Check Out ANDY GISH’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to ANDY GISH.

Hi ANDY, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am definitely a believer that the universe guides you where you’re supposed to be. Sometimes that means derailed plans and lots of pivots, but it has always worked out for me in the end.

I moved to Atlanta from Houston for graduate school in 1998. The program turned out to be an absolute disaster, and after a year, I quit. I may have considered leaving Atlanta then, but I was living in Grant Park and had started going out and seeing local music in Little Five Points and the newly emerging East Atlanta Village. There was so much really great local music happening at The Point, The Starbar, The Echo Lounge and what became my favorite, The Earl. I would devour Creative Loafing’s music suggestions and go see local music three or four times a week. I also discovered Album 88 and 99X, which were both actively supporting local music. I had not seen this kind of community support while playing in bands in Houston and it was really refreshing.

Having my educational career come to a screeching halt left me pretty depressed. But I kept going out to shows alone and I started to see how musicians were playing shows, recording music and even going on tour while still living their lives. I didn’t know anyone in Atlanta. I didn’t have a job. But seeing all these bands like Dropsonic, Man or Astro Man, Kenny Howes, Ultra Babyfat and the Young Antiques and so many others made me want to play music again.

I came from a family of rock musicians and had played in local bars in Houston since I was 15.
But I was playing in other people’s bands and, for the most part, not contributing to the writing. I had written “songs” most of life. My parents just made that seem like a normal thing to do. But artists are often their own worst critics and I had never written a song that I liked. My dad is an amazing player and writer, and I always felt like I was in his shadow and I would never be as good as him. I saw myself as a player, not a writer and definitely not a front person of a band.

Watching all this new music in Atlanta, I started becoming more of a night owl, and suddenly, one day in 1999, I came home after a show I just started writing songs. Song after song came out, completed and effortless. It was like all of the music I had ever consumed as an audiophile tumbled around and re-emerged as my own art. I was dumbfounded. But the songs were good. They were catchy, concise and were songs I would listen to and buy.

Writing a song is the most amazing and infectious feeling I have ever had. Getting a hook just right, finding the perfect phrasing of lyrics; it feels like nothing else. Putting words and music together and reaching that moment where you’re like “Yep! That’s it! The song is done!” is addictive.

1999 was a watershed year for me and suddenly I had all this music I didn’t know what to do with. So, I placed an ad in Creative Loafing’s Musicians Exchange to see if I could find other people who wanted to play. I also answered a lot of ads. But I still was not comfortable sharing these songs or thinking other people would want to play them. I met a lot of people through those ads and I started making friends at the shows I was attending. I was having trouble finding just the right band to join when one day a friend said “Andy, stop looking for the band. I’ve heard your songs. YOU are the band.”

I can not express enough how much being a band leader and front person was not on my agenda. I never had that dream of being a lead singer. But with the encouragement of some new friends in the Atlanta music scene, I started my band and called it The Yum Yum Tree after a candy store I used to go to as a kid.

I gathered friends, including drummer Matt Harr (who is still with me) and booked studio time and a show opening for some friends at The Star Bar. Within a few months we had a demo that I sent blindly to Album 88 – and they played it. They played it every day for what seemed like forever. I knew no one at the station, which for me was the first validation that the songs were good. Let me tell you, driving to work every morning and hearing you music being played on the radio is really surreal experience. I’d double-check my CD player to make sure it wasn’t me playing the song. Once I even called my mom back in Texas so she could hear it on the radio through my phone.

I will always say that Atlanta allowed me to become an artist. I had the songs inside of me but I needed a community to foster me, encourage me, and let me develop. I am not sure any of this would have happened if I had moved to another city.

From the outside, I would say that people probably would describe me as confident but I have always wrestled with a ton of imposter syndrome. In some ways I think it’s healthy but in others it is overwhelming. 27 years later, with multiple albums under my belt, it’s still hard for me to believe I’ve done this. When I look at Apple Music or Spotify and see all my music there, I think “is that real?”

REAL WORLD STUDIOS

In July of 2025, TYYT was invited to travel with friends to record at Peter Gabriel’s legendary Real World Studios in England. Like 1999, this was also a watershed moment for me. The Yum Yum Tree and my other band, Blackfox, all traveled and lived together for a week in this magical residential studio in the middle of the English countryside.

That first day I struggled with tons of looming imposter syndrome. There was a lot of battling the idea that I even deserved to be in this legendary studio. The first day in the studio was definitely a struggle for me. I didn’t get my parts right, and I was just off. I didn’t sleep much that night and woke up an absolute vulnerable mess. You could just see it on me. There was no hiding it. I remember sitting at the breakfast table with 14 of my closest friends and sobbing because I was overwhelmed with my own expectations. I blame myself for letting the imposter syndrome get so loud that first day. But my bandmates and the staff of Real World were there to softly support me. The staff was amazing, and we were told our only job was to play music. I finally just submitted and said, “Ok, let’s do this!” It finally clicked, and it was magical. TYYT came back with 8 songs, some of which are featured on this current album and some which will come out on a later EP. My other band Blackfox recorded an album which will be released in late 2026. I came back with a renewed idea of what it meant to be an artist. I stopped listening to the doubt inside my head and I dove in headfirst to getting our current album out – enlisting all of my heart – unapologetically.

The Yum Yum Tree just released our latest album, Turn Down The Noise (a reference to turning down internal and external noise and doubt) and it even got printed on vinyl. It looks and sounds gorgeous and I could not be prouder. The album has already has had some good reception and I am excited to see what else becomes of it all.

FINDING HARM REDUCTION

The Yum Yum Tree, writing music, recording and doing regional tours was really my primary focus for many years but in 2004 I decided to go back to school and become an ER nurse. Nursing allowed me to keep strange hours, work long shifts and have lots of days off to see and play music. It also filled my need for having science back in my life.

In 2006, I became an ER nurse right when the opioid epidemic started to emerge. From the start I was losing a lot of patients to overdose and substance use. In 2005, I lost my childhood best friend to substance use. Then I lost a drummer. 20 years later, I’ve lost too many people and I’m probably going to lose more. I lived in the Little Five Points area for many years and I started losing my neighbors too. The epidemic kept increasing, and by 2013, I was burnt out.

I loved the ER but I was going to leave after losing another 24-year-old patient and having to sit with his family as they tried to understand that although he looked “ok” he was never going to wake up. It was right after that that I saw that this organization called Georgia Overdose Prevention was trying to pass a law to help combat the overdose epidemic.

In Jan 2014, I joined GOP’s efforts and testified at the Capitol as to why naloxone (aka Narcan) is a safe rescue medicine and should be in people’s homes. Our law Don’t Run – Call 911 passed into law that April and I became a Volunteer Distributor for GOP. I started educating lay people in coffee shops, bars, on the street and distributing naloxone (the antidote to an opioid overdose) to people at risk. I immediately started to understand how needed this was as within weeks lives were being saved by the naloxone I had handed out. I even trained my coffee shop’s barista and within two days she saved someone. It was hard to believe how much my community needed this.

My first initiative was to get the service industry in L5P and EAV trained and equip them with naloxone so that they can look out for their patrons and neighbors. Today, the service industry of those two neighborhoods has saved over 30 people that we know of.

For almost 10 years, I was a volunteer for GOP – traveling across the state in my free time, educating laypeople how to recognize and respond to an overdose.

After saving almost 10,000 people in 2023, the co-founders, Laurie Fugitt and Robin Elliott, decided to retire, and I was given the great honor of becoming the Executive Director of GOP. Stewarding this organization is the most rewarding job I have ever had. As of today, we have saved 15,006 people that we know of. That number is not saves by police or EMS – it’s laypeople saving their friends, family, and strangers. All of those overdose reversals are due to Georgia’s Medical Amnesty law and the important work GOP has been doing since 2012.

I am not sure I would have been drawn to this work without being an artist and seeing people from my community die. Artists are often open, vulnerable and tender-hearted souls. Many of them experiment with substances at some point in their lives. That experimentation, whether it be once, infrequently or daily, is much more risky these days. The stakes are very high.

I am very proud of Georgia for passing a gold-standard Medical Amnesty Law and for supporting grassroots organizations like Georgia Overdose Prevention. At least 15,000 Georgians have had second chances because of this.

In 2023, I identified a gap in naloxone accessibility across Georgia. GOP was supporting an old newspaper box in Athens where anyone could pick up a rescue kit around the clock, no questions asked, and a couple of other organizations had started doing the same. But these locations were nearly impossible to find unless you already knew someone in those circles.

I decided to address that by creating a live Google map — GaNaloxone.com — that consolidated all of these spots in one place. At the same time, we began installing additional 24-hour boxes throughout the state to expand access.

Two and a half years later, the map has grown to over 100 locations statewide — a mix of 24-hour boxes and storefronts. We’ve documented cases of people whose lives were saved by kits from these locations.

My organization, GOP, serves as the steward of the map and directly supports several of the sites, but a significant number are operated independently by other community organizations across Georgia. That’s really the strength of the model — it functions as a collaborative infrastructure, making sure this life-saving medication is available to people wherever and whenever they need it.

I now spend my days traveling across the state, educating lay people how to protect their communities and getting naloxone into underserved and high-risk communities. Last year, we distributed over 41,000 rescue kits and saved 2,209 people that we know of.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Gosh, struggles and pivots have been a constant in my life but I feel my parents instilled in me this idea of accepting that life has other plans for you. I guess it’s become an adaptive trait for change. I grew up very poor and we moved constantly: Ohio, Texas, Tennesee. Because of this I only have a couple of friends from childhood and I was never sure where to call “home” exactly. But then I fell in love with Atlanta — my chosen home.

When people ask where I am from I now say Atlanta. Yes, I know grady-babies would scoff at this because I was not born here but this town, the community, it’s what made me. It’s also why it’s so important for me to show up for my city (and state) and serve it as best I can. I have a tattoo on my forearm in the shape of Georgia. Inside the tattoo are lyrics from my favorite band The Weakerthans. It says “back with the streets I know will never take me anywhere but here.” For me this is about belonging in and to Georgia.

As a young poor student and artist Atlanta was a place that was able to foster me. Watching my city grow and change is both reassuring and worrisome.I am really concerned about is how Atlanta fosters new artists in a town where the median rent is something I could never have afforded. In the 90’s Atlanta was cheap and it allowed for people to make art without having to worry about basic needs much. I am afraid we are growing at a rate where we won’t be able to let artists be artists.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am really proud of our new album, “Turn Down The Noise” and the fact that I have a catalogue of music to show. We worked so hard on this album and I think it shows. I did all of the design for it, which is really out of my comfort zone.

My work with Georgia Overdose Prevention is the most rewarding work of my life. To be able to steward such an amazing organization and our effective group of volunteers across Georgia is truly inspiring.

Links:

Theyumyumtree.org

GeorgiaOverdosePrevention.org

GaNaloxone.com

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Show up and never stop being curious. Almost every opportunity I have ever had has come from showing up, volunteering and putting in time. Look for the helpers. They will support you and show you the way.

Having lots of responsibility or experience isn’t the same thing as leading. Leading is looking forward and knowing you have to be open to those that come after you, you have to learn from them as much as they learn from you. You have to foster those who can continue and evolve the work. It’s so easy to fall into “this is the way we do things” but if you do that the work never evolves.

If you want to grow in a field, no matter if you are new to it or are an expert: keep showing up and learning from others doing the work. Remaining teachable is the best way to continue to grow in my opinion.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theyumyumtree.org
• Instagram: @theyumyumtreeatl
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheYumYumTree-ATL
• Other: GaNaloxone.com and GeorgiaOverdosePrevention.org

Image Credits
BW photos: Jeff Shipman
Album photo credit: Jane White
Candy Store Photos: Scott Lewis
Photo of us on Ponce: Brent Dey