Californian rap/funk/pop-punk dudes Zebrahead have long sustained a reputation as party animals.
Several of the band’s songs contain references to embracing the good times, and they’re known for being loudly frolicsome onstage. However, to perceive the Orange County quintet as nothing but fun-seekers is to take a fairly shallow view. Negative themes have continually shown up in the band’s lyrics ever since their emergence 17 years ago.
This is definitely true of Zebrahead’s latest single ‘Save Your Breath’, the first taste of their 12th album, Walk The Plank. The song doesn’t paint a pretty image for the narrator or the implied listener. Accordingly, one of the band’s two lead vocalists, MC Ali Tabatabaee, agrees that the impression of Zebrahead as carefree hedonists is rather two-dimensional.
“I know, especially live, we have a very light-hearted attitude – we try to have fun and have a good time with the crowd,” he says. “But if you actually listen to our songs, the majority of them are filled with serious issues. I think it’s like anybody’s life – you’re going to have times where shit goes bad and you have to deal with it and you have to feel a way out of it, and there are other times when things are fun and you’re having a good time. Your experiences vary as everyday life changes.
“I think a lot of people, when they say that we’re just a bunch of dorks that want to party and have fun and that’s it – I don’t think they’ve actually listened to the majority of our songs. Personally, I write my parts based on my experiences, or experiences of people around, and they’re not always super fun or positive. Sometimes things are shitty and you have to deal with them and figure out a way to come out of it.”
Walk The Plank comes out this weekend. It was preceded by April’s The Early Years – Revisited, which contained re-recordings of Zebrahead’s biggest songs from prior to 2003, only this time around with Matty Lewis on vocals/guitar (he replaced Justin Mauriello in 2005) and Dan Palmer on lead guitar (he replaced Greg Bergdorf in 2013).
“We started talking about this when Matty joined the band,” says Tabatabaee. “A lot of the fans would say they’d like to hear some of the older songs with Matty singing them, where they could actually take a CD and listen to Matty’s voice. And we were like, ‘OK, yeah, that’s something that we want to do.’ We kept putting it off, and then when Dan joined the band things changed. The way Dan plays the guitar is a little bit different than the way Greg played the guitar. Then we had a little bit of a break when we were at home, and we decided to go in and re-record the songs.
“Also to me, these songs live, after you record them initially, things change. Like the way you do phrasing or the way you play songs changes a little bit. It was a second chance to go back and fix things.”
Zebrahead’s mainstream debut, Waste Of Mind, came out in 1998. Despite containing such fan favourites as ‘Check’ and ‘Get Back’, prior to its release they’d never embarked on a serious tour.
“We went from playing in our little warehouse to recording the songs,” says Tabatabaee. “Then over the years playing them so many times live you’re like, ‘Ah man. Certain things I wish I could’ve just tweaked a little bit’.”
Walk The Plank is the second album to feature Palmer on guitar, after he came in partway through the production of 2013’s Call Your Friends. The band’s songwriting methods have altered significantly since his entrance.
“The thing with Dan is, he will sit there and literally give you 500 different choices for a guitar riff,” says Tabatabaee. “He just keeps giving you ideas until you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s the one.’ He’s just such a positive guy, so it’s kind of refreshing to have a guy come into the band that wants to do more and do better and is stoked on every opportunity. It makes the rest of the guys in the band get a second wind and feel like, ‘Hell, let’s keep going. We can improve on this.’ It just breathes new air into the writing process.”
Having been around for nearly two decades, Zebrahead have a firmly established fan base and a reputation as highly entertaining live performers. At this stage in their career, the chief focus is on delivering something substantial and personally significant.
“Obviously it’s great to improve your fan base, but when we’re writing we try to write each song individually, and usually it’s motivated by experiences that we’ve had, or people that we’ve known have had. And we just try to be honest as an artist and write the music. You never know how people are going to perceive it. Half of them are going to like it, half of them aren’t going to like it. It’s really hard to chase that, so I try not to focus on that. Each individual song, I try to make it the best song that we can and then move on to the next song.
“Being relevant to the music scene is out of the artist’s hands. I think the more honest you are about what you’re trying to communicate through the song, the more people will relate to it.”
Walk The Plank is out Friday October 16 through Rude.
