Zao – Don't Fear The "Core"

Zao are trend setters, not followers. Founded in 1993 in Pennsylvania, the band has been one of the few that influenced "core" music into the shape it has today, The band newest release – The Fear Is What Keeps Is Here, out now on Ferret Records, is their first with Uber-soundman Steve Albini, to find out more about the band and current affairs, we spoke with their drummer – Jeff Gretz.

Hey Jeff, first, congratulations on the new album, I personally feel it's the strongest the band ever had, how happy are you with the result?

Thanks. We feel the same way, as far as it being the strongest. I think it's the first time in a LONG time that the band has been able to spend time on the writing end. There was no pressure, it just happened. Every time any of us are involved in any kind of recording, whether its with Zao or other projects, we tend to have certain things that we want to go back and change. I'm having a really hard time doing that with this one, so I guess you could say we're more than happy with the result. The way we heard it in our heads is exactly the way it came out.

In what ways is it different, or similar, to "The Funeral Of God"?

It's pretty different. Funeral Of God was a much more conceptual record, it was played out like a story or a mini-movie, so it had a much more broad sound, the songs were more spread out and epic. This one was trying to be the opposite of that, more short and to the point. Lay it out there and get out. Don't let anything overstay it's welcome. Hit it and quit it.

The album sounds much rawer, more dynamic; can that be attributed to
Steve Albini's work as a producer?

Well, he didn't produce, her never really does. He looks at his position like a plumber or an electrician, skilled labor. In fact, he wears work overalls while he records, he won't even really discuss the record until he puts them on! But, yeah, his recordings tend to bring out the more basic elements of bands. It's much more rock and not so much studio polished. Music like this isn't supposed to be perfect or easy on the ears, it's supposed to abrasive and deadly. We knew that going in, so the songs were sort of written with that in mind.

How did the initial connection with Steve start out?

His girlfriend Heather was actually doing a documentary about
underground music and had Zao footage in it. She introduced herself to the band and mentioned that her boyfriend wanted to record us. Her boyfriend ended up being Steve. So he brought the band to the studio, gave a tour and everyone was in to it. The band wanted to use him for Funeral of God, but it didn't work out for whatever reasons.

I understand he used analog-tapes on the production, and that Daniel used an hand-held microphone used through an amp, what was the reason for such different recoding techniques?

To sort of go back to what recording used to be, a document of a band playing. We wanted the record to not only sound the way we do live, but to have a more visceral energy to it overall. There are plenty of really "nice" sounding records out there for people to buy, we wanted to offer an alternative. Something interesting. Something that would force you to have an opinion of it. People seem to either love or hate the production and the way we presented it… and that's exactly what we figured would happen. Obviously, we love it.

"Funeral" was a concept album, is this same with the new one?

No, not at all. One concept album was enough for awhile. Maybe down the road there will be another one. I mean, anytime you write a batch of songs, there's going to be a common thread running through them because it's a document of what you're going through at the time, but there isn't a storyline like on the last one. I would say the general theme to these songs is that feeling of having a "loss of control".

What does the title "The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here" mean?

There's a bunch of different things you could pull out of it. I mean, fears control you, whatever it is. Our town where we come from is very self-contained, a lot of people that were born here, die here, and never venture more than an hour or so away, "the fear" of the outside world tends to keep them here. People end up stuck in jobs they don't enjoy because of the fear to move on, the fear of failure. Even with us, you get into music when you're young because you enjoy it, but eventually you keep doing it because you HAVE to, if you don't do it you'll shrivel up and waste away, it's not a choice anymore, you're in it for life. It's what you do because you don't know how or would be happy doing anything else.

Where does the (rather grim) artwork for the album fit in?

Again, we wanted something simple and to the point, kid of like the music. We wanted something that didn't tell you what it is, something that people could put their own meaning to. The clothed figure is basically supposed to represent The Fear. Anything could be under that cloth… whatever it is you're afraid of is under there.

I understand that the track "its Hard Not to Shake With a Gun in Your Mouth" refers to people's misunderstand of the band, in what ways do you think the band is misconceived, and how does the song relate to that?

We get a lot of flak for not fitting into whatever mold people decide they want to put us into. For us, it's the Christian thing. People can't understand that, yes, our singer is a Christian, that's his personal thing, that doesn't mean the band has a message or is trying to convert people. Dan sings about whatever is going on in his life, and because his faith is very personal and private for him, it's not sung about as much as he did say, 8 years ago. EVERYONE in the band has different belief systems and they don't exactly line up… so why would we pick a unified one to put into the music?

But people tend to get really up in arms about this and there was one particular fan that really gave Dan a hard time and sort of crossed the line with him, this guy was asking him why he wasn't spreading the word of Jesus in Zao's music and was getting REALLY aggressive and angry about it. This guy needed to look in the mirror because he's obviously a hypocrite. I mean, Dan comes right out and says it in the song, "Your voice is a sounding trumpet, announcing the mountains that you've moved, but love is the farthest thing from you."

The album seems concentrate less on the subject of religion than before, why is that?

It's about the same really, other than the Funeral Of God — which again was a concept record and was completely fictitious, like a movie or a novel, none of the records since REALLY early on, have dealt with it that much. There was the perception that it was, but that was more a case of the band being stuck in a position of the people around them marketing it that it had more to do with religion. Again, I think that's why Dan's lyrics work so well, even if he does sing about his beliefs, it's always from a very personal side and is very vague, if you wanted to attach one of his songs to God, you could do that, but you could also put that meaning to, say, your relationship with your girlfriend or wife, or your relationship with your parents, or whatever.

The best art doesn't tell you what it's trying to say. If you looked at an abstract painting and you saw a tree and the artist said, "No. It's a woman, that's all it is, that's all it can be" That tends to ruin it for you. Now you can't enjoy that painting anymore because you know you're wrong. Again, we all have very different spiritual beliefs and to varying degrees, I don't think Dan wants to put a unified message out there to alienate any listeners, let alone other members of the band. There are plenty of bands out there that DO deal very straightforward with a lot of these topics, let THEM do it, we have our own thing going on.

It seems the band puts a lot of thought into its lyrics and message, in the music=lyrics equation, what do you think is more important for the band?

Same. The music comes first, always. Dan writes lyrics all of the time, but he waits until we hand him the music to pick which ones he's going to use or which ones he needs to write for. He always tries to match the mood of the lyrics to the mood of the music. If it's a really angry sounding song, he'll put more angry lyrics with it. If it sounds sad, same thing. In the end, we want them to line up to make sense. Again, the message isn't really important. The message is perceived by the listener. But the content is VERY thought out.

The "Core" scene is currently at its highest in the music industry, what do you think of the current core-friendly trend, and where do you think it will lead the music?

I'm not really sure how to answer that. I don't really follow the scene I'm apparently a part of. I think we're all like that really. We just do what we do, the band always has. 9 times out of 10 we aren't really sure what a lot of these bands even sound like. I think that's also a part of the reason this record came out like it did, we thought, we don't LIKE this trend, we don't like the place this music is going, so, let's make a record that we want to make, something we can still listen to in 20 years and who cares if it fits in or not.

What is the band planning now, what kind of touring?

Lots of touring. We're hoping we can get to a lot of places we don't get to, Japan, Austrailia, South America, you name it. But yeah, we do the best in the US right now, so we have a lot of work to do here touring wise, but we're planning on doing even more extensive touring for this record than we ever have. So maybe you'll see us over there.

Any words for the Israeli Zao fans?

I'm just shocked that there ARE Israeli Zao fans, I mean, really. When I heard about this interview my first thought was "ISRAEL???? They know who we are???" Had no idea, I'm thrilled though.