For singer-songwriter Sean Rawls and his sprawling collective Still Flyin’, the more members, the merrier.
The band’s lineup, which consists of both “core members” and sporadic contributers known as “spiritual members” on Still Flyin’s Facebook page, is constantly changing, shrinking and growing. At times, the group has featured such notable names as crooner Jens Lekman, members of Architecture in Helsinki and Josephine Olausson, the lead vocalist of Love is All.
“Every tour we go on there’s a different amount of people,” Rawls said. “At this point there’s probably 30 or 40 different people that have played in the band at some point. It keeps it interesting, because there’s always new people playing with us,” he added.
Tonight Still Flyin’ will bring its more-is-better approach to membership, as well as its eclectic brand of indie-pop mixed with reggae sensibilities, to DC9 in Washington.
Although the band’s numbers rise and fall as it travels from city to city, Still Flyin’ was started with much more modest intentions.
As a member of the band Je Suis France while living in Georgia, Rawls said he wrote a “jokey reggae song” called “Never Gonna Touch the Ground.” Rawls said the song idea wouldn’t leave his head even when he moved to San Francisco.
So Still Flyin’ was born around that very song.
Even when the band was starting up, though, Rawls wasn’t entirely convinced of how serious of an enterprise it would become. It wasn’t until the first few practices that he realized the potential of Still Flyin’.
“I think when we first started practicing, it just sounded a lot better than we ever thought it would, and it was a lot more fun than we thought it would be,” he said. “We kind of quickly realized that it was going to be a more serious band … and now people are quitting their jobs and we’re touring all the time.”
And everything sprung from the innocuous “Never Gonna Touch the Ground,” the “jokey reggae song” originally played by what Rawls called his “joke reggae band.”
The tune — a breezy, laid-back number replete with cheerful gang vocals — kicks off the band’s 2008 debut album, which is named after the song.
The rest of the album, though, doesn’t entirely follow the first track’s lead. “The Hott Chord is Struck” is a charming indie-pop number that brings to mind a more grounded version of the Polyphonic Spree. “Good Thing It’s a Ghost Town Around Here” takes a funkier route with its groovy bass line and saxophone. The 50-second drum-and-vocal glee-fest, “No Go-Kart Ideas,” ends with a group of voices singing “We’re slapping high fives ’cause we’re livin’ the life.”
The music throughout is very big on foot-tapping, head-bobbing and positivity in general. Rawls acknowledged Never Gonna Touch the Ground pretty much oozes optimism.
“That’s what we’re all about,” he said. “That’s the main point … to have positive vibes going. That’s ground zero for the band.”
Rawls said he hopes this overarching message of positivity, along with the varied music itself, can ultimately attract very different audiences. Right now, the band draws largely “indie” crowds at its shows; Rawls said the reason the band draws fans of that genre is because members have played in indie-pop and indie-rock bands in the past.
That doesn’t mean he’s fully content with a single class of listener.
“I feel like our sound could appeal to anybody,” he said. “We hope to broaden our audience and tap into all these different groups of people.
Perhaps the cheerfulness of Still Flyin’s music will help unite music fans who wouldn’t have come together otherwise.
“So maybe eventually at our shows … we’ll have everybody coming together and high-fiving each other, and punks will high-five hippies, and it’ll be world peace forever,” Rawls said.
Tickets for Still Flyin’s show at DC9 cost $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Doors open 8:30 p.m.
jwolper@umdbk.com
