Friday, October 16, 1998
Head of their class
MUSIC: Fusion of
hip-hop and punk cooks up success for Zebrahead
By Teron Hide
Daily Bruin Contributor
Put together four musicians from different backgrounds into a
band, and the result is nothing to write home about. Often, the
group becomes little more than a flash in the pan. But, if a few
innovators fused together a touch of in-your-face punk with a dash
of hip-hop, you just might have a hit recipe called Zebrahead.
‘We’re just crazy. Really super crazy,’ says guitarist Greg
Bergdorf. ‘Really, silly super crazy. But we’re fun for the whole
family.’
Distancing themselves from the ska scene in 1996, Zebrahead
decided to venture forth into something new and relatively
uncharted. The formula was a success; the group won Best Orange
County Band at the 1997 L.A. Music Awards and played on the Vans
Warped Tour this past summer. And on Saturday, they will be playing
their first major L.A. gig at the Roxy to promote their debut
release, ‘Waste of Mind.’
‘Hopefully, it will be a high-energy show that’s fun for
everyone and maybe we’ll pull a couple of things out that we
usually don’t do,’ bassist Ben Osmundson says. ‘The audience can
look forward to lots of explosions and fireworks.’
Bergdorf gleefully adds, ‘And don’t forget the go-go dancers in
cages … uh, and something with feathers and candles.’
Reminiscing about the earlier days, the members recall trying to
escape a period in Orange Country when ska was humongous and
thousands of bands were all trying to be the next big thing.
Although there are subtle moments of ska influence in ‘Waste of
Mind,’ the band insists that it is not representative of their
music. The band, Ali Tabatabee, Greg Bergdorf, Justin Mauriello,
Ben Osmundson and Ed Udhus, a.k.a. Zebrahead, calls it ‘pimp-rock
lounge core.’
‘We appreciate ska and some of the ska bands, but we just don’t
want to play it,’ Osmundson says. ‘I like to listen to it but it’s
just not something we want to play.’
Being relative unknowns to the industry at the time, the band
jokes about being able to barely draw a sizable crowd for some of
their first shows.
And the only reason that they were finally discovered was by
plain ol’ dumb luck.
‘We were playing a matinee show at this club near our hometown
and there were barely 10 people there,’ Bergdorf explains. ‘I think
that they were all the people from the bands that were playing, and
the booking agent liked us, so he had some people from Columbia
come down and check us out. We’re the total no-one-at-our-show
story.’
In trying to further explain their unique take on music, the
band members assert that there are no particular messages that they
are trying to convey to listeners. The lyrics behind the songs are
all simply based around either their own experiences or their
friends.
‘I really think our songs are just about experiences that we’ve
seen or had, but our lyrics aren’t about baggin’ on the whole world
and gettin’ all dark, because what do we really have to be angry
about?’ Osmundson says. ‘If our album flops, then maybe the next
one will be really hard-core and hurtful.’Sony Music
Eclectic group Zebrahead will play this Saturday at the Roxy to
promote their new album ‘Waste of Mind.’
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