Going Greene with the Blue

If all you want for Christmas is some tasty blues rock with teeth, look no further than SOhO on Friday night, December 20. That’s when the veteran guitarist-singer-songwriter Alastair Greene will be throwing down at his old stomping grounds, taking to the stage in a reunion with his longtime SoCal based band mates Jim Rankin on bass and Austin Beede on drums. 

Seeing Greene gigging around town used to be easy, as the Santa Barbara native honed his chops over many years performing in bars and clubs, including Whiskey Richards, The Brewhouse, the James Joyce pub, Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company and the like. Even during the seven years he served as the guitarist in Alan Parsons band, Greene would get himself over to one of his regular haunts whenever the world-touring band got home. 

But three years ago, Greene left our seaside city behind to head off to Texas, the land that gave us ZZ Top, Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan and so many other blues-rock greats. The man with the black hat perched atop his long, wavy, jet-black hair is now shredding on the guitar with Austin as his home base. 

Q. What possessed you to move to Austin after spending nearly your whole life in Santa Barbara?

A. Southern California is beautiful, and I’ve still got family and friends here. But I tell you one thing, man, the price of gas in Texas, it’s a lot different than Santa Barbara! Austin is the live music capital of the world. But it’s also a lot closer to where I need to be to tour, because most of the places to play are east of the Mississippi River. I didn’t want to have to drive three days to the first gig of a tour. I got to a point where it was like, man, I’m either serious about doing this, having a career where I get to play in front of a lot of people and make a real living, or I’m not. 

Sounds like what you said when you decided to leave the Parsons band in 2017.

Yeah, it was great, but I’d sort of reached whatever pinnacle of notoriety I was going to get as a (sideman) guitar player. But I wanted to be a solo artist, I need to get to doing that. I mean, I’d come home from playing stadiums in Europe and show up on a Wednesday at the Brewhouse doing acoustic blues and rock covers for 75 bucks and a hamburger while people watched the Dodgers game – just to be able to play. 

So has the Texas Blues scene influenced you? 

Absolutely. One of the jokes that I’ll make on stage is that I moved to Austin because I heard they needed another blues rock guitar player. On any given night of the week, you can catch so many great blues guitarists in town. If there’s something in the water here, I definitely want to take a swig and see what happens. 

Your new album is called Standing Out Loud. Seems like you are making a statement.

It’s a proclamation of claiming your life and what you want to do with it. Standing Out Loud is the first studio record I put out after I moved to Austin, so I definitely leaned more toward early seventies rock and roll, drawing more on my rock roots, ZZ Top and Zeppelin, and not steering so much to the blues side. It’s a matter of continuing to be true to myself as a musician, going with what I get the most enjoyment from, what I’m best at. I want to play to my strengths. For me, finding my voice in music is going to include more of my rock influence. I also did a lot of co-writing on this record, part of the evolution in experimenting.

How are you feeling about the SOhO show, especially in late December when a lot of old fans might be back in town?

I’m really excited. I hatched this scheme when I was making plans to come out here for the holidays to visit family and friends myself. I haven’t played a show with both Austin and Jim since 2018, and I invited Debbie Davies to play, and also my buddy Chris Chalk, who was the singer in (my early 1990s band) Scarecrow. We’re just going to celebrate, play some of my old tunes, and some covers from the old days. It’s going to be a great time.