This new concert season is really heating up here in central Maine and if you are a fan of the Southern rock sound, might I suggest a trip to Madison’s Somerset Abbey for a performance by The Peacheaters: An Allman Brothers Band Experience. Having interviewed Warren Haynes, Butch Trucks and Gregg Allman over the years, I was more than interested in checking this group out and ended up getting the number for Alec Antobenedetto.

Q: Hey, man, how are you doing?
Antobenedetto: I’m getting in my car so we’re going to do this interview from the road while I’m on the road.

Q: Okay … where are you heading, if I might ask?
Antobenedetto: Well, I’m going to get an iced coffee then I’m heading out to a Ziggy Marley concert, he’s doing a tribute to his dad at this place in Western Mass called Indian Ranch. I’m looking forward to that, but I’m all ears so ask away.

Q: Well, keeping with the concert theme, have you performed at the Somerset Abbey before?
Antobenedetto: No, this is our first time there.

Q: Do you do a lot of shows in Maine?
Antobenedetto: We do a few. There have been a couple of festivals, and I’m sorry that I don’t remember their names, but one of our favorite venues to play in Maine is Jonathan’s in Ogunquit. Those shows are always very, very special when we play there.

Q: What can folks expect from your show up in Madison, seeing you haven’t been there before?
Antobenedetto: Well, I hope they like the Allman Brothers Band because that’s what we do, but we also do a few other things, too. We’ll do some Govt. Mule stuff — which, of course, Warren Haynes was in the Allman Brothers Band, we’ll do some Neil Young stuff, we’ll do some Tom Petty stuff, some Eagles, some Chris Stapleton, some Lynyrd Skynyrd; so we can kind of mix it up as we go. And then we like to play stuff that nobody’s heard us do before.

Q: You are going to be there at Somerset Abbey for the first time, after all.
Antobenedetto: Well, we always make friends with our audiences, that’s what we’ve always done, and the music of the Allman Brothers Band allows you to do that because there’s such a commonality in it, that common thread between people is the music.

Q: I’m sure you must have seen that group a few times in the past, right?
Antobenedetto: I’ve seen them four nights in a row where they didn’t repeat a song, and that’s what we try to do so, simply put, when you see the Peacheaters once you’ll never see that show again because the next time you see us, we’re going to be different. And that can even be personnel, too, Lucky; I mean, we’ve been doing this for over 20 years now and over that time certain people retire or move on to other things. We have a lot of friends out there, a lot of Brothers, that are Peach guys and they jump in when needed and the band doesn’t miss a beat. So we might look different from time to time but the music is not going to be different, you know?

Q: How many are you in the group currently?
Antobenedetto: There’s seven of us. Sometimes we’ll do two drummer and percussion which would bring it to eight, we break it down, usually, like we have two guitar players, one sings lead and background vocals, and one doesn’t sing at all, and then we have bass and keyboards. With the drums, we can have two drummers, we can have two drummers and percussion, we can have one drummer and percussion, it’s a very malleable band and we kind of mould it into what we want to do musically for the night.

Q: It sounds like you’ve got a good thing going here.
Antobenedetto: It is, it is, and we have a lot of fun, and my favorite thing about playing in this band is that there’s no ego-trips in this band, it’s all about the music, everything is about the music. And if you get in a situation to play with people like that, you’re pretty blessed, you’re a pretty lucky person.

Q: What is it about the music that gives it such a draw?
Antobenedetto: Here’s a really cool, little story for you. When you play the music of the Allman Brothers Band, you’re playing it for people where this music is almost like a religion to them, it’s its own thing, Lucky. Journey has fans, Bon Jovi has fans, Metallica has fans, the music of the Allman Brothers Band brings people together. So even though somebody is seeing the Peacheaters for the first time, they’re revisiting an old friend because of that music, and now they’ve made another connection to that music which is the Peacheaters.

Q: Is there anything, Alec, that you’d like me to pass on to the folks reading this article about your Somerset Abbey debut?Antobenedetto: Sure, “When you come to see us, expect to have some fun! We make it all about the music, and tell all your friends so they come, too, because we like to play in front of as many people as we can. And you, the fans, plain and simple, are as much a part of the event as the band is, the way we view the Peacheaters is that we’re all celebrating the music of the Allman Brothers Band together. We may be playing it for you but we’re as big fans of the music as you are, and that’s the truth!”

Lucky Clark has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

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