think I played that as well.
Doug Burke:
And so tell me about the production. Where did you record this?
Davey Allen:
Recorded at a studio that we're a part of in El Segundo, California. It's in a very interesting part of the town because the town is going through a lot of changes currently with the housing, the way that it is in Southern California and this kind of overlooked portion of the town where it's a lot of industry and warehouses has kind of become an interesting place for breweries and people who are moving from out of town. And our studio that we're a part of is kind of the standalone little cottage amongst all of these buildings and industry. And we're right next to an oil refinery. And over just a quarter of the mile is the LAX airport and kind of in a really weird spot.
Doug Burke:
And so this is you and your band, no session musicians.
Davey Allen:
No session musicians.
Doug Burke:
Tell me about your band.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Five of us total on the record. Corey Dawson on base. On that particular track, we have a few drummers that we use because of schedules and thankfully people's success. We're able to go through different drummers. On that track it's Dustin Koester, who I also play with in Eric Burdon's band and we're both from Indiana.
Doug Burke:
And you found yourselves in LA.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
This is Eric Burdon and The Animals. You guys are the backing band for their tour?
Davey Allen:
Correct. Yeah. Yeah. We're the backing. And in the studio, if anything ever gets released, but maybe not.
Doug Burke:
Science of Gravy, what's the Science of Gravy? Don't use butter with your gravy.
Davey Allen:
Don't use butter if you have gravy. Or I don't use butter if I have gravy. I don't even think... It's not even telling someone they should or shouldn't do it. It's just saying it's a matter of fact, I don't use butter if I have gravy. That's the type of person that I am. I think that's the declaration.
Doug Burke:
Well, I like the language of the song. I like the onions being cut on a board. You can almost smell it in the song. You could smell the food from your grandmother and grandpa heading off to Chicago. What else do you want to say about Science of Gravy?
Davey Allen:
I don't know. The song is so near and dear to me. It's hard to even perform some times if I'm in a particular mood without getting emotional about it, because it is such a love letter to my grandparents and to how thankful I am for them in my life.
Doug Burke:
How did they react the first time you played it to them?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. My grandfather... I think it was this time, he has a hard time, I think, showing his emotion in a more overt way. I think he pretended like he had a cramp in his leg and left the room or something.
Doug Burke:
So he could cry in private.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. That was what I got from it. So I know it meant a lot to him. And he mentions it.
Doug Burke:
He mentions it now? Does he ever ask for the song? "Could you play Science of Gravy for me?"
Davey Allen:
He asks, "Oh, how's it doing? Do people like it?" He's interested in the song. He said it's a good song. Because he appreciates it on a particular level, and I think that he wants to know that other people appreciate it as well.
Doug Burke:
Do they come to your shows?
Davey Allen:
When we're in Indiana and the setting is right, yes. They show their support.
Doug Burke:
Is there a venue in Monticello that you play?
Davey Allen:
Oddly enough there's a couple. It's a small town, 5,000 people. Because it's on a Lake near Chicago, on any given weekend there can be 75,000 people, or 100,000 people there in the area. And so there's Indiana Beach, which unfortunately after 94 years, just a month ago closed, but it was a gas gig before the interstate system Highway 421 from Chicago to Indianapolis. And in the '60s before bands started to play in theaters, they had Janis Joplin, The Who, The Yardbirds would come through and play in our small little towns. So there's a rich history of music there. So when I was growing up, I would play at Indiana Beach in the Roof Garden Lounge. And then there's also a boat on the river that has music, the Madam Caroll. We're playing there this summer, June 28th. And it goes out for two runs it's two sets. And then it comes back to dock. So you can stay on if you want the second one is more rockers usually. And you play on the boat. Yeah. It's great.
Doug Burke:
Maybe your grandparents will take that trip with you.
Davey Allen:
I hope so.
Doug Burke:
Next on the record is Little Sis. You seem to like to write about your family. Do you have a sister?
Davey Allen:
I do. This song didn't star about her, but she's in it. I put her in it, but it didn't star about her at all.
Doug Burke:
Then what's it about?
Davey Allen:
Well, the first verse, it's just I like the idea of Little Sis. I didn't realize that it was... Maybe moniker is not the right... It's not a term of endearment or something like that, anyways, in the South and I heard Willie Nelson play last summer, saw him for the first time in person and his sister who his actually his older sister, Bobby. They call her Little Sis and she's two years older than Willie. It's crazy, right? Yeah. I mean, she's almost 90. So I was like, "I got to write something for sister Bobby, because that's just too good, Little Sis." That's the gem of that whole family story, the traveling band. And it started off with the first verse something that I heard in an interview Willie say about Bobby was that when the show gets too out of control or he needs to find himself or center himself, he feels so comfortable with her. He just throws her the reins and she'll go off on the piano and he'll step away and collect his thoughts and come back and be ready for the next spot. So the lyrics, the "Little Sis, Little Sis please take the reins. My body is weary, the band still must play." It's about like, "Oh man, how much more of this do we got to go?" And that's the first verse.
Doug Burke:
So this is about Willie Nelson's older sister.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah. His little sis.
Doug Burke:
Little sis, Bobby.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
No kidding. I would never would have guessed that. That's amazing.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Well the first verse and then the second verse is a different Little Sis. The second verse is Miley Cyrus who also her family has a term of endearment. I don't know what we would call that. Oh, well. Little Sis. They call her Little Sis in the family and I have a very particular Miley Cyrus story, that's the verse. I first moved to Los Angeles. I had kind of a small little deal with a person who owned a small recording studio, a nice recording studio in LA and he was pretty much financing my releases. We released an EP and we had the release party at the Viper Room. One of my friends, another guy who plays with me in the Eric Burdon band, Johnzo, he did a song with Miley a few years back, a Bob Dylan cover, You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go. And they have a relationship and they're close. And so he invited her to the release party because his band was also releasing some music, I was releasing music. It was just a new LA experience for me. I hadn't been there very long.
Doug Burke:
That's the first time at the Viper Room?
Davey Allen:
First time at the Viper Room, and then the curtain opens up at the Viper Room and it's Miley Cyrus sitting right there. The whole show I was just having the time of my life. No worries. I felt like I had done the whole thing. And outside, she came up to me and just came up and said... Wanted to show how much she appreciated the music, and it was a cool moment. She made that moment happen, so it made me feel good that I didn't have to search anybody out. So it was cool.
Doug Burke:
And so did you find out that night that she was called Little Sis and you're like, "Oh, that's the second verse of my song."
Davey Allen:
No, no, no, no. That was...
Doug Burke:
When did it come to you?
Davey Allen:
This song came years later. Seven years. Six years later. But I knew through a conversation about Miley that the family called her Little Sis.
Doug Burke:
And so tell me about the verse that's about Miley Cyrus here.
Davey Allen:
Oh yeah. That's the one. It's, "Little Sis, Little Sis I remember it well the night that I threw all my chips down the well."
Doug Burke:
Yes.
Davey Allen:
Because I thought I had made it. That was the thing. This is it right here.
Doug Burke:
I wrote that down, Chips down the well. What does that mean?
Davey Allen:
I don't know. The imagery to me is that I'm all in on this thing. I know I'm going to be staying here. This is my life. I'm accepting this as my life.
Doug Burke:
And you talk about Sunset and Clark. And I was like, "Is that Los Angeles? He's from Indiana, but the Viper Room is on Sunset and Clark."
Davey Allen:
Yeah. I think Clark might be on the other end of the street because we were smoking weed or something like that. And we were just down from it, but not right in front of the club, but yeah. Right in that area. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And are there any other little sisters in the song?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. The last verse is my little sis. That's the thing. Yeah. My little sister -
Doug Burke:
So seven years later, you said, "All right, I got Willie Nelson's older sister, I got Miley Cyrus. Who else can I come up with for the third verse?"
Davey Allen:
And my little sister, Carrie Lynn Allen. Yup. We were close in age, a year and a half apart. People always thought we were twins. We looked so much alike.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. They call that Irish twins.
Davey Allen:
Irish twins. Is that right?
Doug Burke:
Yes.
Davey Allen:
I've never heard before.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. Irish twins.
Davey Allen:
Okay. I'll have to tell her about that.
Doug Burke:
I have an Irish twin. She's 16 months younger than I am. She calls herself the accident.
Davey Allen:
Is that because... She calls her the accident.
Doug Burke:
The accident.
Davey Allen:
Oh, okay. Does that have to do with contraception and... Is that the Irish part?
Doug Burke:
Yeah. Yeah.
Davey Allen:
Okay. Okay.
Doug Burke:
It's you just had a baby, and now you're having another one within the same...
Davey Allen:
Oh man. Yeah. Totally get that. Yeah. So my little sister, she still lives in Indiana. It's tough being away from family because I don't have any other family. My wife now she's my family in California, but otherwise my family is far away. I think that's what I was trying to communicate in that verse, is that, no matter whether I'm there or here, trouble's going to find you. And I think if you hold close to the ties of your family, knowing your family, even if you are far away, that you can still be with those people in the times of need.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. It really felt like you were providing some brotherly advice here to me in that verse.
Davey Allen:
Maybe. I don't know, subconsciously.
Doug Burke:
Anything unique about the production of this? Same recording studio?
Davey Allen:
This one is a little bit different because I had just gotten back from a tour with Eric Burdon and the tour, it didn't go badly. It was just I was feeling like I hadn't been as productive with my own music as I should be. Kind of looking like, "Okay. I feel like I've accomplished this thing. I play with Eric Burdon. I have something. That's something. But where do I stand with my own music?" And so when I got back, I already had a rehearsal space in Inglewood at the time. Inglewood, California, also close to the airport, just on the other side of the airport. I made it a point to go in every day when I came home from the tour and I hadn't planned on this being on any type of releasable thing, I just kind of wanted to see if I could do it on my own. And I had my acoustic guitar and the whole song is just me except for the dobro part is Brandon Conway who plays pedal steel on our band. So this one is kind of a more DIY and decided afterwards to include it with this because Brandon was on it and it's a song that we perform as a band, but the instrumentation on this one is mostly me.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. I noticed that several of your songs have dobro on them.
Davey Allen:
Yep. Dobro, pedal steel.
Doug Burke:
You use a lot of creativity with the strings.
Davey Allen:
Uh-huh. Yes. We're a musical band.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. And most of that is yourself or when you're on tour or in the recording studio you use others as well.
Davey Allen:
Well, it depends on the tour. We're pretty far away from home right now, so we bring the three-piece out into new territory. But when we travel with the guys, I play acoustic and piano and there's an electric guitar player, Greg Cahill. Brandon Conway on pedal steel.
Doug Burke:
Okay. So this is a strip down show that I saw.
Davey Allen:
There you're correct. Yes.
Doug Burke:
And your bass player is wearing a dress, Perry Farrell style?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. I don't know that reference.
Doug Burke:
Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction. He wears a dress on stage.
Davey Allen:
Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. He does. Yes. Yeah. His name came up recently. My friend, Nick Maybury-
Doug Burke:
He was in LA.
Davey Allen:
... great guitar player, he plays with... What's his name again?
Doug Burke:
Jane's Addiction, Perry Farrell. The costuming, but it's just a little different.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah. And Corey does a great job because he has a lot of different dresses that he wears and a lot of them are bedazzled in a particular way that he's done embroidered and... The thing about it is that when we first started playing, he didn't really have the style quite down, so I think along the way people have helped him get the correct makeup that accentuates the dress with the shoes and the nails. And so now he has I think a bit more... I don't think he would have a problem with me saying that I appreciate it very much that he's done a great job. My nails are so dirty. His nails always look so good.
Doug Burke:
Old River, the next song in your EP.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Also about the river I grew up on in Monticello. It's technically a Lake. There were two dams that were put in the area in the 1920s. The Oakdale Dam was later. The Norway Dam, which I grew up near made a lake out of the Tippecanoe River and they called it Shafer Lake and later became Lake Shafer. But the song in particular or the emotion that I wanted to give from the song, I had this thing at a certain point where I was itching to go, leave, before I could. And I knew geographically that the water that was coming right by my room would flow into the Wabash River, into the Ohio River, into the Mississippi River and all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. And if I wanted to, I could get in a canoe or a kayak and I'd have to get out and go around. But if I really wanted to, I could do it. And for some reason that provided some comfort for whatever reason.
Doug Burke:
The actual river is the Tippecanoe River from the famous saying, Tippecanoe and Tyler too.
Davey Allen:
Tippecanoe. Yeah. Of course.
Doug Burke:
Who were they? Do you remember? Where you taught them in history because you lived there?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah. We actually - Yeah, I think so. I am a fan of history, so it's hard to tell if I would have known, but yeah, William Henry Harrison, he's a... There's a Battle Ground near where we grew up in between our town in Lafayette, which is the next big town where Purdue University is in West Lafayette and it's called Battle Ground. It's a town. And it's The Battle of Tippecanoe, and William Henry Harrison was the hero of the battle, ran for president as a... He was like the average Joe type of guy. He would go around and he'd have a drink with you, old tip. But then he gave the longest inauguration speech in history and died of pneumonia a month later. So also the shortest presidency I think.
Doug Burke:
That's what he's famous for?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Tippecanoe and Tyler too.
Doug Burke:
And this river, Tippecanoe, that was named after some general in the war? Or who is Tippecanoe?
Davey Allen:
Tippecanoe flows up to Tippecanoe. It's the Tippecanoe river and I believe it's the Pottawatomie Indians. That may be wrong, but there is a... It's actually a really dark history and it's embarrassing, but it's the tribe that lived near the mouth of the Tippecanoe River, were kind of rounded up and marched to Kansas at one point. So the Cherokee Indians have the Trail of Tears and the Pottawatomie Indians have the Trail of Death that comes right through that area, along that river.
Doug Burke:
And is that in the song? Because it's not one of your more upbeat songs.
Davey Allen:
No, it's not. I have a song that's not on this record. That is about that particular incident, but this one is more of a... It's slower, but I think the language is more positive.
Doug Burke:
Right. The Old River is telling you what? It's a way to get out of Monticello, because it can get you to the Gulf of Mexico if you keep going.
Davey Allen:
No. I mean that was kind of the surface level thing. But I think the solace and to put me in my place and to show that... To look at the river and to see how it erodes and see how it just constantly goes. And nothing's going to stop that or it'd be difficult. I live next to the dam, so... But the idea of being able to push through and to move on, things naturally move. To not feel I was wrong in my thinking.
Doug Burke:
Some lines really caught my attention. Oh, blind forgiveness.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. I've learned to lie. I think it's a Midwestern thing maybe. Sometimes you repress your feelings as to not offend someone and it ends up making the situation more difficult and you're lying to them and you're lying to yourself. And yeah, Blind forgiveness, what have you taught me? Just to forgive blindly it's… I mean, I grew up in a religious household and we were always taught to forgive and that's a very important thing and a very important process of asking for forgiveness and receiving forgiveness, and it was always... You can have pride in humility I think. It was a race to forgive and that's not how that process works in a healthy way, in my opinion. And so I think that as I grow, as we all grow, I'm looking back and thinking, "Well, it's not a race to forgiveness." It's good to step back and say, "How does this thing affect me? How do I go forward in a relationship if it's with another person? Or whatever. How do you reconcile it within yourself?" And that's not always the quickest thing to do, or it's not the most healthy thing to do it quickly.
Doug Burke:
And later in the song you say, "I believe in madness."
Davey Allen:
Yeah. I believe in madness, you believe in mercy and it takes all kinds. I realized that, I don't know if it's a philosophy, but my life choices are done more in a short term viewpoint compared to my peers, people I grew up with and things like that. And I think the mercy is... I'm not for sure what that meant now. I know it means… For me now it talks about the thing we were just talking about, the blind forgiveness, but my madness is just different and it's okay to be different. And it takes all kinds. You have to live with one another. The last chorus is different from the other choruses and it's, "You've been by my side, given hope in disguise, your watery flow." And I always really liked that line right there. That just makes me smile when we finished the song. I just like the way it flows together.
Doug Burke:
Really nice. Beautiful song. Yes. One of my favorite songs I saw you finished your show with, wish Me To Hell. It's a great closing song. I think probably in your set list. You might keep it there or...
Davey Allen:
Generally.
Doug Burke:
Generally.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. And then it used to be that we used to close with a different one. In the last six months or so that's become our closer.
Doug Burke:
I guess this is a breakup, song or...
Davey Allen:
Oh yeah. I was in Indiana living and I had a relationship that went south rather quickly, rather-
Doug Burke:
Pretty far south.
Davey Allen:
Pretty far south and unexpectedly. It caught me off guard. Just swept me off my feet a bit. And it worked out in a particular way. It was the best thing that could possibly happen to me. And I didn't see it that way at the time. It's funny how things appear with distance, but yeah, I've got to go. I've got to fly. That's how I knew. Immediately when it happened and before my feet had even hit the ground, when they got swept out, I knew I was ready for a new release on life. And it was provided to me by my lovely wife, Abigail. Now we're married, but she was moving to California and we went on a few dates and she said, "Hey, I've got to go." And I was like, "Well, I'm just going to come along. This sounds great if you don't mind." So that's how my life in California started. Yeah. I got to go. I got to fly too.
Doug Burke:
Hop on the airplane with her, or did you drive across country?
Davey Allen:
Let's see. Well, she went out first, because I wasn't prepared to go just that quick. So she lived in West Hollywood with family, with her brother-in-law, my now brother-in-law and sister-in-law. I stayed in Indiana for the summer and I played piano at the amusement park across the Lake. I canoed over and took a little song book and played in the lounge and played in the dining room. And few months in that fall, I drove out. We didn't have a car at first. I flew back, got a car and drove it.
Doug Burke:
So, To Wish Me To Hell. You break up with this girl, or I guess this girl breaks up with you.
Davey Allen:
I'm not sure exactly how it happened.
Doug Burke:
So is it a mutual-
Davey Allen:
I may have been drinking heavily in that moment.
Doug Burke:
When does the song come to you after the breakup?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Well, I was really against it because she said something that just really pissed me off. Something like, "Oh, maybe you can just write a song about the whole thing and get over it." And that was like... Well, that is just so rotten to say. So I didn't for a long time. I think I had been in California a few years and then I was like, "Now it's time to write it."
Doug Burke:
And you couldn't do it because she told you to do it.
Davey Allen:
Right. Exactly.
Doug Burke:
But now you, have you seen her? Does she know this song is about her?
Davey Allen:
No. She doesn't.
Doug Burke:
She does now. That's funny. I just like how upbeat this song is and I like the way your bass player jumps around the stage.
Davey Allen:
Oh yeah. Yeah. That's the one. Any gas left in the tan you put it right there. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Tell me about the song. Tell me about the music.
Davey Allen:
Oh, the music, music wise. Oh yeah. Well the instrumentation... This is like... Especially when we... You saw us as the three piece, but when we'd have the full band for the release and for when we do our California tours, it's like a pedal steel and electric guitar jam. It goes back and forth. It's high energy, and Brandon on pedal steel and Greg Cahill on electric guitar. The song initially didn't have this middle section, but a live show, I think maybe at Pappy & Harriet's one time we were just trying to extend it, to light the fire to keep going. And we kind of got into this really cool walk down, walk up situation. And then eventually in the rehearsal studio, we put this kind of - and it's really high energy and really fun in a live show, especially with the pedal steel and the electric, it's just... The roof blows off.
Doug Burke:
What would you call your style of music? What category? Every artist hates to be categorized, and so maybe it's not fair. It's okay if you want to use 20 different labels here when you describe your sound that you're going for on your music.
Davey Allen:
First and foremost from my perspective, it's a singer-songwriter Americana band, because these are songs that I'm mostly writing and bringing to the table, and then these guys, these amazing musicians, play and make it to the next level. I have the song mostly written, but they're adding instrumental parts like the wish Me To Hell. Break down like that. Now I've forgotten the question. Sorry.
Doug Burke:
No, no. We are at the category of song, Americana. That's good. That's kind of what I would put you.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah. Because sometimes we're folk-
Doug Burke:
Sometimes country.
Davey Allen:
Sometimes country.
Doug Burke:
And definitely some rock.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. And it's kind of-
Doug Burke:
Classic rock.
Davey Allen:
Classic rock. Definitely. Oh yeah. Definitely. I call that Canadian rock.
Doug Burke:
Canadian rock.
Davey Allen:
I don't know why.
Doug Burke:
Because it came from Neil Young.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. This is just like... I guess so. That's the vibe I get.
Doug Burke:
Your last song in your EP, Sad Souls. Old Guy Clark. You grew up listening to him?
Davey Allen:
Not really. No, no, no, no, no. I didn't grow up listening to him. I think I was a teenager and there was a record store I used to go to. J&L Records I think the name is, in West Lafayette, Indiana. J&L, I think so. But I would go there and they had all these great, great vinyl records, which is a great selection for the town. It was just like… I kind of believed that was something I could get in Lafayette. And when I would go, there was a DVD section, the Heartworn Highways DVD, which was a Townes Van Zandt thing. And that's how I discovered Guy Clark through Townes. I knew about Townes, then discovered Guy and Susanna and then started listening to his music in my 20s. Mid 20s, I'd say.
Doug Burke:
And did he inspire the Sad souls?
Davey Allen:
Not necessarily. I think that's kind of the point of the song is to say that sad songs and sad souls and people that are sad, there's this idea that these people are not enjoying life to the fullest or something. That combined with our mental health crisis in the United States, in the world. It's important that we recognize our sadness and release and remove the stigma of being sad because I think a level person is sad and also happy. And if you're sad, you can enjoy the happy times more. And fake happiness is not true happiness and putting on a face and putting on makeup, Feral is not little makeup, but putting on a face. We all do it to an extent, but it's not healthy to live your entire life like that.
Doug Burke:
This song is when your religious foundation comes through in the line, let's join in this communion.
Davey Allen:
It's funny when I wrote it, it wasn't intentional. It just seemed to fit. And then as I listened to the song and as the song morphed, and I think there was a different verse and a rewrite here and there, I was like, "Oh wow, this has got some serious religious overtones." It goes back to, I grew up playing in the church. From 15, 16 years old, I was leading the band, the choir and doing that.
Doug Burke:
What was the name of the church?
Davey Allen:
Lake Shafer Christian Center. At the First Assemblies of God Pentecostal, Acts chapter two, believing, gifts of the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues, dancing in the aisle. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Get out.
Davey Allen:
Come on. The whole thing.
Doug Burke:
Sounds good. Sounds like a good show.
Davey Allen:
It's a great show. And that's kind of where I learned the art of show and how to entertain people and how to keep people's attention to do it hopefully without them knowing about it. And I just said this recently to someone else, but as I've grown in that there's an added responsibility when people come to you. And that's the point we are talking about is that the Sad souls, people are coming in wanting to be filled. People, generally that I've found, they come to our show and they want to experience, they want to be filled up with something. We are giving them something and then they give it back to us and it can happen multiple times within the show, this transference of energy. But I find it's our responsibility to put out good vibrations in this transference of energy because it happens.
Doug Burke:
So Dear John he left us on the 4th of July and Dear Abby she missed out.
Davey Allen:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Are these people you know? Are these-
Davey Allen:
This is a... So I was riding, I had the last verse and I had the first verse I needed another... It was too short. And I was writing early in the morning. My wife, Abigail, I don't think we were married at the time. We weren't married at the time. And she was, I don't know, making breakfast or doing something in the kitchen. And I said, "Abby, name a president I should write about." And she said, "John Adams." So it's John Adams. It's about John. I don't know if he's a sad soul or not. This verse is kind of... I don't know how it fits in exactly, but it's... I mean people can hang their hat on -
Doug Burke:
Well, he left on the 4th of July. That's a sad story, right?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. He did. He died on the 4th of July.
Doug Burke:
He did. I didn't know that.
Davey Allen:
And he died, and his wife tried to make it back.
Doug Burke:
Oh, Abby.
Davey Allen:
Abigail Adams-
Doug Burke:
Abigail Adams.
Davey Allen:
... tried to make it back before he passed. And it was rather quick and she didn't make it back. Not in time before he passed.
Doug Burke:
Oh, that's what that's about. Okay.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. So I wrote it real quick. It was just like that, and that was the verse. There we go.
Doug Burke:
I was thinking it was Dear Abby from the column.
Davey Allen:
Well, then once I wrote it, then I was like, "Okay, this works." Because dear John, is it dear John, a letter or something and Dear Abby, the columnist. Yeah, exactly. That's funny.
Doug Burke:
And then I like that you go into a guitar break. You don't actually have a break in the song, right?
Davey Allen:
No. Not -
Doug Burke:
It's just a guitar break.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. Yeah. It's just the chorus progression again, repeated a few times and live, we build it up, build it up, build it up, build it up, build it up. Usually when Greg's playing guitar. Oh, he rips on that one. Yeah. That musical break was definitely for his guitar.
Doug Burke:
Then when you write the song do you like, "Guitar break," and just-
Davey Allen:
Sometimes.
Doug Burke:
Do you actually write the breakout on your guitar.
Davey Allen:
No. I might have a line or a little lick that I have and it's happened that I'll bring the lick and then immediately within a minute, the dudes are playing something way cooler that I could never even begin to play, so-
Doug Burke:
They're so good.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. They're just amazing.
Doug Burke:
They're top session musicians around.
Davey Allen:
I will put them up against any other dudes around. Yeah. No doubt.
Doug Burke:
Eric Burdon won't play with any amateurs. I know that. And you're drinking table wine from a big old jug at the end.
Davey Allen:
That's the drummer, Mike Sanson and myself. We lived in Indianapolis at the time. We were pretty dirt poor and that's all we could afford, was to get the big Carlo Rossi jug and we'd sit on our porch just to pass the time and maybe pick a little guitar and pass this big old jug around.
Doug Burke:
On Broad Ripple Street.
Davey Allen:
It's off of Broad Ripple Avenue.
Doug Burke:
Broad Ripple Avenue.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. We are on a-
Doug Burke:
That's a great name.
Davey Allen:
Yeah. It's an... We lived in South Broad Ripple. It's a little village within Indianapolis and yeah, we lived on Carrollton Avenue.
Doug Burke:
Anything else you want to talk about on Sad Souls?
Davey Allen:
Well, the studio work. Yeah, that one's interesting because we had decided to do this EP a few months back and Old River as well will go along with the Sad Soul thing is that we recorded Science of Gravy. We recorded Wish Me To Hell and Little Sis. Then I brought to the table that I had done on my own with Brandon, and it was like, "Okay, this is looking like an EP." And it's like, "What else do we got?" I went through the computer of things that we had recorded, demos we had recorded over the last two or three years and that Sad Souls and Old River were demos we had done at our old space in Inglewood. And I was like, "I think we can salvage these. I'll put a new vocal on them and we'll do a nicer acoustic thing." And that's what it is. It was two years old on the production, and it's Mike on the drums, Mike Sanson on the drums. And also that last verse, the Broad Ripple sitting on the porch. I really like Kurt Vonnegut. And he used to live in that neighborhood and get out and he used to, supposedly as the legend goes, drink at the Red Key, which is a bar on College Avenue. I'm sorry. On College Avenue. I feel like a connoisseur of bars. And the Red Key is one of my favorite of all time. It's great.
Doug Burke:
In Indianapolis. That's the place to go.
Davey Allen:
Yup. They got rules. No jackets on the back of your chair. There's no Jukebox while Euchre is being played and no moving the furniture either.
Doug Burke:
Euchres? Bob Uecker? What's Euchre?
Davey Allen:
Euchre is a-
Doug Burke:
Oh, Euchre is a card game in the Midwest.
Davey Allen:
Very Indiana.
Doug Burke:
Very Indiana thing.
Davey Allen:
Midwest. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
You can't play the jukebox while people are playing Euchre?
Davey Allen:
Yeah. No-
Doug Burke:
You have to talk while you're playing Euchre.
Davey Allen:
This is just... I think so.
Doug Burke:
Or this is a serious game you've got to concentrate.
Davey Allen:
I think it's - I'm not for sure why. I know the gentleman has passed on, but the owner of the bar when I was there was in his 90s I think, and he was coming in and having Euchre games during the day. And I was a musician, so I'd be in there during the day playing the piano. They have a piano. We used to at least… I'd play jukebox. And then whenever he was ready to play, they'd come in and they'd be like, "Turn it off." And the bartender would have to remind me like, "Hey, it's Euchre today."
Doug Burke:
That's a great story. Well, I got to thank you, Davey Allen from the band Davey And The Midnights. How'd you come up with the name?
Davey Allen:
We had a couple ideas floating around just people, Davey and this and I can't remember all the ideas, but that one was just the one that I thought was like, "Okay, that's the one." Later on we found out there was Bobby and the Midnites, Bobby Weir from the Grateful Dead.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. He did do that.
Davey Allen:
Honestly, people were like... Like we would play at Terrapin Crossroads at Phil Lesh's place. August tour.
Doug Burke:
You have played there.
Davey Allen:
This is our third time that we played there and we always have a great time, but every time someone comes up and they're like, "So Davey And The Midnights, where'd you get that from?" I think they bait me for the Bobby and the Midnites, but honestly I had no idea at the time, but it was a...
Doug Burke:
What's it like playing Phil's place there.
Davey Allen:
Oh, it's a blast.
Doug Burke:
Is it a blast?
Davey Allen:
It's a blast. Yeah. There's just a good vibe around. And I think each time we've played the experience has gotten better and better and they treat you well. And I think one time we played, it was nice and sunny so we could be outside, but we've mostly played in the bar, not in the Great Room. The Great Room is where they do the showcases and we're more traveling through town showing off what we got. Hopefully sell some T-shirts.
Doug Burke:
One day you'll make a Great Room.
Davey Allen:
We'll see. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
You're on your way.
Davey Allen:
Well, thank you. Thank you so much for coming.
Doug Burke:
Thank you.
