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Zeph Allen: Harmonious thoughtful songs traverse popular forms.

When Zeph Allen picked up a guitar in his early teens he had no idea that music would hold him in thrall with such vague but definite power. The floating dream of being a musician and of speaking to people through song swam dreamily at the top of his conscious; an ever present unrealized ideal through his late teen and early twenties. The promise of songwriting always a couple of steps away, the focus to finish musical projects never quite found. The years passed; odd jobs, wandering, travel.

Around 2005 Zeph found himself in the mountains of Floyd, Virginia having moved from his sunny, fun-filled but artistically uninspiring hometown of Key West, FL. He started a band with his cousin and a friend. They called themselves Carbon Culture. They cut a disc and a year later broke up, reformed, and added another cousin and renamed themselves Alliens. Alliens toured a few years around the region and then they too cut a disc. But times with the band were good and bad, hot and cold. The members clashed artistically and a few years in, the songwriting ground to a halt....

In the quiet days in between gigging and working construction, a grouping of songs began to take shape. They didn't follow the protocol of a single genre but nonetheless they demanded to be written and recorded. These songs are what make up Zeph's debut album Define Believe. The influences to this album range from all across the spectrum stylistically while remaining within the accepted norms of popular music. Underneath the familiar musical forms is a deeper influence. The whispering voice of a theme arisen in retrospect: A world gone mad.

Now in the Bay Area of California, Zeph is writing constantly. He puzzles over the words of communication. His fragmented process steadily evolving into one of musical prosperity and production. Many songs lie in wait, some of them already written. Others exist in the ether, waiting to be plucked and placed like the magnetic words in refrigerator poems or caught in the spider's web of a struggling thoughtful mind.

  Zeph Allen

[Define Believe by Zeph Allen]

Define Believe
Zeph Allen lives in California, USA.

Tagged as: Alt Rock, Folk-Rock, Chillout, Happy Hour.

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