Moonalice is a 10-member musical aggregation intent on keeping the psychedelic spirit of San Francisco alive for another generation. “We call ourselves a collective, not a band,” said Lester Chambers, one of the group’s lead singers. “We’re a musical family that’s come together to share the music we love. We enjoy each other’s company, and all our decisions are collaborative. Our musical director and lead guitarist, Barry Sless [Flying Other Brothers, Chris Robinson Brotherhood], brings everything into focus for us. Sometimes our conversations about a song we’re going to play are so exploratory that we can perform it almost perfectly, the first time we play it.”
Chambers was the lead singer of the Chambers Brothers, one of the first psychedelic bands to have a mainstream hit. “Time Has Come Today,” a single from their 1967 album, The Time Has Come, stayed on Billboard’s pop charts for more than a month. In addition to Sless, the band includes Pete Sears (Jefferson Starship, Rod Stewart) on bass, Roger McNamee (advisor to the Grateful Dead, U2 and author of the NY Times bestselling Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe) on guitar, the T Sisters—Erika, Rachael and Chloe Tietjen—on lead and harmony vocals, Jason Crosby (Susan Tedeschi Band) on keyboards, drummer John Molo (Bruce Hornsby, Phil Lesh and Friends) and Lester’s son Dylan on lead vocals and percussion.
“It’s great being in a band that’s able and willing to play in so many diverse styles,” Dylan Chambers said. “We do country, soul, rock, folk and blues, creating a sound that will appeal to all Americans and help open their eyes to what’s going on in this country. A lot of this kind of music is done by white men, so having some diversity can be powerful. That’s why having people of color and women singing lead vocals is important. Obama and Kamala Harris got elected, but that’s not all the progress that needs to happen. It’s putting a band aid over the wound, but it’s still festering. That’s why we do ‘People Get Ready.’ It’s an old tune, but the lyrics are still relevant.”
That song is one of the tracks on their new EP, Full Moonalice, Vol. 1. It was recorded during the pandemic and will be released on April 20. Lester Chambers spoke about the problems the shutdown caused for them. “We had to cancel shows we had lined up,” he said. “Half of us are older, Roger [McNamee] is 65 and John [Molo] is 69, so we had to make sure we don’t expose anyone. We lived as pleasantly as we could with the quarantine. We had some moments of enjoyment, when we got together with the other musicians to make this record.”
“We communicated with each other to choose the songs we’d do, then had sessions at three different studios, with producer Dave Way [Fiona Apple, Norah Jones, Eric Clapton],” he added. “We were all masked and distanced. Everybody had to do a PCR test a couple of days before we got together and a rapid test just before the sessions. I wouldn’t say we were too cautious, but we were rightly concerned. Everyone was separated in different parts of the studio. We all wore masks, except when people were singing.”
The songs they chose for their EP include three favorites Lester cut with the Chambers Brothers on their first album—“People Get Ready,” “Time Has Come Today” and “Let’s Get Funky.” They also cover the Otis Redding classic, “Dock of the Bay” and introduce two originals, Rachael Tietjen’s “Woo Woo” and “Nick of Time,” written by McNamee and his wife Ann.
Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” opens on a bluesy note, with a harmonica solo from Lester. Then the T Sisters start singing powerful, wordless gospel harmonies, as Crosby plays long, sustained chords with a Southern gospel feel. “It’s always been a moving song for me,” Lester said. “Even though it was written many years ago, the words still have the same positive message. It’s more gospel than the version we did so long ago, but you could do that song as many times as there are days in the year and it’d always be moving and beautiful.”
While they were waiting to get back on the road, the band began performing livestreams on their Facebook page. The concerts added almost a half-million followers to their fanbase. “We took different approaches to the livestreams,” Dylan said. “Sometimes, we performed from our homes. Sometimes, we went into a studio as a band. Since the pandemic started, we did about 500 livestream shows. We also kept busy recording and have 30 or 40 songs ready to be released.”
