ION INDIE MAGAZINE June 2014, Volume 1 | Page 25

CZ: Just one worst? LOL! Seriously though, I don’t know. I mean, all the bullshit you know--the not getting paid, dropped shows, lineup changes--that’s all just part of the whole and the experience. You have to take the bad with the good and as long as you love doing it, that kind of stuff doesn’t really matter all that much. My good trucker buddy Chad always says, ‘It’s all good”--and it pretty much is. The best is tougher to choose. Is it the first time playing an original song with the band? The first show? The first recording? For me though it would definitely be the first time I heard one of my songs on TV—‘The Katie Couric Show’, of all things—he he! But I’ll take it in a heartbeat! I remember sitting of the opposite of my couch from where I wrote the main riff and my producer Eric Labrosse from Cherry Pit Studios had just posted a link to the placement on the show. I looked back at the spot where I wrote it and thought, ‘What the hell?’ I instantly remembered the moment I wrote the riff. My good friend Jeff was in town. He was all pissed-off about something and acting bitchy. I was sitting right next to him playing my acoustic. I started banging out this random riff and was rocking out bumping into him acting like an idiot trying to cheer him up. I told him, ‘Look, man, that’s a song right there!’ and started jamming it in his face. By the end of the week, I think, the song was finished. These two moments will be intertwined to me forever. That has to be my favorite moment. That was nine months ago and since then, we have been on over fifty shows. It never gets old, but the first was very special to me. FRM: What message does your band impart with its music? CZ: I don’t think that we have a message, per se. ‘Red White Black & Blue’ is defiantly a little political-you just have to listen to the first single ‘Capital’ to get that, but we write about many topics…anything is fair game. FRM: Who is your audience? CZ: Our audience is pretty diverse in demographics. Gender is split pretty much right down the middle. The songs might seem simple at first listen. They are catchy and honest. I think a lot of people can relate to that. FRM: What are your current plans? What’s next? Where do you see yourself 5 years from now? CZ: Write, record and play. We are currently working on our first full-length album ‘Red White Black & Blue’. I like doing it one song at a time. We always have a bunch that we are writing concurrently. When one is ready, we record it, publish it and release it as a single. I think it’s a faster turnaround for the music and it keeps it fresher more often for our fans. Five yea rs from now? Hmmm--well I’d better be doing the same thing because if I’m not, it probably means I’m dead…LOL! FRM: Talk a little bit about “placements”. CZ: When I first started American Zer0s, I had no idea whatsoever about placements. We had a couple songs down and I just wanted to get them recorded to make a press kit to submit to venue owners, because that’s what I thought you did--I had no idea. We recorded two songs at Cherry Pit Studios. When we came back to get the masters, Eric brought up licensing. He explained a little bit about it and that it involved publishing through BMI. By then he was getting a lot of placements for the bands he was producing. His personal band got on video games, WWE--tons of things. His other bands were all over the place in media. I thought, ‘What the hell?’ It didn’t cost anything to do. He handled all of the publishing--which I have learned can be a very long process to get going by yourself. He was basically