Soulive Return with “Flowers,” Their First Full-Length Album in 15 Years

Soulive Releases New Album Flowers

For more than twenty-five years, the Woodstock, New York–formed trio Soulive have carried the flame of the Hammond-organ format for a new generation. Guitarist Eric Krasno, organist Neal Evans, and drummer-producer Alan Evans built their language on feel and economy — three voices locked in, sweat and telepathy with no wasted motion. Too lean for a jam band, too funky for straight-ahead jazz, Soulive blurred every border until categories fell away. Today, the band has released Flowers via Flóki Studios, their first full-length album in fifteen years. Listen HERE.

Across hundreds of shows and a kinetic run of albums, Soulive became a bridge between worlds — jazz clubs, rock stages, hip-hop festivals, late-night DJ sets. Their first recordings — the self-pressed Get Down! (1999), the independent breakthrough Turn It Out (2000), and subsequent Blue Note releases Doin’ Something (2001), Next (2002), and Breakout (2005) — carried the pulse of 1960s soul-jazz into a new century without looking backward. Krasno’s radiant, melodic guitar, Neal’s frothy Hammond tone, and Alan’s unhurried pocket defined the band’s signature sound.

Turn It Out moved real numbers for a young organ trio (around 65,000 copies), signaling that Soulive were more than a cult act. Within a few short years, they were opening arena tours for The Rolling Stones and Dave Matthews Band, cementing their crossover reach while holding strong to jazz-scene credibility.

“We were never chasing anyone else’s thing,” Alan reflects today. “It was always just the three of us seeing where the songs took us.”

Then, quietly, the Soulive train slowed. After Up Here (2009), the Beatles-tribute Rubber Soulive (2010), and Spark (2012) — a collaboration with saxophonist-flutist Karl Denson — the group’s only releases were the filmic EPs Cinematics, Vol. 1 (2018) and Vol. 2 (2019): compact, moody sets that hinted at new colors. Their shows narrowed to one-offs and residencies, most famously the multi-night Bowlive runs at Brooklyn Bowl, which became a calling card with rotating guests from Chaka Khan to Derek Trucks.

“I put the brakes on it,” Alan says. “I didn’t want to tour anymore. And then COVID hit, so that took care of that. It just didn’t do it for me anymore.” Neal — his bandmate and brother — agreed. “There’s something to be said about the people — musicians, artists, athletes — who dip out at the right time, and the cats who stay a little too long,” Alan continues. “I wasn’t going to be doing it when I was eighty-five.”

Soulive never broke up; they just went quiet. Krasno turned to songwriting and production. Neal to arranging and texture. Alan to engineering and sound. “There’s so much more that goes into a recording than the gear,” Alan says. “It’s about the environment — your place in space and time at that moment.”

That reconnection took form on Flowers, Soulive’s first full-length album in more than a decade. Tracked at Flóki Studios — a century-old former grocery store on Iceland’s north coast — the sessions pulled the trio out of routine and back into focus. Alan had worked there before with MonoNeon and Oteil Burbridge, drawn to the light and the solitude.

Stream Flowers: Spotify

WATCH MUSIC VIDEO FOR “FLOWERS AT YOUR FEET” FT. VAN HUNT

Flóki’s co-founder Wade Koeman built the studio for isolation and inspiration. “Ninety percent of the time, no one’s there,” he says. “You’ve got the midnight sun in summer, the Northern Lights in winter. It’s truly remote.” Inside: vintage analog gear, wide windows, and silence. “Most studios are dark, sealed off,” Alan says. “This one has light pouring in. You look out and there’s the ocean. The room feels alive.”

“There’s just something about the light up there — it’s unreal,” Alan adds. “You see it hit everything differently, and it just changes how you play.” Koeman calls it “light like you’ve never seen before — the sun, the angle, the relationship to the earth.”

And then there are the huldufólk, or “hidden people,” whose presence is woven into daily life in northern Iceland. Koeman explains that Flóki’s team makes daily offerings — a little chocolate, some fruit, a splash of Brennivín — to keep the energy balanced. “When we forget,” he says, “the lights flicker, the computers freeze, or a door handle just falls off. Once we leave an offering, everything works again.” Alan nods. “You can feel it,” he says. “There’s energy in those walls.”

They arrived with fragments and grooves but wrote most of Flowers on the spot. “We’re not super precious about it, man,” Alan says. “If it felt good, we moved on.” They played less and listened more, letting decades of chemistry do the work. “The three of us just fall into place,” he says. “It’s like having a conversation that never ended.”

“XL” opens the record — “the bridge between Cinematics and Flowers,” Alan says — connecting their earlier EPs to this new chapter. “Baby Jupiter,” the lead single, revives a long-shelved New Orleans groove from a Pretty Lights session. “It probably feels the most like vintage Soulive,” Alan says. “Like 1999 or 2000 Soulive — the younger versions of ourselves, played by guys who actually know what they’re doing now.”

“Flowers at Your Feet,” featuring Grammy-winning soul auteur Van Hunt, began as an Afrobeat sketch, veered toward Sly Stone, and found its center in Hunt’s airy, psychedelic vocal. “I texted Van and said, ‘Whatever you do will be awesome,’” Alan recalls. “And he nailed it.”

Then come “Three Kings” and “East Side.” Written the day B.B. King died, “Three Kings” became a slow-burn tribute to B.B., Freddie, and Albert — a eulogy to blues lineage filtered through Soulive’s elastic groove. “East Side,” by Neal Evans, was the only fully written tune they brought to Iceland — first tested during a Blue Note NYC run years before Flowers took shape.

The record’s back half stretches further still. “Basher,” named for Don Cheadle’s Ocean’s Eleven character, carries the spy-funk pulse of the Cinematics EPs. “Butter Rock” nods to the Meters — “an inside Flóki thing,” Alan laughs — born from the band’s New Orleans ties and the studio’s in-jokes about rhythm and grease.

“Vines,” the first track they recorded, grew from a riff Krasno played while Alan set levels. The title came from a friend outside Electric Lady Studios saying he was “getting some vines” (slang for clothes) — a small, funny exchange that stuck, a wink to key Soulive influence Jimi Hendrix’s energy and legacy.

“Pike’s Place,” named for studio owner and executive producer Chad Pike, carries a spaghetti-western lilt — and this one, Alan says, runs deep. “Neal and I — especially Neal — are way into spaghetti-Western soundtracks. Neal goes way deep; he knows all these composers you’ve never even heard of. That tune has that kind of vibe. And it’s named for Chad Pike, who owns the studio. He’s a super-cool dude, a huge music head, and an amazing supporter of the arts — so it was just a thank-you to him.”

And the closer, “Window Weather,” began with Krasno. “He always does this — ‘Yeah, I got a little something,’” Alan says. “He starts playing and we’re like, ‘Yo, that’s beautiful.’ Neal and Kras built it out. It’s got that Radiohead–Thom Yorke thing — which is weird for us, but whatever. Music is music.”

Koeman says Flowers captured what makes Soulive unique. “They came with ideas, but it was all essentially written on the spot,” he says. “When you’re in a new place, the energy shapes what comes out.” For him, Flóki offers artists a reset — a place most people have never been, where you can hear yourself again.

For Soulive, Flowers isn’t a comeback — it’s a continuation. A conversation picked up after a long silence. Three players still finishing each other’s thoughts, still finding the downbeat together.

“Once it’s out there,” Alan says, “it’s no longer ours. It belongs to whoever’s listening now.”

Live dates: Soulive will make rare live appearances at Alpenphunk in Crested Butte, Colorado on January 30, and Ardmore Music Hall in Ardmore, Pennsylvania on April 24 & 25. Get tickets and updates on future tour dates HERE.