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 If you’re juiced because your “bro-zone layer” has tripled in size, and the first track on your new album (which was mixed by Robbie Lackritz of Feist) is featured in a nationwide Nissan commercial, and you’re about to hit the road on a North American tour with Jason Collett, and your life’s musical journey is about to blow the *%$# up, then you’re probably one of four members in Toronto’s ear-grabbing band, Zeus.
Featuring three songwriter/vocalists, Mike O’Brien, Carlin Nicholson and Neil Quin, who swap between guitar, bass and organ, with drummer Rob Drake, Zeus will release their highly acclaimed debut full-length album, Say Us, on February 23 through Arts & Crafts.
“It was the spontaneity of recording Say Us that made it so special. We didn’t just go into the studio, punch-in and punch-out,” Nicholson explains. “Everybody [Afie Jurvanen, Jason Collet etc.] was dropping by and that’s how the Zeus album came around.”
For this reason, Say Us is truly unique and collaborative - elements always key to great music. “We’ve all got a style of our own, so it’s the intangible that makes it a really special thing. John Lennon couldn’t write a song like Paul McCartney and Paul McCartney couldn’t write a song like John Lennon,” Nicholson contemplates.
And it’s this intangible creativity turning the motor of the tight-knit band-- who refer to their relationship as the “bro-zone layer,”-- which produces easy listening, well-written, catchy songs.
“Friendship is the key,” says Nicholson. “Long term bros are always there and everybody contributes equally, even in jokes. Like we call Drake (drummer) Drake the Snake, and then you devise your own lingo, and the joke evolves. Then it’s Drake the Snake Roberts. Then it’s Snake Eggs. Then Snake Lipstick. And then, for some reason, we ended up just calling him lipsticks for awhile.”
So it’s obvious the thickness of Zeus’ “bro-zone layer” influenced the pristine quality of Say Us and the production of their music, in general. It’s this dynamic that will take centre stage during the upcoming Bonfire Ball Tour, featuring Zeus, Bahamas, which is the solo project of Afie Jurvanen, who was part of Feist’s touring band, and the inspiring Jason Collett.
The Bonfire Ball Tour will kick off in March at Canadian Music Week in Toronto and then head to Austin for the South-by-South West (SXSW) Music Festival. The tour continues west from Seattle across Canada and the U.S., wrapping in Ontario, April 17.
The three acts have a long history and lineage together, and instead of the typical show in which each act plays its own set, Collett, Zeus and Bahamas will all take the stage together, playing songs written by all three. Their unique creativity, energy and instinctual knowledge of music will make for an exciting tour, each and every day along the way.
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