ZEBEDEE
Brooklyn, NY | Established. Jan 01, 2015 | SELF | AFTRA
Music
Press
ZEBEDEE, the project of Australian transplant Zebedee Row, serves up crunchy, saxed-up garage rock that seems to dangerously flirt with the edge of madness. Their songs are rollicking romps through 70s-era rock 'n' roll, without ever feeling canned or over baked. Check out the band at Pianos 11/25 and stream them below.-Olivia Sisinni - The Deli Magazine
Brooklyn-based ZEBEDEE have debuted their video for “Fright”, the first single off their self-titled debut EP. The video utilizes claymation designed by Kailey Killdone to tell its story, putting it firmly in the pantheon of classic stop-motion music videos alongside works by Tool, Peter Gabriel, and Green Jelly (née Jello). Unlike the triumphant moment of Green Jelly’s “Three Little Pigs” video wherein Rambo arrives to save the day by liberating a houseful of pigs while laying waste to a wolf, “Fright” follows a soldier as he spirals downward after returning home from war.
“When writing the song we strived to make it as loud and fuzzed out as possible,” expands ZEBEDEE. “I had a crumby little demo on my phone but I loved how washed out and compressed the recording was, so we tried to emulate that. I thought it was a good musical representation of the backwards beliefs and tragedies happening here in the State’s at the moment.”
While the animation for “Fright” at first seems whimsical, things get real, at times unsettlingly so, very quickly. The juxtaposition of the light animation style with the video’s dark subject matter and taut, muscular riffs gives the proceedings an unexpectedly poignant quality that one can’t take their eyes away from. Such a deliberate, if surprising, choice in animation allows the visuals to be both horrific and palatable to the viewer, portraying the violence of war and the ugly reality of society’s treatment of its veterans in a way that simply wouldn’t have worked in live action.
Zebedee plays Mercury Lounge this Saturday, July 30th - IMPOSE MAGAZINE
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
CURRENTLY THE DELI MAGAZINES ARTIST OF THE MONTH NYC.thedelimagazine.com
“The juxtaposition of dark subject matter and taut, muscular riffs gives the proceedings an unexpectedly poignant quality that one can’t take their eyes away from.” - IMPOSE MAGAZINE
Originally from Australia, frontman Zebedee Row (guitar/vocals) grew up in a family of musicians and began playing whatever instrument he could get his hands on by age 8. Row’s heart was stolen by New York City and he was quickly welcomed into the indie/DIY music scene abundantly thriving in modern day Brooklyn.
Today, he is joined by Victor de la Garza (drums) a jazz trained musician from Mexico City. Michael Benham, another experienced player from New Hampshire, has worked with the likes of Victor Wooten. Also accompanying on guitar is Kelsey Van Mook, known as a top model in the fashion world, and the wild card amongst the band.
Their songs are rollicking romps through 70s-era rock 'n' roll, without ever feeling canned or over baked - The Deli Magazine
The upcoming album, recorded at Brooklyn’s H oly Fang , is a hard hitting combination of straight rock n’ roll, blues music and psychedelic rock. At times, Tame Impala comes to mind as a straight comparison, but then frontman Row wails like Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant (interestingly enough, Zebedee played Robert Plant in HBO’s series VINYL ). Screeching guitar solos take the forefront, melding indie psych rock with the classic rock n’ roll that took the world by storm during the 1960s. Drawing influence from Radiohead and contemporaries like Tame Impala and Kurt Vile, Zebedee challenges the constructs of modern rock n’ roll by melding influences, past and present, to create something that stands out against the rest in the over saturated indie market.
Band Members
Links
