A brief chat with My Blue Sky

Yellow Scene: When did the band form, and why?

David Brandt: The band formed almost two years ago in 2013 – our first show was July 2013 – and we formed the band essentially because a lot of us are very good players and we all have other jobs, but we wanted to perform at festivals that we normally couldn’t get into. If we looked at some of the other venues, we didn’t want to be a 9 p.m. – 1 a.m. type of club band. We wanted to be more or a festival concert-style band. We looked at the different types of music out there, and we saw a gap in that there was a big love for the Allman Brothers, but with the Allman Brothers breaking up there was essentially not a chance for people to see them that much. We’re big fans and they play different styles of music – they have rock, jazz and blues to them. It’s challenging and that’s why we put it together.

YS: You’re all seasoned musicians – what had you been doing beforehand?

DB: I used to travel playing music around the country back in the 1980s, back in my younger days. We’re all a little bit older now, but we’ve all had stints playing full time. We’re honored playing the music that we love and it’s something that we’ll never give up. We honor the music of the Allman Brothers Band. It doesn’t mean that we copy them exactly. The original recordings that they had – most of them were live recordings. They played the songs many different ways over the 45 years that they were together. We try to honor the song structure. We might pick parts of songs that came from the early days, or we might pick songs that came from the later Allman Brothers releases or live recordings. Our goal is to put forth what we think is a best effort of what the Allman Brothers could be represented as. They’re in the Southern rock vein, but they don’t really like to be called Southern rock because they played blues, rock and jazz-influenced music. It’s a music of all that.

YS: Before the Boulder Theater show, you’re opening for Devon Allman at the Buffalo Rose in Golden…

DB: Yes we are. We were picked to be the opening act for that show. In fact, after Devon’s tour he’s going out on tour with his father Greg Allman. It’s quite an honor for us to be able to have our band associated with the Allman name in that respect.

YS: What are your plans for the set in Boulder?

DB: We’re going to come out with a lot of the songs that people have heard of, but we also bring across some exciting energy with songs that they may not have heard of but are very accessible. We’re going to be very high-energy. We’ll play a big show. We’re also filming this show for a video release.

YS: After this show, what do you have planned for the rest of the year?

DB: We have 16 shows on our schedule at mybluesky.co. We’re performing at the Greeley Blues Jam on the main stage on June 13 with Jimmy Hall, currently the lead singer for Jeff Beck. We’re excited – that’s a big venue for us and we’ll have a lot of fun.