You’ll soon hear this band. It might take you a minute to learn how to correctly pronounce their name, but once you do, you’ll probably be talking about them in the not-so-distant-future. In a span of a few months, they landed a record deal, recorded their first album and shot a video of the album’s first single, “Closer To Habit”. Lead singer, Wally Wood certainly has the vocal talent to put this band on the map. Wally’s backed by a tight group of musicians which support his melodies with raging rhythms and riffs to support his scorching vocals.

"I hate the word ‘fans.’ You’ll never see the word used on our web site…we use ‘family’ because I think that’s what the people are who come to our shows because they have a common goal to share."
-Wally Wood

After sharing stages with well known acts such as Staind, Sevendust, Yellowcard and Shinedown, Allele’s first stop on their first tour was made at Birdy’s, Indianapolis, Indiana. In support of Point of Origin, their debut album to be released October 25, 2005, Wally sat down with us prior to the show to talk about his band, his hopes, and what he hears in his head.


MusicPix: I kind of remember the word allele from a biology class a long time ago but I checked out the encyclopedia…it means any one of a number of alternative forms of the same gene occupying a given position on a chromosome…. is someone in the band into biology or what?

Wally: Just to state it so that everyone knows, the pronunciation is [uh–lee- il]…it takes a couple of days to roll off the tongue and learn how to pronounce it. In layman’s terms, it defines your personal characteristics…your eye color, your skin color, your skin texture…all of that is because of different alleles. My wife’s a biology teacher so… we had about two pages full of names. We didn’t want a name that was so typical and very expected or predictable. The kind of the name that didn’t give up what the music was going to sound like… we wanted something a little more intelligent and something that had a meaning related to was the band was about, as well as relating to people. There was no better name…plus no one had the name…


MusicPix: How did you guys hook up?

Wally: We’re all from Jacksonville. [Florida] I was in a different project. Lane Maverick, the original guitar played in Allele, was in a band temporarily called Otep based out of California. He had come back into town and was looking around. A mutual friend introduced us and he ended up joining that band. Both of us had a lot more in common…the writing and the idea of the music. So, we ended up departing those guys and started Allele. We went through a bunch of different members. Kelly left Cold in March of 2004 and then came to our band. The drummer and the bass player were from previous bands in Jacksonville. We swapped out members and picked those guys up in the beginning of this year.


MusicPix: Your first album, Point of Origin, is scheduled for release October 25 and video debuts are headed to Fuse & MTV2 around the same time. Any particular reason why you recorded and shot the video for Closer to Habit in Cleveland?

Wally: That’s where the producer was. Ben Schigel produced it. He did preproduction on Drowning Pool, Chaimira, and Breaking Point’s new album and he lives there… We were shopping around different producers and ended up landing him. Don Tyler produced the video. The story line aroused him to look into certain kinds of hospitals and he found this mental institution that was abandoned…built in the 30’s. It was perfect and it was 10 minutes from the studio…crazy weird.


MusicPix: So did it have a vibe to it?

Wally: It was different. It was probably the oddest building I’ve ever been in. It looked like a tornado had been through the place. Holes in the walls, rusted light fixtures, paint peeling off, ceilings caved in on every floor…we had to do a waiver to even get into the place. Weird things happened. Generators kept going out. Weird little things kept happening but it ended up turning out better than we thought.


MusicPix: You’ve kept some pretty good company performing with bands like Staind, Trapt, and Shinedown to name a few….What are you learning from these bands that are a few steps ahead of you?

Wally: Oh, they are a lot of steps ahead. What have we learned? Everything…. how to do it. How to sustain being on the road. How to sustain being a band. We’ve learned a lot of things from them and I think that’s what got us to the point where we’re at and so quick. Everything happened so quickly. The record deal…the album…the video…all within months…the quickest I’ve ever heard of. The things we learned from them really helped mold what happened. We listen to things. Kelly’s been in Cold for ten years. He’s toured the world. He’s done it all. He’s already been around the block so that’s another thing that helps. He’s the more experienced road musician…definitely the veteran of the band when it comes to being on the road.


MusicPix: What are some of the primary things you learned from the more experienced bands?

Wally: Just what things to not worry about…cause there are so many things that can happen in a band, or in a bus, that can drive you to not want to be around each other forever. You watch and learn charisma. You watch and learn. Some things that you might take for granted or that you just don’t really notice. It’s just human nature. You just find things that you just don’t like about people and you let it agitate you. When you’re in a band and on the road, you live inside this little vehicle every single day. So if there’s no common ground, or love or likeness and you can’t stand each other, you won’t stay together. So being with those bands, we just watched the way they were with each other. You could tell that if something agitated somebody but they just blew it off and they would compare stories. It made me realize that our stories are nothing-nothing in comparison to some of the crazy things that I heard.


MusicPix: So would like so share some of those stories?

Wally: Probably not… [laughing]


MusicPix: What about your stories?

Wally: Our stories aren’t too crazy yet. Give us about six months and I’ll have something really crazy. They’re getting there but it’s not having helicopters chase a paranoid person. We’re pretty subtle in the craziness department.


MusicPix: Is it possible that I’ve heard Closer to Habit on the radio? Are you getting rotation before its release?

Wally: There are a couple of places like Flint (MI) the Razor, like three or four stations that have it and they’re just checking it out. We haven’t pushed it because the album is in production and being manufactured.


MusicPix: Your label (Corporate Punishment Records) sent us a special password protected site to listen to your debut release so we got to hear the whole thing today. It was really good.

Wally: Oooh, a secret link!?!


MusicPix: But honestly, I think I heard it… we’re in and out of Chicago frequently…maybe there? Have you gotten any early feedback?

Wally: Chicago has it. So maybe. That’s great if you did. But no, not anything at this point. We haven’t really been online. Our label is in New York and I know they’re really busy and I don’t think they’ve heard early feedback. Hopefully that’s going on. We’ve only given it to a couple of stations. I’ve heard back from two DJ’s and they’ll be spinning it but haven’t heard from the others.


MusicPix: You’ve been doing some benefit shows for Katrina Relief. Given we’ve all been bombarded by the media, and you’re from hurricane country, what is the one thing that is resonating with you the most about the disaster?

Wally: That’s a hard question. I don’t really know what is resonating with me the most. I guess ambition to make sure people get the help. We’re doing as many as we can. We’ve gotten offers to do some shows in Chicago and Ohio so we’ll do what we can. We did one in Jacksonville before we left. It’s hard. There are so many angles and opinions. It’s probably one of the most complex things that we have all had to experience and deal with…I can’t watch the television. It’s too hard to watch. The Jacksonville shows…there were a lot of people from Louisiana at the show. A radio station put it on and a lot of people that were from the French Quarter and that was the name of the place we played, The French Quarter, a kind of weird little thing. They were really nice people. Just anything that we can do, and the need to help, is what resonates.


MusicPix: You have a busy tour schedule.

Wally: We were going to do a lot of shows down there but due to the destruction we had to cancel.

MusicPix: And it was nice that your web site said that the gulf coast venues were in your prayers and not just CANCELLED.


MusicPix: Where would you like to take this band?

Wally: Fiji, Australia, Morocco….Italy… [Laughing]


MusicPix: Meaning…some bands want to be a big headliner in arena shows…

Wally: That’s where we’d like to go. I humbly think that we won’t become an icon thing. That’s a rare thing. That’s when music was to be innovated and you can no longer innovate music because it’s all been done. I think the time of being an icon is all done. I would love to get to a point where our band could headline arenas. That is such a huge goal. I would be happy headlining a 500 person venue, six days a week. To sell-out 500 people a night for six days a week, would be the greatest thing. If God had a sense of humor, and we were selling out arenas, I wouldn’t even know what to say.


MusicPix: And from what perspective does that satisfy you?

Wally: It’s not egotistic. Sometimes I wish I had an ego because it would make my life a lot easier. But selfish, yeah. To play in front of a lot of people. I just love being with people. I hate the word ‘fans.’ You’ll never see the word used on our web site…we use ‘family’ because I think that’s what the people are who come to our shows because they have a common goal to share. Instead of flipping each other off, getting into a fight…you know what I mean…you have people there having a great time because you are there.


MusicPix: You are touring in advance of the release of your CD. Do you anticipate what it’s going to be like once an audience is familiar with your music?

Wally: I am hopefully anticipating…if I could take what happens in Jacksonville? That’s heaven. Now, to play songs that people don’t know, I like that just as much because I get to see how people react. It’s a very unbiased opinion. For someone to clap, to scream, to do anything…it takes a lot because I go to shows. Sometimes I don’t say a single word. So it’s a really true opportunity to play your music to an unbiased crowd. That’s the pleasure of performing before an album comes out because no one has any idea. If you get flipped a thumbs up or they are watching period…it’s great.


MusicPix: We agree. To be able to turn around a crowd is much better than to appeal to those who come to a show to hear one song that they like…

Wally: I love it…we play on shows that we don’t even belong on. We play punk or metal shows. Part of the crowd will be talking or facing another direction. One of the biggest things that drives us is that we just get up there and play and have a great time. By the second or the third song, we have every single person facing the stage. That blows our minds. Now after I say this, it won’t happen anymore. We’re not the greatest writers. But our thing is playing LIVE. We mean it. We don’t choreograph jumping around. We don’t tell each other what we’re going to wear. I’m not knocking that stuff because when you’re in a band, you should be different that anyone else in the crowd. That’s your occupation. You should give them a little incentive to look at.


MusicPix: We have a series of questions that we ask every artist we interview called the MusicPix Six:


MusicPix: What artist/performer influenced you the most?

Wally: My band hates when I get asked that question because I say Scott Weiland and Eddie Vedder from STP (Stone Temple Pilots) and Pearl Jam. The reason that we write so easy is because we have completely opposite inspirations. Kelly is a little more eccentric. Lane is a little heavier when it comes to playing guitar. Our drummer likes anything from the 70’s to now. Our bass player likes metal to Sting. You don’t really hear a lot of it in the music, but if you listen close enough and you will. It makes it easier and that’s why you won’t hear one long song on the album. Pretty much every song sounds different from the next. That helps us write. We write very quick and very easy and that’s because everyone is on a different page.


MusicPix: Do you write collaboratively?

Wally: We’re all usually in the room, except sometimes for me because it happens to me right before I go to sleep. Because I don’t drink or do any drugs, my brain expands when I’m just about to go to sleep. So I’ll write just before I’m going to doze off. It could be one in the morning and my wife has to get up and go to work in the morning, and I get up because I hear an entire song. I have to go the band room and I just hum it out because I can’t play the guitar and they come up with the rest. The drummer or the bass player will write the riffs to it. Or somebody comes in with a guitar riff. Me and the two guitar players write the actual music. I’d like to say that the entire band does really. I can’t play drums that great. I don’t play bass. The whole band writes it. The ideas though are presently primarily by the three of us…the two guitar players and myself. The entire band collaborates. Everyone has great ideas. The drummer has great ideas. The bass player has great ideas. There are no egos in the band…not like ‘I write everything.’ It’s not like that. I sing the words. But if someone has words, I have no problem singing them. If they have an idea for a melody, I have no problem doing it. We’re all very open to anything that anyone else has to say…which is different because I’ve been in bands where if you would try to tell a guitar player what to play, he freaks out. We’re a complete equal band. Our royalties are split completely equal. Everything is equal in the band. It’s no different when we write a song. It’s the same.


MusicPix: So when you get your ideas late at night…you say you run down and you hum them?

Wally: Yeah, I have a little voice recorder and I’ll just voice record the melody and the structure of the song as I hear it. I’ll hum the guitar riffs, the bass parts. I hear the whole thing together. It’s like I’m listening to the radio or something. It’s very very weird. So, I’m about to go to sleep and it sounds like the radio just came on and so I’m listening to something and I’ll get up and go over all five pieces. I’ll take it to them and it’s an idea. Sometimes it gets used and sometimes it doesn’t.


MusicPix: So you’re hearing a radio in your head so the location of your video (mental institution) is very appropriate? [big laughs]

Wally: That was funny…yeah, and actually that song- the lyrics fit the place perfectly.

MP/Wally: [still laughing]


MusicPix: Are your songs, the message you’re trying to relate, a confessional and therapeutic thing for you?

Wally: There are probably only two songs that relate to me. Everything is about other people. The album doesn’t necessarily have one message to it. The album is about many different things that everyone goes through. This is not an album about the singer. I had one of the worst childhoods, but I don’t write a single word about it. I keep that to myself. There’s really no need to do that. I think that there’s enough depression out there. Not every song on the album is inspiring and happy but there’s something positive in every song.


MusicPix: For me, I really liked A Different Someone… the second cut and Immune too- the closest to a ballad.

Wally: A Different Someone is actually a song about kids in school. Immune is one that does have to do with me and my wife. The love song. The closest to a ballad- we don’t have any really but we don’t mind that word. Some of the greatest songs are ballads.


MusicPix: Also, Unknown. There’s depth to a ‘symphonic movement’ underneath. Are we better off unknown?

Wally: That’s a personal favorite. The song is pretty self-explanatory and you can associate songs to different things. We’re not here to play a magic trick. The songs are what you listen to.. Unknown? Everyone’s had that question…are we just better off not here?


MusicPix: Back to your comment about too much depression in the world. There are a number of bands that talk about slitting their wrists, bleeding to death in front of you, and want to kill everyone. There’s yin and yang in this world and there’s good and bad and there’s no problem recognizing the good. So I think your viewpoint of acknowledging the bad with an answer of sorts is good. Here’s how you’re going to get out of it…here’s how you are going to cope with it…here’s how you are going to deal with it… It’s important to hear something other than life is worthless.

Wally: And it’s not. I know what it’s like to get to a point where you don’t feel like being around anymore and the only thing that you can relate to is anything negative or anything depressing, or anything that’s anti-life. It’s so easy to cling on to that. Human nature is negative. You hear many great things on the news, but you don’t listen because what usually tunes you in is something that is negative, or it has drama for the most part. I am very anti-drama. A cannot stand drama. But in the songs, there’s a change…by the end of the song, things start to turn around. Unknown is one that doesn’t really turn around at the end of it but in the middle, you see a different side. Songs like Tightrope, that’s a song that turns around as soon as it gets into the chorus. There are realizations or confrontations within the songs.


MusicPix: So in a way, it is a reflection of you on a macro-level. You said that you had a tough childhood and life is definitely on an upswing right now.

Wally: And here’s Dr. Phil and its getting deep... [chuckling] It’s inevitable I suppose. But honestly, when I go to write lyrics for a song, I don’t think of myself and I don’t want to write a song about myself. I try not to. A Different Someone is about being in high school and being good enough to a person to talk to and they use you for certain things. Like when you’re around the popular people. At the end of the song, you realize the difference is you. You realize there’s nothing wrong with you. I could go on, but it’s like that throughout the whole thing. It’s easier for me. I’m very people oriented. I have a big family and I love people so it’s much easier to observe. I’m one of those sick lookers. I’m a looker. I’m a shy guy who is always in the corner just looking at things. Not psycho, it’s just easier for me.


MusicPix: We normally ask musicians what instrument they first played and at what age but since you’re a singer…when did you start singing?

Wally: My mom is like the heir of Whitney Houston. She’s amazing. I had never sang in front of anyone expect my little sister and my brother until my finance’ made me do a Karaoke thing in Georgia. I had a job and I was traveling and was in Valdosta and she made me. The first time I ever sang in front of anyone. I was so nervous. My little sister and little brother loved to hear me sing and I always did in front of them. Before that, I played drums in high school. That was my passion actually. I sat on my front porch at the beach and played drums all day long. My wife got me into it because she heard an ad on the radio looking for a singer and she made me go try out and it’s history from there.


MusicPix: How long ago was that?

Wally: Four years. Four years sounds like a long time but it’s nothing at all. It took me that long to find my voice. From my last band and now? There’s no way that you’d believe that it’s the same voice.


MusicPix: What did you do before that?

Wally: Just worked. Just worked as a mechanic…I had many different jobs.


MusicPix: Like Brice Springsteen would say…just a normal guy.

Wally: Not normal… By the time I started singing, I had 23 jobs by then. I was always called a floater…I could go on and on…


MusicPix: So you have a lot of material in there?

Wally: Yeah, I’m going to write a whole album entitled ‘Bosses.’


MusicPix: If you weren’t in your current band, what band would you like to play in?

Wally: Hmm. I love my band. That’s not a vain statement. I love my band. I wouldn’t want to be in another band. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to go to other bands but I don’t have the urge.


MusicPix: There’s not one that you wouldn’t say, if I could just sing with them?

Wally: Probably Sevendust. Yeah, Sevendust.


MusicPix: Back to influences. Is there any one that just fits you, that fits Wally?

Wally: People who know me would never believe it…I listen to a lot of Vivaldi. I listen to a lot of classical music. So I’ve listened to a lot of that over the past year and it’s helped with a lot of things. I guess Sting, Eddie Veder and Scott Weiland…I don’t sound like any of them but their range, style and feeling in the lyrics…those three guys write some of the best lyrics.


MusicPix: What are your 3 ‘desert island’ albums? Are they from the same guys?

Wally: Probably-but I’ll beg for a fourth. Vivaldi.


MusicPix: Which Vivaldi?

Wally: Four Seasons. That the only one I listen to. Those are the more mainstream pieces.


MusicPix: Who do you think is the most over-rated in the music industry?

Wally: You’re going to get me in trouble now…over-rated? That’s actually easy. I just have to pick one? It’s kind of mean but I guess I’ll say The White Stripes. The absolute, all-time, most over-rated two piece band. I’ll probably get shot because that’s one of my older brother’s favorites.


MusicPix: What’s your ‘perfect world?’

Wally: A perfect world or my perfect world? A perfect world would be typical because that’s what everyone truly wants, but they could never have it that way because people would be equal and they would never have it that way. My perfect world would be to do music until I choose not to do it anymore and have my family there with me. Simple.

MusicPix: Simple is Good…