SMOOTH GROOVES AND SOLID TUNES!
SOULS & SOUNDS CHATS WITH THE CREATORS OF
A PERFECT NUMBER!
In 2001, musicians Phil Aballo (lead vocals/guitar) and Greg Goforth (rhythm guitar), had no idea that meeting each other through a Dave Matthews Band fan website would lead them to making original songs, putting together a full band and recording their first full length album four years later!
Former percussionist and Sigma Nu fraternity brother, Aballo and current Fresno State music major, Goforth--are the creators of Fresno, California's acoustic funk/rock hybrid, A Perfect Number, who blend rhythmic guitar riffs with an infectious and danceable back beat.
They combine these elements with heart wrenching lyrics and an exuberant performance that is guaranteed to leave their audiences in awe at the end of every show.
I sat down with Phil & Greg to talk about how they started APN, performing in the snow and the future of band!
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Raina: How did A Perfect Number start?
Phil: I'd started playing guitar in '98 and in 2001, I really took on playing the guitar 'seriously'. I wanted to learn how to play songs and I've always been intrigued with Dave Matthews' style of playing, so of course, I started matching his style which is very unorthodox.
Then I started learning a lot of his songs and doing covers and I figured I needed someone to do the songs with, so I went on a Dave Matthews Band website and I posted on there saying I was interested in getting a couple of musicians to play Dave covers. Then Greg found it...
Greg: ...I'd just moved here from Reno, Nevada and I was big into Dave too and happened to see the posting on the website.
Phil:... then he came over one day and we basically played the same thing. I played rhythm guitar and he played rhythm guitar and I sang. We played once together and then that was it for about a year! (laughs) Just once, then I was like "oh well, this was fun..whatever..."
Raina: So it was just you two doing the acoustic thing when you first jammed?
Greg: Yeah, that's what it was--you talk with somebody on a website, then you have to go meet them and all ...(laughs)...you just never know what's gonna go down.
Phil: So we played that once and that was it for a while. I lived by Casey's Bar & Grill on Herndon & Polk for a while and one of my fraternity brothers was a bartender there. He'd just let me come in and play all the time and I bought myself a little tiny P.A., got my guitar, and I'd sit there and just sing Dave songs and my own songs...it was fun for awhile.
Then I needed Greg again for a little thing I did with the fraternity at Fresno State. My brothers elected me to do a talent show on campus and I thought I'd play the guitar for the show...but I didn't want to go up there by myself and I hadn't spoken Greg in a while. So I called him and asked if he wanted to perform that night. The funny thing is that performance never happened. But what was really cool was that it got us playing together again. Plus, I lived much closer to him then (he, in Clovis--me, by Fresno State) and we were able to spend a lot more time to practice together...
Greg: ..."Developing our 'relationship'..."
(LAUGHS)
Greg:...no, really I'm engaged!.
Phil......(laughs)....so from then on we started our acoustic act and we played at Casey's Bar & Grill like every weekend for the longest time!
Raina: How long did you guys play there?
Phil: We started playing there in the Fall of 2003 and we started getting more fans and our friends started coming out to see us more. By '04 we thought we should try to find some more guys to play with so it's not just us up there. It was getting really fun--just us playing and it will always be but we just wanted to try it....
Greg: ...we had set our goals as high as we could early on that if it didn't happen, well at least we tried. The goal was to put a band together and that came out of just talking to our friends who were musicians.
Phil: ...yeah, we knew a lot of musicians. I'm a musician from Fresno State and so is Greg, so we knew a lot of guys who played different instruments and we just decided to put a band together. I was just like, "hey, we like playing these songs--if you guys could learn them, etc."
Raina: So you guys started off as a Dave Matthews Band cover band?
Phil: At first it was supposed to be! That really was all we knew how to play--the style of guitar playing at least. So we started to play DMB songs, but Greg and I decided to start doing our original stuff we had written before the band started. We were like, "ok, now let's take these songs to the band and see what they can do with them." A lot of it was really fun to do...
Greg: ..we let them fill out their own parts, we weren't like, "you need to play it this way". We said, here's the song--you do with it what you will...
Phil: We'd literally play it for them, then play it again and again and they'd jam to it--.it was all improvising. That's all it was.
Greg: Over time, the development of the songs came about like lead riffs, etc.
Phil: It was so much fun the first time we heard the whole band do a song that Greg and I wrote! It was like, wow!
Raina: Where was the first place you guys played as , A Perfect Number, the complete band?
Phil & Greg: Casey's.
Phil: Greg and I did our usual acoustic thing first, then we brought out the rest of the band in our second set. So many more people came out when they heard we'd have a whole band with us! Out of that, the song "On The Fly," came about as the first 'band song' we jammed out to.
Raina: So from Casey's, someone saw you and started to book you guys elsewhere?
Greg: Basically, we just started exercising patience...calling and calling everywhere. We finally recorded a demo in my living room...
(LAUGHS)
Phil: Literally, the whole band was in his living room...it was so funny!
Greg:...then we started sending out demos everywhere.
Phil: In Fresno, especially, we've noticed that if you don't play cover tunes from EVERY GENERATION--from the 60s through the 90s--you won't get a weekend gig. Because that's what everybody wants to hear. Places are really hard to get into here 'cause if they don't know you or you're not in the "musical scene" of Fresno--which we weren't--they're not gonna take a chance. So we had to be really persistent. The first show we did outside of Casey's was a place in Sierra Summit!
(LAUGHS)
Greg:.....yeah, it was literally at the side of the mountain!
Phil:...they didn't even let us take the lift up! We got a snowmobile tour all the way up that all five of us road in! It was Kennan's (the sax player) cousin who worked there and asked us if we wanted to play. We thought we were gonna play the lodge or something, then they said it would be "mid mountain"! We were hoping that was another lodge in the area or something! (laughs). It was freezing! We played outside in the snow in a really narrow spot...
Greg:...(laughs)...it was nice though. Cold! But nice.
Raina: Since the band is still searching for a new drummer, will you guys be doing any acoustic sets as 'Phil & Greg' anytime soon?
Phil: Oh yeah! We actually talked today to our bass player (Brent) about doing shows and our sax player is ready to play whenever. He just got a new acoustic bass so we have decided to do the acoustic act. Most of our set will include originals since we've written nearly 15 songs. Actually, this week, we will be getting together to do our first practice for this.
***Catch Phil & Greg LIVE at Club Fred Saturday, November 5th @ 9pm! They will be performing at The Souls & Sounds.com 1Year Anniversary Party!***
