"There is a positive way to deal with negative situations. I think a lot of us took the negative that life gave us and tried to do this band and tried to take all of the negatives and turn it into a positive, as a band, trying to de-root our past!"

It was a real pleasure for me to interview Zao, a band that has a lot more to offer than just heavy music; they provide you with food for thought as well. Join me on a journey into an explanation of the band's newest release entitled The Funeral of God, their views on what needs to change in the Industry, etc. 

Karma: Sound off guys and please introduce yourselves to the audience.

Scott: I am Scott and I play guitars for the band, Zao.

Dan: My name is Dan, lead vocals for Zao

Karma: Zao, in Latin, translates into “Alive”.  What made you choose the name?

Dan: After a long line of [lineup changes] we came into it after [the band was named].  We didn’t have much to do with the band’s name.  It doesn’t necessarily mean "alive" but spiritually alive like having your third eye open in the sense of spiritual views.  Even though we were not a band when it was called that but [the current lineup] agrees on it.

Karma:  After hearing “Breath of the Black Muse” on Music Choice, I was floored; it is such an amazing song.

Dan: Thanks! 

Scott: [Smiles]

Karma: Which method has been the best advertising tool: Internet, radio, video…?

Scott: I think there are two main ways that work the best for us and that’s touring and the internet probably.  Because radio doesn’t seem to cater to this style of music we play.  Of course, a thing like Music Choice helps us a lot…

Dan: …Digital cable like On Demand

Scott: That is what Music Choice is On Demand right?

Karma: It’s available in your basic digital cable package here in Chicago...

Scott: We have it as an On Demand... But I think touring and Internet definitely helps. [Smiles]

Karma: How has the tour been so far?

Scott: I think it’s going awesome. We are actually fans of all the bands we’re on tour with right now!  [Snickers]

Karma: [Smiles] That is awesome!

Scott: Yeah, [smiles] but it’s not like it happens all the time.  I mean getting to see these guys play every night is a pretty nice pleasure for us.  Getting to play in front of people who maybe haven’t seen Zao before is really cool too!

Karma: Speaking of a fan that might not have ever seen you before, what could this new fan expect to see at a Zao show?

Dan: The simplest way is that it’s dark and melodic; we’ve always played heavier music but tried to follow more of a rock n’ roll format as far as first chorus then verse.  A lot of the heavy bands are all over the place whereas we’ve always tried to keep it a simple structure as far as having choruses, verses and bridges…that’s us.  It’s heavy, kinda dark and melodic.  We try to keep it melodic to hold people’s interest.  [Laughs]  I guess a lot of people just describe us dark…I don’t know what that means really!  [We all laugh]

Scott: If I had to pick 3 bands that I'd say we sound anything like I'd have to pick AC/DC, a little bit of Metallica and Neurosis [Smiles]

Dan: Also a little Carcass!

Scott: Yes, and a little Carcass

Karma: What was the motivation behind your latest effort, The Funeral of God?  

Dan:  It started with like a weird dream; it's political, social, and religious statements all wrapped up in dollop.  A lot of music that we play, in this kind of genre some of the bands, not a lot necessarily, we wish God was dead and things like that.  Even if someone doesn't believe…but what if one day every thing just came crashing down.  If you were in a car and got into an accident, lying there about to die, you'd still have hope there was still that one chance.  You know regardless what you believe your entire life, maybe there's still that one chance there may be something…but what if God didn't exist?

It is kinda more, I wouldn't say a positive look on the death of God, but in a sense that I personally think what would happen to humanity if there were no more rules, if there were no more structure.  Even the little things like your conscious and stuff like that.  What if there was like, nothing!  So technically even if, you know, there are people out there like, 'I don't believe', what if it came down to there WAS a God and now he's dead and now there's nothing; the way that humanity would not only respond personally but politically and socially on the latter.

Karma & Sharita: [Amazement creeps over our gaping countenances]

Karma: [Recovering from a dropped jaw] Wow!  That's good stuff!!  [Everyone laughs]

Dan: I try! [Laughs again]  Mostly, as a band, we wanted to do something to make people want to look into and read lyrics…

Karma: Well you definitely succeeded!

Dan & Scott: [Smile]

Dan: With a lot of the heavier bands right now it seems like 5, 6, 7 years ago you really had to have something in order to make people interested in you.  It seems now it's becoming more popular it's so easy to be in a heavy band and go out and play and have fans.  We just wanted to take it back to what it was originally about where it was about a thought, an inspiration, and motivation.  I'm not saying that cross the board it's been lost but I think a lot of it has been lost with this type of music getting bigger; we just wanted to do something that kinda took it back to reading lyrics and wanted to know what the songs were about….

Karma: Wow! Wow!!

Dan: [Laughs]

Karma: With the extreme amount of personnel changes how has it affected you as a band?  Has it made your songwriting stronger and you as a unit tighter?

Scott: [Smiles] I definitely think so!  I think that every time some one new comes in they're going to bring their own type of thing; and we've been through that a little too much… [Snickers] 

Dan: [Smiles]

Scott: It definitely has helped us change in better ways.  With the group we have now, the 5 guys, everybody works really really well together!

Karma: That's great!

Scott: Yeah! We've known the two new guys in the band [Sean Koschick, bass and Stephen Peck, drums] for a long time.  We've actually been in bands with them earlier before Zao.  It makes songwriting and everything so much easier because everybody is kinda on the same page now.  Before everybody was sort of there… here was always someone wanting to do this or that…but now it's a lot more together!  [Smiles]

Dan: The drummer we play with now, [Stephen] the first band I was ever in was with him. First band Scott was ever in was with him, separate bands though.  I know for a lot of bands when they get new members it's a job, it's like an interview almost.  It's nice for us to say that we knew and that are talented. 

Scott: Not only that, but we've been friends for 5-10 years whatever…

Dan: So it wasn't strange or anything or having someone new thrown in the mix, it was natural from the start.

Karma: How did the writing process differ for Funeral versus your previous releases?

Dan:  We spent more than 2 weeks on it!  [Laughter erupts from all] 

Scott: We made more of an attempt to make a full record and every song flowed and every song, in itself, flowed.  We spent a lot more time writing songs and going back to them, you know!  Because a lot of the other times with the other records we would write a song and kinda just do it, get it done and not go back to it.  Maybe in changing things and in being able to do that I think it helped with different songs on the record.  You can actually do it [record] go away from it for about a week, and then come and go…'Uhh, that part maybe didn't fit' as well as we though it did.  Before, we didn't do that.

Dan: It's an album!  It's more of an album as opposed to a collection of songs not just throwing them all together calling it an album…if that makes any sense!

Karma: So it's more of a conceptual album…

Dan: Yeah!!  [Smiles]  It is a concept but even if it wasn't a concept I think it's still the fact that we worked really hard on these songs.  Personally, in the past, we might have had 5 good songs then we'd throw together 4-5 other quick songs to make an album.  For the first time, in my opinion, we made an album.

Karma: Was there a lot of pressure surrounding this release this go round?

Scott: I think the biggest pressure was that we did get new members so you have to prove that we have a band that is still forceful enough with different people.  There was pressure on us too because we are getting older and we want to do this so…

Karma: [Look of incredulousness creeps across my face]

Scott: [Laughs]

Karma: Okay!

Dan: [Falls over with laughter as all hell breaks lose at this point]

Scott: [Smiling] The best thing you can do is you want to up [the ante] every time so you won't have to go through that type of stuff again.  We definitely did feel pressure though, but it wasn't to the point that we were like, 'Uhhh' or anything…[Mimics the look of depression]

Karma: So it wasn't record company pressure...

Scott: ...No, no…

Dan: Well in a sense, for the first time it wasn't pressure but it was…

Scott: It was more like us putting pressure on ourselves.

Dan: The record label [Ferret] has been so good to us that we wanted to give them something that would make them feel that they made a good decision as opposed to just slapping something together and putting it out.  We wanted the label to feel that by signing us, even though we had some new members come in, that they still made a good decision.  [Smiles]

Karma: Which track(s) off Funeral are your favorites?

Scott: For me I think my favorite song off the record might be track number 3, it's called "The Last Revelation (The Last Prophecy)" I just think that song kinda put together every type or style of music that we always have done and too I sang a little bit on the record.  That was one of my fun-type vocal parts to do and stuff so I like that song a lot.

Karma: [Turns to Dan and smiles] And you?

Dan: [Smiles] It's hard to say!  For the first time I really enjoyed everything!

Scott: Yeah, it's weird!  [Laughs]

Dan: [Smiles] I think my favorite track off the album is track number 5.  We don't play it much live but it's called "Live…From The Funeral of God".  It gets into a lot of, once again, political and social views, comments like at the end of Natural Born Killers.  You know where there is this convict, he is convicted of all these crimes, and it mainly gets into how TV ratings are so important.  And how they are willing to share these gross things on television and how it gets people excited.  It's kinda about if God died about how the media would create a sequel, and Pepsi would make new commercials.  [Guffaws from all]  It's a good statement about society today to where a lot of people don't get into what's really actually going on.  It's more like the glamour and glitz that really attracts people as opposed to actual core elements of the actual issues.  I probably had the most fun lyrically writing that song.

Karma: Okay!  Who are some of your musical influences?

Dan: Ours are the same!

Scott: Yeah!  For both Dan & I our most favorite human being in the world is Johnny Cash!  And I know lyrically Dan that uses him as an inspiration.  [Smiles]  I know musically that is a little hard to do that.  I don't know, I mean a lot of us are in to different kinds of music.  Like I don't listen to heavy music at all!

Karma: Really!

Scott: Yeah!

Dan: I don't necessarily do either.

Karma: Wow!  [Said with look of amazement]

Scott: I listen to anything from Johnny Cash to Classic Rock like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and stuff like that.  I mean I would say that would definitely be an influence on me.  I do listen to a lot of Radiohead and the Cardigans and stuff like that too. 

The cool thing with Zao is that we all have differences with music so we never come into it listening to our peers' bands.  Most of the time, what a lot of bands do is they listen to bands that are around that they know and not necessarily try to rip that [sound] off …

Dan: …but subconsciously, when you listen to music it becomes a part of you.  So we try to listen to more offbeat from the genre that we are in.  Like the Misfits, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Samhain and Danzig.  I love anything that Danzig has ever done…  But I've been on a weird, not embarrassing, but to this kind of genre like anything Pre-Arista Grateful Dead.  I like Blue Cheer and I listen to a lot of Stoner Rock bands like Clutch, Fu Manchu, God Wizard and stuff like that.

I think part of it is the poppy elements is what attracts us to that music because we try to take that, make it heavier and give that back to people.  Just the catchiness of it all; I really enjoy repeating choruses and verses and hearing a song and be able like when you hear that chorus for the first time then you go through that verse you just want to hear that chorus again.  Keep the listener a little more interested like give them parts to attach to so that you can repeat and they can hold on to…

Karma: Like recognition of sorts…

Dan: Yeah!

Karma: What do you think needs to change in the Industry?

Scott: I think that what needs to change is starting to change.  I think people are realizing that they can do it themselves that they don't need the help of the huge major label corporation to do it.  I think that in itself has changed a lot…I mean it's kinda happening now.  There are a lot of smaller labels are coming up that realize there are bands out there that might not be on the radio or on TV but all in all they're really good bands.  People need to recognize that there is a slew of stuff that you might not know of just because you don't see it on TV.

Dan: I think the other thing is that it seems like the market is a little over-saturated right now! 

Karma: Just a skosh!  [Everyone chuckles]

Dan: Like it's so easy for any band to get a record deal these days…I mean I am happy for a lot of bands but at the same time I think there are a lot bands who have a lot of really bad albums out.  I just remember that when we got into back in the day, you really had to bust your ass.  You really had to work hard to have something special to get even a little minor label deal.  Now they're bands who have only been around for 4 months who are putting out an album…

Scott: As long as they have pretty faces!  [Uproarious laughter ensues from all]

Dan: That's the other thing, none of the people in our band are pretty…

Scott: ...or hot…

Dan: …in the sense of some ''boy band''  [We all die laughing] But anymore it all seems kind of strange to me that if you're in a band together and in 3-4 months you put on 5-6 shows and have a CD.  I mean I can say that everyone in the band, myself included, have at least been in it [the Industry] for at least 10 years.  I've seen bands that are 50 times better than half these bands and never went anywhere like 8 years ago.  If they existed today, they'd be giants now.  To me I just think it's strange that so much is being put out there it's over-saturated.  I'd like to see it go back a it being a little more selective like you have to have an unique sound, stage show…something!  Just that little niche somewhere that seems like it has been lost.  It's like anyway who can play a tight song no matter how well it's written can get a record deal.  I think that's part of it too.

Karma: Do you feel the fans have changed since you first started doing this?

Scott: They're definitely younger!  [Everyone laughs]  I think…

Dan: That's the problem that comes along with not having a pretty face!  [Guffaws fill the room]

Scott: True!!

Dan: 14 year old girls don't want to see us…

Scott:  Dudes that are sweaty! [Hysterical laughter from all]  Another thing that's the weird about today's generation of fans is a lot of them are getting to see bands like Zao or Dillinger Escape Plan in the mall or in Hot Topic.  It's like this weird mall thing so they go check it out and then after a couple of years they go and find something new.  But when we started, if you were a fan of the band, you STAYED a fan of that band!

Dan: You had to bust your ass to get a show to may be find a distro may be cut a CD…

Scott: …but now it's every where.  You can just get into it and then if you don't like it in a year, well, who cares!

Karma: Where do you see the band 5 years from now?

Scott: If we're not rich 5 years from now I'll kill myself!  [Laughs boisterously as well all follow suit]  No, I'm just kidding!!  I would hope to see us still doing this 5 years from now.

Dan: Getting bigger and better!  We're really excited about writing and recording a new album.  I think we can blow The Funeral of God away!  Not that I don't think it's a good album because I think that our next CD will blow it away!

Karma: Are you in process of recording it now?

Scott: No, we haven't even started on it yet.

Dan: I think since we've been touring we continue to get new ideas and we have kinda like a whole new fresh outlook on everything.  I guess that's good because we're all excited and we won't have a problem topping it.  Not that we don't think it's a good album it's just that our next one will be… [Pauses] …scary!!  [Laughs]  [We all share a good hearty guffaw]

Karma: Do you have a pre-show ritual?

Dan: Not really!  Believe it or not, a couple of us are really shy!  And if I don't have a couple of beers I get out on stage, stand there and look at everybody and just freeze up!  [Laughs]  I mean I would pass out! 

Karma: You still care!

Dan: Not so much that but I think one of the things I've always liked about this band is…and this may sound weird but everybody in this band is kind of like a loser.  Like in high school, we weren't cool.  We were like the people that got beat up and shit on and stuff.  I think part of this music is that we just carried that throughout [from their adolescent years].  I think this is the only thing that makes us feel better!  It's the only redeeming quality in life.  It's the only thing we have!  We remember all of that and we appreciate what we have today, that's what drives us.  Just coming from nothing…none of us are rich, none of us have rich families, and none of us had a good life growing up or anything like that.  Taking that into consideration, there is a positive way to deal with negative situations.  I think a lot of us took the negatives that life gave us and tried to do this band and tried to take all of the negatives and turn it into a positive, as a band, trying to de-root our past!

Scott: [Snickers]

Dan: [Smiles] That way when we go back to our 10-15 year reunion, we'll have bodyguards that will beat up the football players!!

Karma: More than likely they are the "losers"!  Funny how that all works out!!

Scott: Definitely!  [Everyone laughs]

Click here to check out Pt II

of the interview, find out

how Dan & Scott tick,

their likes, dislikes...

 

Thanks to Marty Lunn, the band's tour manager for making this interview a possibility.