Andrew Gill

On this week's Local Music Now, we talk with singer/songwriter and Savannah native Andrew Gill. Andrew is in the band Wormsloew but also performs around town solo or as a collaboration.

Click play in the video tab to the left to watch this week's show as Andrew talks about his start in his, his songwriting and performs. - Savannah Morning News

Andrew Gill is a member of one of our area's most exclusive clubs: Musicians who don't have to work day jobs. The 27-year-old native Savannahian has been gigging since he was 15, and his agreeable way with a guitar, his rich vocals and his charismatic stage presence add up to a guy people would pay to see. And they do.

Just last week, he was onstage six nights out of seven. “I’m not complaining at all,” Gill says with a smile. “It sure as hell beats making half the money and working 40 hours.”

On June 29, Sunday, he’ll be onstage at Forsyth Park, part of an all-day, 11-band benefit concert called the Tommy Strong Music Festival For Brain Cancer Awareness.

The Andrew Gill Band will share the spotlight with Waits & Co., Outlaw Gypsy, 2 Tone Fish, 3rd Class Citizen, Jon Lee & the Apparitions, Wassaw Sound, the Blurry Aftermath, the Immaculate Fix, Rye House and Zan. The event starts at 11 a.m. and will wind down around 12 hours later.

It’s free, but donations will be appreciated. It’s being organized by friends of Tommy Kim, a former Army Special Forces soldier who attended South University here in Savannah, and worked for several years at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Which is where he made lots and lots of friends.

Kim moved to Austin in 2013, and this past January was diagnosed with Stage 4 brain cancer. The tumor was completely removed in February, followed by stretches of intense chemotherapy. At the moment, he is cancer-free.

This is a guy who served two tours of duty in Africa and Afghanistan, who plunged down a rocky, 30-foot cliff and was subsequently told he would never walk again.

A fitness nut and an eternal optimist, he defied the odds. Eleven months and a lot of hard work later, he was back on his feet.

And that’s why the organizers—Kim’s Savannah pals —are calling it the Tommy Strong Festival. Because he is.

Andrew Gill, meanwhile, has never met Tommy Kim – but like most of the musicians who’ll be performing on the bandshell stage, as soon as he heard the man’s story, he signed on the dotted line. And he’s not getting paid on what would otherwise be a rare day off.

Gill was a founding member of Wormsloew, an Americana-fused rock ‘n’ roll band that burned brightly in the mid to late 2000s, around the time Tommy Kim was studying anesthesiology at South U.

Those were the days, my friend. Wormsloew had a lot of fans. “It was a cool thing, but seven years later I guess it just kinda fell apart,” explains Gill. “Music tastes change just like your taste buds do.”

The Andrew Gill Band includes Wormsloew bassist Kevin Arpin. The rest of the old band has scattered to the wind ... although they still reunite for one of two events every year.

In 2010, as Wormsloew was falling apart, Gill was asked to fill in with Junkyard Angel, whose lead guitarist Scotty Rahn was on medical leave. He played with the band — which includes brothers Stewart and Jim Marshall—for about a year.

“Out of that, we formed the Marshall Brothers Band, because it was so fun doing three-part harmonies,” he recalls. “I guess I’m an honorary Marshall at this point.”

Area vendors will have food and drink for sale at Sunday’s event.

For more on the incredible Tommy Kim, see a feature story at www.thechive.com.

A founding member of the late, great band Wormsloew, Andrew Gill has been playing music professionally since the age of 15.A former Army Special Forces soldier, Tommy Kim attended South University and worked at St. Joseph's Hospital here in Savannah. - Connect Savannah

LONG a fixture in Savannah’s music scene, singer-guitarist Andrew Gill and I met a few years ago at Jerry’s Lounge, the Southside dive where I sing karaoke every week.

He blew the bar away and I wondered, “Who is that guy?” Could that be the same musician who amazed me at the Isle of Hope Music Festival?

When he returned a few weeks later, I asked him. The answer was yes. And the stage was set for a podcast interview and performance.

Now, for local music lovers, the fact that I didn’t know him, at that time, as Andrew Gill “formerly of Wormsloew” should tell you how much I know, or knew, “the scene.”

Wormsloew, a local jam-rock-alternative powerhouse for years, opened for Eddie Money, Widespread Panic, Marshall Tucker Band and others. They were hot. Until they were not.

“It’s hard to keep a band together,” Gill says. “I think that’s the hardest thing in music.” He gets wistful about those times. He was in late teens, early 20’s then. Who wouldn’t?

“It opened so many doors,” he says of being managed by MBM Entertainment, the guys behind the band Jupiter Coyote. “We got to do so many things, travel the country.”

He still plays with Wormsloew’s Joe Wilson. But these days, his new musical life includes playing solo, duo or with old school country band Junkyard Angel.

“I was very busy last year so I’m just kind of taking some time off,” he says of his current schedule. “There’s a record in the works, an EP coming. I just got to wrap that up, too.”

I saw him recently at Tubby’s Thunderbolt, where he was playing the brunch set with Jim Marshall. He’ll play a pre-St. Patrick’s Day gig with Junkyard Angel at Driftaway Cafe.

Warehouse, Jazz’d, Wild Wing. A gigging musician since age 15, he’s played just about every bar here. But it’s River Street’s former Live Wire that he loved the most.

“I really enjoyed that run,” he says. “A place where musicians would go to hang out and perform. On any given night when you’re performing, there’s 10-15 musicians in there.”

His voice is rich and emotive, his stage presence easy and his songwriting lyrical and deep. Where do his ideas come from? “Most of my stuff comes to me driving,” Gill says.

“I can’t even write it down, so I just use voice notes.” The product of that work, when he’s by himself, comes across as a breezy country.

He writes about doors opening and closing, hanging on, letting go and falling in love.

He cites Y2K artists Shawn Mullins and Edwin McCain among his influences. “Most of the songs I play are at least 10 years old,” he says. “It still feels like 2001 to me.”

I’d say his solo stuff is tender. Perhaps that’s just the nature of being onstage by yourself, playing original songs with a guitar. But when he’s with others, he can rock it and jam it. He can cover it in silly tourist roses or put it wherever that bad boy needs to be to keep a foothold in music, a grind of a business.

“It becomes a job at some point,” he says.

“But it’s still the best job that you can have.” Credit the Savannah native, a self-described “river rat,” for staying creative and finding new fans after being “formerly.”

Being “formerly” myself, I know it’s not easy. But like he says... still the best. - Connect Savannah