I think it was back in October when I found out that Zao was releasing another album! I was surprised because they had just released The Well Intentioned Virus about a year before, and here they were already announcing the arrival of their new EP. I was stoked, and man, this EP does not disappoint! Zao has been a band just under 25 years now. That is an amazing thing to think about. They have weathered lineup changes, the digital age of music and have solidly remained one of the best bands in the scene for many years. It is no small feat to remain a band that long, but they also continue to release albums that are the best of their career. I honestly had a really difficult time in trying to figure out what to say about Zao. I have been a fan since the beginning, and the history of the band is long and there is so much to talk about, condensing it down to one article was tough.
Zao began as a hardcore band with roots in the Christian hardcore scene. Their mark on the scene is undeniable. Early on Zao had to endure numerous member changes, but it never slowed them down, and the bright side of that was with new members come new influences and sounds. By the time they released their third album their sound was very different, there was a metal edge to the music, and it was exciting and fresh. Zao continued down the path of what we now call ‘metalcore’, and while I find the label to be very lacking in description, the music is a testament to the unrelenting and unstopping nature of the band. Zao separated themselves from the pack early on, and when stacked next to their peers in the scene, I think Zao continue to evolve and set the bar high for other bands to follow. They are still blazing the trail, and they sound better, heavier and more feral than ever!
As with many bands that got their start in the Christian scene in the 1990’s, there has been the ever present questions of “are they/aren’t they Christians anymore?” I guess that is not an unusual thing for a band that has roots in the Christian scene. I wanted to be the interviewer to ask questions not related to the issue of spiritual/religious beliefs, but I was also genuinely interested in how it was for Jeff Gretz when he joined the band. Jeff joined Zao in 2005, and at that time, he was the only member who was not a believer. I was stoked to get a few questions to him about being in Zao, the new album, and who he is listening to these days. Definitely click the links, check out their merch and support the band. These guys put out a solid product too, the artwork is always impressive and the packaging is top notch. If you want to check out more history on the band, I highly recommend you get their DVD, The Lesser Lights of Heaven. It is filled with over 6 hours of footage, and provides a unique look at the band and their history, with a ton of live footage and interviews as well.
EO: When did you start playing drums, and what got you interested in music and drums specifically?
JG: I started REALLY young. Probably 3 or 4. I barely remember starting. My dad was a drummer so they were always in the house. He never officially taught me, but would show me stuff. I would just watch him and then play along with records.
Do you play any other instruments as well?
I play piano a bit. I play enough bass and guitar to get a point across, but nothing I would do in public. When I was in college I focused on orchestral percussion – so the non-drum side of the percussion family: marimba, xylophone, vibraphone is pretty deep as well.
If my memory & Google are correct, you joined Zao right around 2005, playing drums for them as they toured The Funeral of God?
Yeah, I think Stephen Peck (Funeral of God drummer) did a handful of tours after Funeral came out before he realized touring wasn’t for him, so I came in shortly after that record came out and have been here ever since.
What was it like for you, stepping into a pretty established band, and getting sucked right up into the hectic touring schedule, etc.?
It was alright, I was friends with all of the guys in the band even though I hadn’t talked to a lot of them in a while because they were always on tour. So, I was surrounded by familiar faces. The touring aspect wasn’t totally new to me I had done tours with other bands here and there over the years. Doing a DIY tour can be pretty physically taxing. So even though Zao toured a lot, we were playing nice clubs and staying in hotels. I felt like I was living like a king.
Was The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here the first album that you played on?
Yeah, first album for Zao. The first thing I ever recorded with the group was actually our cover of Black Flag’s “Black Coffee” that we did for a compilation album. Which I later found out that Dillinger Escape Plan’s Black Flag cover on the same album was also Greg Puciato’s first recording with THEM. So that compilation (Black on Black Flag) actually has 2 “band member debuts” on it.
Is the line-up for this album still you, Dan, Scott, Russ and Martin?
Yeah, same line up. With the exception of Russ getting injured pretty bad and taking some time off from the band in 2006 right before we recorded The Fear, the line-up has been essentially the same since 2005.
Do all the members still live far apart? What is the writing and recording process for you guys like at this point?
Dan, Scott and Marty all live around Pittsburgh, no more than about 20 or so minutes from each other. I am in Brooklyn and Russ is in southern California. Recording hasn’t really changed. Even back when we were doing The Fear and we were all in the same city, it was a lot of demoing material on our own and then getting together to double check it once the ideas were fleshed out before we went into the studio. So that part hasn’t changed. The internet makes it easier. We do a lot of file sharing between us. When it’s time, I travel in to Pittsburgh and do the drums for everything, which I JUST got home from doing another 15 songs doing just that, and then people individually go to the studio to do their parts. We all trust each other to not be there watching over the process and everything is pretty much worked out ahead of time, so it’s just a matter of putting it down. Shows can be trickier. We don’t play a ton. So we have to be careful. It’s a lot of scheduling and making sure we can get the right offers to afford to fly Russ and I in.
When The Well Intentioned Virus was released it had been 7 years since the last album, Awake?, now you guys are firing back in a year, so fast! How did you guys find time to write another 5 songs in just a year!?
When I went to do the drums for Virus we had 19 songs ready to go, we knew they all weren’t going on the album but since we had the recording booked and the drums mic’d up I just did everything at once. So even though things are released farther apart, the initial recording all happened at once. The only thing that wasn’t completed really on these 5 songs were the vocals and mixing. Virus came out last December and I think Dan was in the studio in January finishing up the vocals on these 5. Some of the songs on this record and Virus actually date back to 2009 or 2010 right after Awake came out. Some of the songs I just recorded were written right after I tracked drums for Virus so even though I just did them now, some of them are 3 years old already. The plus side of the break is we built up a lot of material so there is a healthy backlog, plus we have time to sit and refine stuff before it hits the public. We never really had that luxury before.
Are you involved in other projects outside of Zao as well?
Yeah. I have a group that is more of a straight forward Rock group called Emanuel and The Fear. We do a lot of stuff with that is more orchestrated out with violins and synths and stuff, and it’s pretty melodic, total opposite of Zao. Also have a record coming out in November with a group called the Knells out of NY. Super prog-y. Instead of one lead singer there are 3 opera singers. Really out there stuff, but kind of chill. Aside from that I do a lot of freelance live/recording session work around NYC.
Wikipedia states that when you joined you were the first outspoken non-Christian in the group? What was that like for you? Was the response from fans and press what you did/didn’t expect?
It was weird. I really wasn’t outspoken. I just said “I’m not a Christian” which I guess is weird for Zao at the time. But you have to remember that for a long time they were on Solid State/Tooth and Nail. Even if members were not Christian, you didn’t say that. There were “rules” or they wouldn’t put the record out. Dan used to make up “label explanations” for the songs so they didn’t get upset. Essentially he would say “this is what this song is about” even if it wasn’t. Otherwise they could refuse to release it. Bad vibes all around to operate in. But they were stuck in a contract that was something like 6 or 7 records deep. I didn’t get too much backlash, by that point I think a lot of Zao’s fans had sort of made the transition with them. The Funeral of God album title really ruffled some feathers in the Christian circles at first and I think by the time I joined that combined with the Ferret records association and everything else, it wasn’t really as much of an issue anymore.
I’m curious how you dealt with being a non-believer in a band that got its start and fan base in the Christian industry, do you feel like elaborating on what that was like for you?
Yeah that 5 eras thing is weird. I think that’s a bit of a stretch. I would say at most 3. The original Line up. When Dan and Russ joined that was pretty much when the PA contingent came into the fold so that would be two. And I would say Funeral and onward is 3. It’s weird saying “non-believer” to me because it’s not exactly that I am an atheist. I was brought up in a Catholic household, and I absolutely got as far away from the “church” as possible. That really doesn’t have any bearing on my personal beliefs about God or Jesus or anything like that. Would I consider myself a Christian in the saved/born-again stance? No. But that is neither here nor there to me. My “I am not a CHRISTIAN” is literally that. I know what Christian means to the people that are asking. In my upbringing, being a Catholic WAS being a Christian. But to go back to what you were saying, the other guys in Zao, Russ, Dan, Scott Marty have all done the same thing to varying degrees in terms of their journey. Their beliefs at 18 are totally different than where they are at 40 and I think for a lot of Zao fans it is the same. The weird thing for us is that the really hardcore Christianity that came from Zao came from people like original singer Eric Reeder and Shawn Jonas and Mic Cox, Roy Goudy, etc. and most of those guys are still in that place. But once Dan joined it changed immediately because he wasn’t them. So to an extent, while the history is weird for ME sometimes. It’s also weird for them. But it’s what it is. It’s complicated. But it is a big part of who Zao is for better and for worse.
Zao is an anomaly as a band in some ways, the band is going into its 25th year and doesn’t have any of the original members… I kind of see the band as this ever evolving entity that continues to grow and change, and the music just keeps getting better and better! What can we expect musically from Pyrrhic Victory, and can you speak to what the songs are about lyrically? The album title alone is heavy subject matter.
Lyrically in a lot of ways it is on the same course as The Well-Intentioned Virus because the songs were written in the same time frame for the most part. Dan is writing about what he HAS been writing about all along, clear back to Blood and Fire: his panic attacks, dreams, asking questions about our (humanity’s) course through the universe: are we helping? Or are we destroying? Dealing with his transition in his beliefs, why he got there, how he got there, coming to terms with that. And not necessarily making a definitive proclamation but dealing with all of the questions that stuff brings up. Musically, when we were putting Virus together we were very careful about keeping a certain flow to the album, so these songs weren’t held off because they weren’t as good, but more for the fact that they fit together in their own way to us. They are a little more “straightforward” I guess. Not quite as epic in scope. To me these always came across as a little more immediate to me so they made sense as a short EP that had a specific focus or mood. A lot of bands treat an EP as a dumping ground of B or C-list ideas. To us, we like the format of sort of a mini-album. So we never looked at these songs as lesser. We are at the point now where the “not-good” ideas never even get recorded. So if we record it, it is meant to be heard. The title refers to a Victory but “at what cost?” Is the short term gain worth the long term consequences of it? We kind of play into that with the art between Virus and this one, they are part of the same story. The skeleton guy that is feeding the cup to the witch on the stake, we have long talked about “what is in the cup?” and to us it’s “truth”. But, if you accept the truth… is it really what you thought it was? Was it worth it?
Who are some of your favorite bands past and present?
Oh man, I am all over the map. A lot of things from the past still hang in there. I love all the “classics” – Who, Zeppelin, Beatles. Slayer always had a big impact on me growing up and my transition into Metal. I still can dig on that old Slayer stuff. A lot of Jazz. Big Grateful Dead fan (we all are). I have been listening to another favorite for a while a lot lately “The Drift” by Scott Walker. You want a total bum-out of a record? That’s the way to go. It’s pretty peerless in its singular vision of weirdness.
What’s on your turntable / CD player / iPod / phonograph / cassette deck / 8 track right now?
Recently, I really like the new Dead Cross record, the band with Dave Lombardo, Mike Patton, and Justin from the Locust. I will always check out what Neurosis is up to. Haven’t heard the NEWEST Kendrick Lamar record but LOVED To Pimp A Butterfly so I have been meaning to check that out. The new War On Drugs record is great. Not ashamed to say I am into the new Arcade Fire record either. For the past year or so I have been obsessed with Judee Sill. She was around in the early late 60’s early 70’s. Essentially she was a drug dealer/addict. Her and her boyfriend got arrested for robbing a bank and while she was in jail decided she was going to be a songwriter. And essentially taught herself music by learning to play organ for the prison church services. She’s real into singing about astral planes. It’s pretty heavy stuff.
Are there plans to tour coming up?
We just got back from some dates in Virginia, North Carolina and Harrisburg, PA. We’re heading down to Texas in December, playing Houston on our own and then meeting up with two shows in Austin and Dallas with our old friends in Living Sacrifice. Just starting to plot out what the plan is in 2018. Still some areas we haven’t hit in the past few years that we need to get to.
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Below are links to check out for band merch, etc. Zao is keeping it true as well, while many bands rely on nostalgia to justify charging ridiculous amounts for a new record, Zao is keeping it real and keeping it affordable for their fans. That is something that, I for one, greatly appreciate!
Also, I would be remiss to not mention Matt Kerley, the awesome artist that the band have used artwork from on their last two albums. He has a webstore that you can check out and support him by buying merch! One of my favorite things about Zao was how they handle the visual aspects of their merch and their releases. They always seem to convey a pretty deep message via the photos and artwork that adorn their releases.
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