Zebrahead On Thirty Years Of Mayhem And Music

After a seven-year absence, SoCal Pop Punk/rapcore legends ZEBRAHEAD are returning this November to light up lives and stages across Australia. Formed in 1996 in La Habra, California, Zebrahead carved a unique niche in the punk rock scene, fusing pop-punk, hip-hop, and raw energy. With hits like All My Friends Are Nobodies, Playmate of the Year, Anthem, Falling Apart. The Perfect Crime and Hell Yeah, they have amassed a dedicated worldwide following that has seen them sell out tour after tour and deliver killer festival sets at the likes of Warped, Summersonic, Download, Reading, Slam Dunk, When We Were Young and so many others. Founding member and lead singer Ali Tabatabaee talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.

Seven years seems like a long time between drinks are you guys looking forward to getting back to Australia?
Yeah, man, it’s been way too long, for sure and then after the pandemic we didn’t know what was going to happen, so we’re just excited to be back to and be able to go over there.

Does it take a lot of effort to try and get all the moving parts to line up, just to make something like this happen?
Absolutely, we’ve always been, since the beginning of our career, one of our main things was to make it to Australia to be able to play there, and then it took a while, but once we got there, we’re like, oh no, we have to come back. So, we do whatever we can to make sure we can come back and play some shows over there.

What do you miss about touring Australia compared to anywhere else in the world?
I don’t know how much you know about the guys in the band, but a couple of them are surfers, and Australia has the best beaches, so that alone, I feel like, has been a huge motivation for a couple of the guys. Just in general, the people are cool, it’s a cool vibe, Being from Southern California, Orange County, growing up, we’ve always thought of Australia as a place everybody wants to go visit or travel over there, so I think for us, it’s always held a special place.

For people who don’t know much about Zebrahead, what can they expect to hear and experience on this tour?
If you haven’t been to a Zebrahead show, I would say the main thing is, you have to come with an open mind, an empty beer gut, because you’re probably going to be drinking a little bit, and just enjoy yourself. The Zebrahead community, everybody’s pretty open-minded, and when they get together, it’s like a really fun, interactive kind of vibe. So, just come, meet people and try to step out of your comfort zone and make some new friends.

Are you focusing on a particular album on this tour, or is it pretty much the greatest and the best of Zebrahead?
Obviously you get requests from fans and stuff, we always try to listen to those, but because we have been around for such a long time, we try to play a few songs off of every album from the initial Waste of Mind years to the Three, Two, One EPs, there’s going to be a song or two from every album.

There are quite a few milestones to be celebrating as well?
Yeah, yeah, it’s going be thirty years coming up this year!

Are you planning to do anything special to commemorate that significant anniversary?
Currently, we’re in the process of recording a new album, and we’re hoping to be in the studio finishing it up so that we can release our newest album on the thirty-year anniversary, and we are going to be touring pretty heavily next year. So, that’s the plan right now. Oftentimes, what happens is we get offered a tour or a couple of shows here and there, and it forces us to take time off the studio and writing and recording and stuff, so things often get pushed back, but right now, we just got home from Las Vegas yesterday, and we are very focused on getting into the studio and writing, and then we’re taking a short little break to come to Australia, and then we’re coming back to finish the album. So hopefully we’ll be back to Australia next year as well.

For a band like yours that’s been going so strong for so long, what’s the secret to keeping it together, especially when so many bands these days just don’t seem to have that longevity anymore?
I feel like a lot of it is, you just got to understand the personality of the rest of the guys in the band, and understand when somebody needs to have a little space to themselves, you know what I mean? Or if somebody feels like maybe I should go talk to this person, they might be needing to talk about something. Often, I feel like because you get trapped on a bus together for so long, you just stop focusing on the other people and you’re focusing on your own needs in a lot of ways, like where am I going to eat? Where am I going to shower? All this stuff that goes in your head, and you kind of forget about the rest of the guys going through that too.

Oftentimes in bands, because of the close quarters and the traveling, people tend to butt heads more than they would with their normal friends, who you can go home at night and not see for a few days. And I think for us, the older we got, we kind of understood this is kind of like a marriage, more than a friendship, and you just have to always understand that you guys want the same goal. If somebody is handling it differently, there’s a reason for it, and you try to figure out if you can be helpful.

But in general, just to not take things to heart, and just be like, okay, this guy’s having a bad day, how can I help him make his day a little bit better? Once you realise that, everything gets a little bit easier, and I think that’s the key. A lot of bands just butt heads until there’s no reconciliation. With us, I’m really happy that everybody in the band on some level understands that and tries to make sure nothing is too serious when it comes to arguing or making sure your point of view is heard. Being creative with people, you have to trust them. So, it’s important to make sure you hear their voices and appreciate what they’re trying to say, and then work together to fix the issue.

When you reflect on thirty years as a band, how does that milestone sit with you? You must feel incredibly proud to still be doing it and on your own terms.
We’ve been very lucky, honestly. Just the fact that we can continue to put out music, and people are interested in hearing what we’re making. that is not lost on us. We’ve toured with bands that have broken up now, and it’s crazy to think, remember twenty years ago we toured with that band and they’re no longer around? None of us thought we’d be doing this for this long, and every year that we continue, we’re a little more shocked.

Is it tough to decide whether to keep focusing on singles or EPs, or whether the concept of a full album is still relevant?
Yeah, so when the pandemic happened, we decided to just release music as soon as we had it. When we finished five or six songs, we’d record and release them. That was the first time we ever did an EP, then we did three in a row. It was kind of gratifying to immediately record and release songs rather than spend a year and a half making an album and then wait for it to drop. As far as the industry goes, it’s much more focused on singles and playlists now. But in Japan, they still buy albums, and Japan is one of our biggest markets. So, we’re trying to do a full album, not just for ourselves but for those fans. If we can’t, we might release a strong EP, but right now the focus is on a full record.

Sonically, how do you think Zebrahead’s sound has changed over time?
When we write, all five of us bring our own influences. We never say, “Let’s make this album more metal or more punk.” It’s organic. For example, a lot of the songs on the last EP were more metal, and we didn’t realise it until we were done. We never restrict ourselves, if we want a bouncy rap bridge and then a pop-punk chorus, we just do it. It keeps people guessing.

Has the way you write changed over the years?
Yeah, for sure. We used to jam face-to-face, but now everyone has home studios. I work late at night, so I send ideas to the guys when I’m inspired. Ben, our bass player, works during the day, so he can add his ideas when he’s ready. Once we have a demo, we get together to play it live. It’s actually been really good for us.

How’s the work on the album progressing?
It’s going good. The hardest part is going on tour for a month and a half, then coming back and trying to get back into the creative mindset. But that’s just part of the business. You want your music heard, so you have to tour.

How has all the touring been this year? Are you enjoying it as much as when you started out?
Yeah, man, it’s always great to tour. We’ve been doing it so long that when we roll into a town, we often have friends we’ve known for decades. We get to hang out, check out the city again, and enjoy the culture. As we’ve gotten older, we appreciate touring even more. Our crew is awesome, they’re like family. It’s just a family of nomads doing weird things all over the world.

Touring with Thomas Nicholas this time, that’s a cool addition to the tour?
Yeah, for sure, he’s a cool guy, so it’s gonna be a fun tour with him. I think the last time I saw him, we were hanging out at our show in Anaheim, and we were talking about touring together, and now it’s happening, so we’re pretty excited.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Zebrahead on the following dates with Thomas Nicholas, tickets from The Phoenix…