Zaza Interview

Zaza
Interview by Alexander Laurence

Zaza is Jennifer Fraser (bass/keyboards) and Danny Taylor (guitar/vocals).
They live in Brooklyn. They released a great 6-song EP called Cameo (2009).
I saw them in Hollywood earlier this year supporting The Morning After
Girls. In a short time they have created their own world of atmospheric acid
rock. They played a few successful shows at CMJ this year. I was able to be at a
few of the shows at Cake Shop and Webster Hall. I was able to talk to them
for a few minutes recently. They have a show at Pianos on November 28th.
Hopefully they come back to the west coast again soon.

AL: How long has the band going on for?

Jennifer: The band started a year and a half ago. I was in another band. In
between tours I would be working with Danny on new music. We were indoors
and we had the headphones on and recording music.

AL: Danny, were you in other bands too?

Danny: No. I had just moved to New York, and I was in limbo. Everybody who
moves to New York goes through that period where they are 86ed from every
bar. You get on a first name basis with every bouncer. It was a big
adjustment. New York is such a complex animal to wrestle. Especially when you don’t
know anyone.

AL: Was there one song that you wrote together, that you said to yourself
“Hey, this is a band. We have our own sound.”

Danny: I think the first song where things came together was “Sooner Or
Later.” It’s on the EP. All the writing was done with us on headphones.

Jennifer: I think “Dark House” was the first song we wrote.

AL: Were you just laying done a ton of tracks?

Jennifer: That is why we used a drum machine. At the beginning it was just
Danny and I. It was a necessity. We didn’t have any intentions.

Danny: At the beginning it was very experimental. We had acoustic guitars
and autoharps. It wasn’t guitar-bass-drums. It was like a clusterfuck of any
sounds we could find.

Jennifer: We had all these loops of harmonicas

AL: When did you play your first show?

Jennifer: It was a year in October 2008.

Danny: We had all this gear onstage. We had brought our own mixer. It was
great.

AL: There are so many records out there with crazy sounds. Then you have to
bring it to the stage.

Danny: It’s great when you are in your loft or practice space doing that
stuff. Then the kick of reality sets in when you get onstage and you realize
you can’t pull it off.

AL: When did the live performances catch up to the recordings?

Danny: I think it was when we recorded some stuff and became comfortable
with what we were doing. We sat down and thought what we were going to do
live. We still use a drum machine. We have a live drummer to play on top of
that. I end up playing more guitar onstage, and Jennifer plays bass and
keyboards. Right now we are working on that process more. Jennifer is doing more
vocals. We are using samples more. I would like to play piano more. I am not
really a guitar player, but we needed that sound.

Jennifer: I never played keyboards before this band. We had to play
everything. There is no formula how we write songs or who plays what onstage.

AL: It’s dull when people in the band are designated the guitarist or the
drummer, when maybe you don’t have drums or guitar on a track.

Danny: That is how we work. We have three people in the band for live shows
now. We are going to stay like that for a while.

AL: Did you do the Cameo EP at home or did you work with a producer?

Jennifer: We worked with Ryan of Asteroid #4. We went down to Philadelphia
to do that. Ryan did a lot of the engineering. We were at his house and Ryan and
his wife were fostering kittens, and these kittens were crawling
everywhere. They were housing twenty-five kittens. You got to be kidding.

AL: What songs are you playing in the live show now? Do you have new songs?

Danny: Yeah! We play all the songs we have. Every between the songs we
improvise. We don’t stop songs and begin others. Every transfer from song to
song, it could go any way.

Jennifer: Our live show is much simpler than the recordings. We change
everything. There might be even a different structure.

AL: Is every show really different?

Danny: Every show is an experience rather than just a replication of the
recordings. We like things to be backlit, rather than front lit projections.

Jennifer: We have been working with visual artists. We are ourselves visual
artists. We want to have some sort of visual accompaniment. We drag around
these big light boxes. We bring our own lights. We arrange them.

AL: I saw you play with The Morning After Girls earlier this year. Have you
played with some other interesting bands?

Jennifer: We just opened for Echo and The Bunnymen. It was really
interesting. They sounded amazing. It was at the Mercury Lounge. We were dancing
around. It’s hard to enjoy your own party. We played with the Raveonettes and
Pains of Being Pure At Heart.

Danny: It was a honor being asked to play with Echo and The Bunnymen.

AL: The EP came out in August?

Danny: Yeah. We had a free download. Kanine Records released it as a CD and
Vinyl in August, with two more tracks.

AL: What is the plan for the winter?

Jennifer: We were thinking of going to somewhere warm and recording an
album. That is what we said last winter. Danny said: “Let’s go on a jet plane
somewhere tropical next winter.”

Danny: We might do an Australian tour. I think we are going to do a record
before we do an American tour again. We are working on the new record right
now.

AL: Is the Cameo EP a sample of what is coming?

Danny: The Cameo EP is great. It has the essence of us forming and coming
together. I think the first full-length album will be a more solidified Zaza.
The other stuff was, as Jennifer said, what we wrote when we first met.