Moonalice. Top (L to R): Roger McNamee, Jason Crosby, Barry Sless, John Molo and Pete Sears. Bottom (L to R): T Sisters (Chloe, Erika and Rachel Tietjen), Lester Chambers, Dylan Chambers.

Bay Area band Moonalice started out in 2007 as a psychedelic jam band, building a reputation both locally and throughout the U.S. among Deadheads and fans of modern reinterpretations of the genre. Led by Roger McNamee since its inception, the band has included McNamee’s wife, Ann, as well as Jefferson Starship and Rod Stewart guitarist-keyboard-bassist Pete Sears, Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna member Jack Casady, session drummer Curt Bisquera (Elton John, Mick Jagger, Johnny Cash), drummer John Molo (Phil Lesh, John Fogerty), guitarist-bassist Barry Sless and Hall & Oates guitarist G.E. Smith.

But that began to change in recent years—a change that was cemented with the permanent addition of seminal soul singer Lester Chambers, of the Chambers Brothers. The band now includes the founder, Chambers, his son Dylan Chambers, Sears, Molo, Sless and Bay Area trio T  Sisters.

This incarnation of Moonalice as a psychedelic soul band has been together for about a year, but interest in the group has exploded since then. Why?

“‘Summer of Soul’ won the Oscar for Best Documentary. Of course, Lester is the lead singer of the Chambers Brothers and is incredibly prominent in that film,” McNamee said. “First song in the film and the last song are both Lester singing. We’ve noticed since the film that there’s tons of new people coming to see us play.”

Chambers said that McNamee called him up one day a few years ago and asked him to perform a few shows with his band. Living in Petaluma, in the North Bay, he was close enough to join in. It was just supposed to be the few shows, at first. When that turned into an invitation to join full-time, he said he told them he’d been waiting for Moonalice to ask.

Chambers’ presence changed the complexion of the band’s sound.

“I’m really excited about where we’re going to go from where we are now. It’s only going to get bigger and better,” Chambers said. “We’re a great group of guys that love each other and enjoy music together, which is all of our favorite full-time gigs: Playing, thinking and writing music. I am very excited and very thankful, at the same time, to be with Moonalice.”

Chambers is the elder statesman in a band that also includes members in their 60s and in their 30s. Chambers said everyone is a great communicator, and the members are now used to knowing when to lean on each other for help. Now, he’s excited about playing the Chambers Brothers’ classics with a new cast.

“It’s great because it has a whole new flavor … and it gives me the the feeling of doing it all over again, but new,” he said. “[Sless] he does a great job putting songs together so great for us that you can’t do nothing but enjoy it.”

Moonalice and its adjacent project, Doobie Decimal System, have performed at BottleRock every year since 2013, but Roger McNamee, a prominent venture capitalist who can frequently be found talking finance and tech on national TV, points out that since the band shifted directions, it’s gotten invited to play more pop music festivals. One festival McNamee hopes to get an invite to is the revived Harlem Cultural Festival, featured in “Summer of Soul.”

“Are you kidding? I mean that would be the greatest thing ever,” McNamee said. “I saw the news that that thing’s happening, and I called our booking guy and I said, ‘Dude, you have one job. Make this happen.’ I surely hope it does. We don’t know the people who are producing it, so I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

That’s a sentiment that Chambers shares, too.

“I would love that more than anything. I wish that could be. I hope, I pray every night for that,” he said. “The Chambers Brothers don’t exist anymore. But Lester Chambers, Dylan Chambers with Moonalice do exist, and people love what we do. … I think Moonalice would add a great, fantastic point of view to that show.”

It’s McNamee’s dream to recreate the Chambers Brothers set from the original concert, and he said Moonalice already plays all but one of the songs the Chambers Brothers played there, as well as other soul classics, which is what fans can expect at BottleRock.

“We’ll play them all, are you kidding? If anybody who saw ‘Summer of Soul’ wants to get that vibe, that’s where we’re going,” he said. “What we’ve done is taken some other really cool soul tunes and turned them into psychedelic soul. ‘Yes We Can Can,’ which was Pointer Sisters; we have rearranged that as a psychedelic soul tune. We’re doing ‘You’re All I Need to Get By,’ which was Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

“BottleRock is a great place for that, because psychedelic soul is just such easy music to love. It just goes right to you,” he said.

Lester Chambers is now the lead singer of Moonalice, though the band has always taken turns singing lead, way back when it started. McNamee guesses that he used to sing about 60 percent of the time before, but that now it’s only every third show or so. The T Sisters are a talented group, and Moonalice takes full advantage of their sweet harmonizing.

“And that’s exactly the way it’s got to be,” he said. “Between Lester and Dylan Chambers, and the T Sisters, we have five killer vocalists. This band has old and young—Lester’s 82 and the twins are 34. It has Black and white, male and female. We look like America, and we’re leaning into that in a big way. The values of the band are encapsulated in the Chambers Brothers’ song, ‘Love, Peace and Happiness.’ Not because we ignore all the hard things are going on, but rather because we think the way to deal with it is to bring people together.”

McNamee said his favorite Chambers Brothers song to play is easily “Time Has Come Today,” which was a part of his soundtrack in his youth.

“The first time I played it [with Chambers], I could barely keep it together, because it was so exciting to play the song,” he said.

But nearly as exciting are classics like “People Get Ready,” “Love, Peace and Happiness” and “Let’s Get Funky.” He said those songs and others still need to be played because they are as relevant as ever with human rights again prominently under attack.

“It’s just so fun because Lester gets younger every year. We’ve been at this with [Chambers] for three years and … the music gives him so much energy, and the audience gets so much love from him. It’s a beautiful thing,” McNamee said. “Lester’s just turned 82. He’s rock royalty. The Chambers Brothers were a big band. They had top 10 hits and all that. But they were the band that musicians were really into. When they went to England, the band that greeted him was the Beatles. The Beatles took them to the Abbey Road, and they spent a day together. Jimi Hendrix was their friend. The band Alice Cooper was put together, did its rehearsals and found its name while living in the Chambers’ house and working all the stuff out in their studio. You know, [Lester Chambers’] last 20 years were pretty hard. And so, he’s getting another day in the sun.”

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.