Sean Rawls (formerly of Masters of the Hemisphere) was so in love with a song he wrote (while with another band Je Suis France) that he later formed a band — Still Flyin’ — around it.
It was a reggae song. That song was “Never Gonna Touch The Ground” which would later, unsurprisingly, be the title of the band’s debut. When he relocated from Georgia to San Francisco, he enlisted his west coast friends to join and practically everyone he asked did just that.
I’ve heard of people labeling Still Flyin’ as a super-group given the sheer number of members — somewhere upwards of 15. The band isn’t Velvet Revolver or even Tinted Windows, but it does definitely know how to hammjamm.
If you haven’t heard that term before, then you’re not the only one. It’s a completely made-up, self-diagnosed description of the band’s genre-defying original sound. Pretentious? Okkervil River‘s Will Sheff doesn’t think so.
After listening Never Gonna Touch The Ground, I was left feeling that the numerous friends had a blast making the record. The White Album Part II, it isn’t, but then again Still Flyin’ didn’t set out to make that. The eponymous track perfectly depicts a laid-back, just-happy-to-be-making-music mood the band exudes on the entire debut album.
It’s obvious that Still Flyin’ wants to spend their time jamming or hammjamming or just ‘following the itinerary.’ The latter is a song on the album and is also supposedly an inside catchphrase since it’s plastered over much of the band’s stuff. I won’t presume to know what it is, but its inviting chants mimic the come-sing-along attitude that carries on other pop-friendly tunes like “Good Thing It’s A Ghost Town Around Here” and “The Hott Chord Is Struck” and “Forever Dudes.”
Still Flyin’ isn’t your conventional band, and oddly enough reggae, ska, or indie seemingly doesn’t appear appropriate for them. Hammjamm? Sure. Why not? Nothing else fits.
[photos via Ernest Jenning Record Co.]
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Track list:
- 1. Never Gonna Touch The Ground
2. Following The Itinerary
3. Forever Dudes
4. Good Thing It’s A Ghost Town Around Here
5. Act Of Jamming
6. The Hott Chord Is Struck
7. No Go Kart Ideas
8. Haunted Houses
9. Dead Memory Man
10. Ginko Biloba
11. Aerosmith, Take Me To The Other Side