A versatile singer, songwriter, pianist, and multi-instrumentalist with credits all over the place,
Zach Gill is best known as a founding member of California rock outfit
Animal Liberation Orchestra (
ALO) and for his work with singer/songwriter
Jack Johnson. A native of Saratoga, California,
Gill got an early start in music, forming a band in middle school with friends Steve Adams and
Dan Lebowitz. After numerous iterations together, various spells in college, and a tour of the South during which they received career advice from
James Brown, the trio eventually formed
ALO in 1998 and began to build a following gigging and recording around San Francisco and the Bay Area. A hard-working musician,
Gill always seemed to be in motion, and his calendar in the early 2000s included work teaching music at a private school, acting as musical director for local theater companies, and playing both as a solo artist and with
ALO. In 2005, the band signed with Brushfire Records, a label owned by college friend
Johnson, whose band
Gill would soon join both on tour and in the studio.
Following
ALO's 2007 album
Roses & Clover and
Johnson's 2008 release Sleep Through the Static,
Gill released his own solo debut,
Stuff. A warmly detailed singer/songwriter set that encompassed a variety of styles and instrumentation, the album featured guest spots from both of his primary bands. At the turn of the decade, he remained busy with both
Johnson and
ALO, recording a pair of albums with the former and three with the latter. In addition to his main projects,
Gill has written and recorded with
Aimee Mann and
Jerry Harrison, yielding the song "At the Edge of the World," which was featured in the documentary An Arctic Tale. He also had his music featured on the soundtrack to the Curious George movie. A Christmas LP called
Roastin' Chestnuts with Zach Gill appeared in 2013, followed in 2015 by
ALO's eighth album,
Tangle of Time. His proper second solo album,
Life in the Multiverse, was released in the summer of 2017. ~ Timothy Monger