Zao: mean, brutal, powerful but sharp

There is no longevity in the showbiz, a conversation with Machine Head’s Robb Flynn reminded us recently, without solid foundation, including the underground. And, if albums could be walls, then Zao’s temple would be a nonagon, as seven studio, one compilation [‘Legacy - Best of Collection’, 2003] and the current disc bear their name.

It’s like the HM juggernaut from the Bay area is being faced by the East Cost of the USA’s Zao and ‘The Funeral Of God’ album. Zao do combine elements of Bay Area thrash metal, meticulously paced speed metal and punk credo with a bleak vision referencing Nick Cave, Danzig or Johnny Cash and, to a lesser extent, a breeze of British pop music and a bit more of fringe and avant-garde Rock’n’Roll.

Recorded over several weeks at a New Jersey studio by vocalist Dan Wynadt, longtime guitarists Scott Mellinger and Russ Cogdell and the new rhythm section of Sean Koschick (bass) and Steven Peck (drums), ‘The Funeral of God’ serves the most powerful, the most striking, the most electrifying disc of their career and, doubtlessly, one of the year’s LPs.

‘The Funeral Of God’’s music surely incites air-playing but is also thought-provoking with its premise of - what if God decided humanity has rejected him so completely that He just... Checked out? What would become of mankind if God chose to retire or get hibernated until we find cure for planetary ills? That's the main subject explored with [plastic] surgical detail on the wide-screened apocalyptic soundtrack that ‘The Funeral of God’ is. "

Compellingly brilliant album with huge-but-contentious subject, in America in particular…

“It reflects the fact that we come from the States,” singer Weyandt speaks glibly, “although several of us in the band have different views… Anything spiritual these days and George Bush calling himself a Christian, and a lot of his followers claiming the same and then committing all these terrible things the world has been seeing for a while. It is a shame and it covers everything from political aspect to spiritual, from economical to emotional…”

“It all started with a dream I had and it is a kind of a comment on the state of America today… I wouldn’t say the world because I don’t know the world that well. Spirituality has become a badge that makes you look good in front of everybody else although, with God in retreat, everyone is taking advantage of shopping and making a lot of money for giant corporations.”

'Liberate te ex Infernis'*

It is all about the material possessions and individual belief that spirituality is something that easily can be bypassed in the name of one of the sins - Greed… The band hasn’t become a target of a theological backlash yet but they may be protected by its ‘cult’ status.

“A little bit but not as much as we expected,” Weyandt sounds a tad surprised, “but the main reason we wanted to make this album and give it this title is that most of today’s music has become stale; all the messages, all the slogans, stands have been used up and do not come over as anything but clichés. We wanted to do something different so that people interested in some causes, some views, can start a conversation, get a ball-rolling; we want to shake people up and promote free thought… Just to cause people to do something apart from buying an album and simply listening to it.”

Hopefully we’ve not been neutered into sheer consumerism by capitalists, force-fed music without actual power left to inspire, engage and move youth to do something…

“Musicians have done a fair bit with millions more young people coming out to vote… Unfortunately they couldn’t vote Bush out but the good thing is that the awareness is being raised by a lot of bands. It appears to be that a lot of other bands are raising issues and trying to push arguments which is encouraging sign because young people don’t really care about the politics. What happened four years ago wasn’t really encouraging for democracy.”

“How Bush succeeded was to scare a lot of people into voting for him, make the majority of mid-America fear about their future if Kerry got elected… It was a masterstroke of blowing up national paranoia into an election victory.”

Disneyland rites

“Our album’s been out for a little while,” Weyandt continues without much prompting, “and we’ve been touring it solidly… So, haven’t had time to work on new material although we do have a couple of tunes already… We’ll start writing around the end of the year and are really excited about it because there are couple of people in the band who will be contributing to the band for the first time. We are really happy with the way the sound is evolving and excited to start working on it…“

“Not that will have any effect of quality but having played together for a while, the bond is stronger, there is more energy and more enthusiasm… When we put the album out we didn’t know what the reaction to it would be like but now, when we know that the reaction is positive, we can really let it fly!”

Zao have just cut a couple of songs for Japanese edition of the album: ‘The Romance Of The Southern Spirit’ is an original, whilst ‘Tired of Being Alive’ is a Danzing’s song.

‘The Funeral of God’ exudes certain finality that makes next Zao step, lyrically especially, very interesting: where next, Darwinism, science-fiction, fantasy…?

“I’m not sure…” Dan confesses, “but I’ve always been attracted to the themed-albums, the concept albums, the darker work… Like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds… We‘ve done a lot of random stuff that we want to do something different… The next one will be more like back to normal but the world is not a normal place and it is going to be interesting to see where we end up.”

“But, I suppose it will reflect what is going on at the time and it will be interesting for me to see how it affects me, inspires me and what I’m gonna come up with.”

We do need education: the band’s intriguing name is Greek for “spiritually alive”, Dan explains patiently despite having done it, probably, hundreds of times, “something like ‘third-eye open’”… Zao also means, in certain Slovak languages - evil, mean, bastard.
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*‘Save Yourself from Hell’ (Zao’s 1999 LP title)