If Santa Barbara has a “house band,” it’s Area 51.
The band is a mainstay of public celebrations, such as Summer Solstice, Old Spanish Days, Earth Day, Fourth of July, Summer Concerts at Chase Palm Park, Stow House’s Fiesta Ranchera, the Goleta Lemon Festival and countless galas, fundraisers, parties, reunions, weddings, corporate events and more.
Also not to be overlooked are its regular “Funk It Up” gigs at SOhO — the next one is this Friday — where it has played since the band formed in 1995. The enduring music club celebrated its own 30th anniversary last year.
To label them a cover band is inadequate. Its high-octane, soul-stirring and exuberant performances of throwback funk, soul, and rhythm and blues have been embraced (and enthusiastically boogied to) by fans for more than three decades.
“As time has passed, our fans became parents, and now we play at their children’s weddings,” Area 51 frontman and founder Michael Andrews said.
A fifth-generation Santa Barbaran on his father’s side, his grandfather was Loring Andrews, the first mariachi band leader at the El Paseo when it opened in 1925.
On this mother’s side, his grandfather was Alan Watts, the philosopher and writer credited with popularizing Eastern spiritual practices in the West, and a favorite of the San Francisco Beats and hippies.
He blends traits from both of them in his abundance of musical talent and abiding spiritual
stance.
Andrews was born in Santa Barbara but moved with his mother to Northern California when he was 3 years old. He returned to Santa Barbara at age 19 to reconnect with his dad.
“I started a band called Einstein Mystic Plumbers and wrote some pretty songs,” he recalled. “We had interest from an A&R guy who said I should be like George Michael, but I wanted to be my own self.”
Rather than writing originals, he chose to “follow my muse,” he said. “I had a vision. I wanted to produce the highest level of R&B, funk, disco and soul music that juiced me when I was just coming on board. I wanted to blow people’s minds.”
For that, he needed a bigger band with a horn section to capture the brassy sound of two groups he revered — Earth, Wind & Fire and Tower of Power.
Area 51’s first show featured a dozen players, including three female backup singers, at the
Beach Shack at the corner of Haley and Anacapa streets (now the EOS Lounge).
Andrews credits their second gig, at the Summer Solstice Celebration, as the true birth of the band.
“It was pretty much legendary — a huge love fest. We wanted to let our freak flag fly, and boy did we,” he said. “Our next show was at SOhO, and the line went down the stairs and around the block because of Solstice.”
Area 51 has performed at every Summer Solstice Celebration since then except twice — once when it was shut down because of COVID-19 and another time because of a scheduling mix-up.
Band personnel have changed over the decades, and Andrews is now the only original member.
Current guitarist Ray Pannell, bassist Mycal Lomas and drummer Donzell Davis spent 20 years touring with the band for Mary Wilson, an original member of The Supremes. Those three, along with Area 51 keyboardist George Friedenthal, were also among the original members of local funk band Raw Silk.
The two-man horn section features Dave Tolegian on saxophone (he has backed up James Brown, the Four Tops and The Temptations, among others) and the band’s newest member, Mike Muench, on trumpet.
When Area 51’s first female vocalist, Mari Martin, decided to move out of the area in 2008, she suggested Laura Schlieske as her replacement.
Schlieske had been in Tina and the B-Sides, her sister’s powerhouse Minneapolis band. Once called “the best bar band in America,” they recorded and toured throughout the 1990s, gaining a huge following.
After the B-Sides went on hiatus in 1999, Tina Schlieske moved to Santa Barbara in 2001. Laura Schlieske soon followed. For seven years, she had a Friday night singing gig at the James Joyce pub, and the sisters sang together when they could, eventually forming Graceland Exiles. Martin was a fan and invited the sisters to an Area 51 show at SOhO.
“I thought, ‘This is the music in my soul,’” Laura Schlieske recalled.
She went on stage and wowed the band and audience with a fiery take of Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools.” Her rendition is still a showstopper.
“Mari told me, ‘You need this girl,’” Andrews said. “We’re now tethered. I’ve never been able to harmonize so well with another person. Laura and I just feel each other. Although we came from different parts of the country, we were formed in the same crucible of funk.”
“It’s synergy,” Laura Schlieske added, right on cue.
After all this time, Area 51 doesn’t rehearse, though the band regularly adds songs to its repertoire.
“Michael sends out a notice to learn the song by the gig, and more often than not, we just kill it the first time,” Laura Schlieske said.
Recent additions include “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross, “Dancing Machine” by The Jackson 5 and “Get Away” by Earth, Wind & Fire — a song with “gnarly horn syncopation,” according to Andrews.
However, it’s not all last-century hits, as the band mixes in modern songs by contemporaries such as Bruno Mars (“Uptown Funk”), CeeLo Green (“Crazy,” “Forget You”) and Pharrell Williams (“Get Lucky”).
“We must have played Patti LaBelle’s ‘Lady Marmalade’ hundreds of times, but we still make it fun,” Schlieske said. “That is so rare, really. It’s not the norm. That fun transfers to the audience.”
“What’s most important is the essence, and we send it out like a laser beam,” Andrews added. “It’s a love affair with the Santa Barbara and Goleta communities, and our way of being in service. We developed a following with the people, and are honored to share that time. I never thought it would last so long.”