The Instrumentals of Rock Podcast episode #4 Neil Zaza

I met Neil Zaza back in 1996 during the IOR radio days.  On the last day in November of 2023, I spoke with Neil to see what he has planned for 2024 and talk about how his career path has allowed him to play guitar for a living.  

Transcript

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Welcome to the Instrumentals of Rock podcast. Guitarist Neil Zaza is my guest for this episode. I first met Neil back in 1996. At that time he was releasing his third instrumental rock record titled Sang. Since then he's released eight studio records and four live albums. tours the world on a regular basis and as producer and performer for One Dark Night, a rock symphony of the Macabre. So let's get to it with Neil Zaza on the Instrumentals of Rock podcast. Neil, thanks for joining the Instrumentals of Rock podcast. It's been too long. Great to see you. You look younger than ever, right? You too. You know, the last time that we connected up was 1996 at the Winter NAMM show, California. You were just about to release Sing. You know, listening back to that interview, it seems like we did it on the floor of the convention center because there was a fair amount of noise. But I think maybe we were in like one of the Rocktron booths. You know, with NAMM, it seems like that's an important rite of passage for up and coming artists. I mean, you had kind of been established a little bit at that point, but still you were young in your career. Was that true for you? Yeah, that's where, that's where all the young hot guns, and I'm going to say used to go, cause I'm not really sure if it has the same draw, the same allurement, the same cache as it did back then. But back then, you know, you got to go to NAMM, you got to be a hot gun. You're playing, you're playing at a booth. You're wheeling and dealing, you're like, it's the place to be seen, and the place to make great connections, and the place to meet other players, and really, I'm gonna say was, it still might be, but I'm not sure now, but that was the place to like put your flag in the sand and say, I'm here, world, check this out, you know? Yeah, and so that worked for you back then. That was an important part. You got a lot of connections out of that. Yeah, it was really good. And, you know, it's interesting how, not to go into the industry thing early on in our interview, but it is a different thing now. Like before, you would go to NAMM and a company would provide you some gear, but the company provided like a service that what a record label would do. So they provided publicity for you. You'd get, if it was a good deal, you would get magazine ads and Guitar World, Guitar Player, Guitar for the Praxis edition, and there would be clinics, there'd be all this, like it was the hotbed, the fertile ground of all that. Whereas now, and I was saying, I'm not sure if NAMM holds the same weight for guitar players, it is now, the companies want you to be the salesman. Like, okay, we'll give you a guitar, but you need to do a video every day and a video review. the tables have literally flipped and now the players are the salespeople versus actual artists. So it's a strange thing these days. With social media, that's a big part of what made that turn around, it seems like. They're able to do their own audio and video every day, literally. And it's crazy because you have a lot of guys, Herman Lee, for example, a friend of mine. He does a Twitch every day at Eastern Time, 4 p.m. He has like the Tonight Show featuring Herman Lee, but it's every day and he does cool things. And it's a great thing because now players have more of access to that if you wanna dive into that sort of environment where it's, you're on the treadmill every day producing content and things like that, so. So recently I saw that you did some shows with Nelson and what's your? connection there, how far back do you all go? How did that relationship start? It started, well, the nucleus, ground zero was Bobby Rock. That was the common denominator. So Bobby played in Nelson, the original Nelson. Bobby and I are brothers from decades ago. So there was an introduction through that. So I would say probably 08, 09. I played with Nelson for a few years and then they kind of, put it on ice a little bit. They were working on, Ricky Nelson remembered it, they have a bunch of other projects always going on. This past year, I guess the singer from Steel Heart had some heart problems. All the Steel Heart shows were canceled on these festivals and the booking agent called the brothers and said, "'Hey, do you wanna get the band back together?' They called me and like, yeah, they're great guys. The band's a ton of fun. The guys can sing. I'm always amazed how well they sing, they play, they write, they're really like forces of nature. It's great. And it's been a great time. So yeah. That's amazing. I mean, you know, Ricky's voice was so amazing and that doesn't always translate to kids, but apparently that did with them. I know people are really shocked as to how good these guys sing. Just speaking in a stereotypical way, I think back in the day, as they always joke on stage, you know, they look like two hot Swedish chips, right? And they're like, there's no way these guys could write these songs, could sing these songs, be mult and play guitar. They sing, they play bass, they do everything. But now I notice as we do these festivals, like people are really like, wow, these guys can I don't remember him being this good, so it's fine. So today, last day of November, 2023, what's next for you in 24? For me, the past few years have been working on this, I'm gonna say Halloween, but I don't mean Halloween. It's a dark theater production that we've been running in October called One Dark Night. And we did a huge show this year, our biggest show yet. the biggest production, big video wall, big everything. And so now it looks like things are getting serious with it this year and we're gonna do multiple cities, a decent sized tour with it. We've got some good label interest and a ton is going on. So now this stuff for this October starts now. So I've already started ramping the show, tweaking the show and getting that together. I'm gonna be in Europe touring finally again. in 24, I'm going to be doing a month, six weeks. I'm coming back to China this year. So for me, it's been a little bit slow on the uptake getting back after the pandemic. You know, a lot of my stuff was over in Asia, throughout Asia, whether it's China or Singapore or Malaysia or whatever, finally it's coming back. So I'm excited about that. And this tour that you've got going in Asia and Europe, this is going to be Neil Zaza music? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. So let's go back to One Dark Night, as I've been watching over the years I've seen and I've just always been curious about it. So tell me how it started and how it's evolved. Great. I was a guest soloist with Akron Symphony and did Dance Macabre, this Saison piece that it's a famous gothic piece, right? And after I did it with the full orchestra, I was like, this could be pretty cool. This could be something like going out, playing like Gothic classical music, but let's rock it up. So over the course of the last five, six years, it has transformed into different things now. So it started out, I did a record, One Dark Night, and it has all the, like the heavy metal classical riffs, like Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev, Dance Macabre or Night on Bald Mountain, which is a heavy, I mean, this is like, this is the Godfather stuff of heavy metal, but for classical, we start out with a 60 piece orchestra, choir, it was a big production. And then as we've went through the years, I've been trying different elements. We added ballet to that, which is, it should never work, right? But it does work. It's like, I would like to say it's like, Peanut butter and chocolate. It shouldn't go together, but yeah. We love it, right? It does. So the music now has transformed too. It's still based in Gothic classical music, but there's a lot of different mashups. So we do Paint It Black, This Is Halloween by Danny Elfman. So it has transformed into, you don't have to be a classical guitar nut to love it. It really is a celebration of the season. There was a storyline, an arc in it that explores Who is the real monster? Is it Frankenstein? Is it Dracula? Or if we look in the mirror, are we the real monster? So it really, it kicks all the boxes, I think. As far as the production part of these shows, is this your thing? Or do you have someone else involved that's helping you produce it? How does that work? In concept, I run everything. But when I say that, I mean in a general way. our production team this year. It was Alice Cooper's lighting designer and set designer. So he came in and designed this multi-tiered set with stairs. I had to have stairs because it reminds me of the Kiss Destroyer tour. So stairs and I had a second level, Kiss 1976. It's all broken out, but it kind of emanates from my little brain. Everyone does what they have to do, but. Yeah, it takes a village, I guess would be my quote. And it's certainly for this show, you know, on stage we have probably nine people in the band, three singers, we had 10, 12 dancers, we have contortionists on stage. It's like full sensory overload. It's something else. This has just been one night and you haven't taken it out on the road yet? Yeah, we did last year. We did Indianapolis, we did Warren, Ohio. This year we had some important people coming in. I'll just leave it at that. So we did one show for all the marbles, brought in all the production that we could fit. In fact, the venue, MGM Northfield had never had a set that big, that set should not have fit in that venue. It was so big with the two tiers, the big video wall, the stairs, the. we were cramped in there. But this year in 24, there's high anticipation, we'll do many dates, so. Is there any talk of a pay-per-view live stream? That would be a good idea, wouldn't it? All right, I'm gonna write that down. Hey, good job. The few little videos that I've seen of it, it looks really exciting. Obviously at that time of year, whether it's the holiday season for Christmas or whether it's. Halloween time, there's always these shows that focus and celebrate Halloween or dark times. You've really taken it up a few notches. I mean, it really looks like a great production and I'm looking forward to the next years on it. So tell me about One Silent Night. One Silent Night was something I've been doing for it's been decades now. It's about celebrating creative mashup is the song, Baba O'Reilly by The Who, or is it Hark the Herald Angels Sing? Is it Dream On by Aerosmith, or is it What Child Is This? Or is it Highway Star, or is it God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen? So I love finding like that thread between songs that you could flip, flip the melody on it, and they're like, is that Jessie's Girl over? And you do that a little bit with, one dark night, but it's more prevalent in the silent night. Yeah, we do it in dark. It's more classical mashup. So we'll do one of our little medleys we'll do is Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath, right? Into dance macabre, into she's so heavy by the Beatles. So it just flows and like all of a sudden you're playing a Beatles tune out of a classical piece. So It's pretty interesting, I think. If I could just say one more thing about dark is, in America, you know, Christmas is, that's the big holiday. But Halloween, I never suspected that so many people not only love it, but celebrate it. Like, more and more like every year, like people decorating their yards and dressing up. Like, it's a pilgrimage or something now, you know? Yeah, it's funny. For me, it's, I mean, when I was a kid, I did. You know, I got dressed up a little bit, but I'm just one of those guys that never got into that. But every year, I think maybe because I'm that guy that every year I see it, I go, there is still people my age that are still really into it and a lot. And I've, I've noticed that too. It is definitely a big thing. And you do Frankenstein, uh, Egger Winters Frankenstein in that as well. Yeah. We started adding some newer tunes this year. re-workings of them. And I realized like, some of the tunes I missed, because I was thinking more in the classical realm, right? But like, you got Frankenstein, you got to do God's law. You've got to do paint it black. We do we do zombie, we do this dark, demented version of people are strange by the doors like, so the original kind of snappy, but we do this real haunting version of it. So It's been a blast. I can't wait to really get this on the road and have people really, you gotta experience it. You gotta see it for sure. So, and you've been doing Frankenstein for a while when you're set or on and off in it. Well, you have a really good memory because I did it with Bobby Rock and Bill Dickens, the Buddha that used to burn the house down. And I hadn't done it for a while. I brought it back. I'm like, yeah, man, this is a great, this is a great piece, you know. So I'm in talks, we're trying to figure out a time to talk to Edgar on the show and just do a heavy deep dive in Frankenstein and just talk about it, start to finish on... Because every time I hear that song, I mean, that is just one of the, if not the most amazing instrumental rock song. There's so many things going on in that song and he goes in so many different directions. It's just fabulous really quite a story. And how many people have done it? I mean, how many covers there's been of it is just incredible. Iconic song and you know it was called Frankenstein because they pieced all the pieces together, but all the pieces work perfectly together. Oh yeah. And a lot of times, I don't know, I would think in the studio, you put something like that together and you go, oh, well that doesn't really work. And they must've, as they started doing that went, oh wow, this is really, this is gonna work. And from what I understand, they had like two or three different, they used to go in and just jam that vibe and they would have 20 minute pieces on tape with it. And that's what they Frankensteined it down. I'd like to hear those 20 minute pieces if they're still available. But I think when I when I did with Bobby and the Buddha, I just I learned it. And then we hot rotted it up. Like I took the synth part and I did it on guitar and everything. I really kind of was like a student of the song. That band. was smoking, smoking. Rick Derenger on guitar, they were unbelievable. And I didn't know when I was a kid listening, but like he's playing sax, he's playing keys and synthesizer. I never knew that drum break was him playing. So, you know, it's great. Yeah. And you know, he's been out with Ringo and his All-Stars for many years. And I just saw them for the first time, you know, Greg Bissonette drums. And when they do that song, they do a little medley of other classic rock songs that they vamp in that drum solo. And it's a trip. It's really good. So you're talking about China that I saw you mentioned online that you're going to be heading out that way. Yeah, finally. It's been like the lockdown from China since the pandemic. But prior to the pandemic, I was in China two, three times a year for a month, weeks at a time. I've been going to China since 2001. I have been everywhere in China. It was a second home for me, really. So it's been weird not going musically, fan-wise, financially. It's been strange in every way, but I'm excited to go back. It's such a fast-moving culture there, though, right? So... things change so fast. So like I would go, I would wait six months and it would feel different. So I can't even imagine what it would, what it's going to feel like now. But I'll say that every time I go there, the fans are, are so nice. I feel very safe. There's no, it feels like the safest place ever when you're there and people are very welcoming. They've treated me very well over the, over the decades, actually. And over that time when you go there, are you doing a combination of things? Are you doing clinics? You're doing shows? What are you doing when you're there? Good question. It's all straight concerts. I'll do theaters there, so maybe 2,000, 2,500 seat theaters and just my own music. It's great. So the big song for me internationally is still I'm Alright. Wow. And as far as Europe goes, is that the... Same thing here. I mean, how long have you been going there every year? Europe, I've been going 99, 2000, something like that. And I have a great band in Europe, my touring band, they're from Italy. So I'll fly to Italy, we'll rehearse a little bit, brush everything off. But they've been with me for 15 years. So same guys, same guys. So that we get along great. And so We brush it off for one rehearsal and we go out and do it. So this summer special, because we're doing Poland every year, there's a, it's called the thanks Jimmy festival in Wroclaw, Poland, where they break the Guinness book of world records with how many guitar players are playing Hey Joe, or I forget what the song is. We're headlining that festival. Wow. It's going to be great. So we're doing Poland, Austria, Italy, Germany. Czech Republic, we do a lot of dates in the Czech Republic. We always do Slovakia, Slovenia, it's always fantastic. Well, one thing I always remember over the years is that poster, that photo, I'm sure there's been a few of them, where you've got the little espresso maker and your little cup of coffee. It's such a big part of the culture there. So I was never a coffee drinker, but then when you're in Italy and you're with a bunch of Italians, Coffee have a had a coffee. That's espresso, right? Right a cuppa and then it's jet fuel, right? It's really so well like on the road We bring our own little like the mocha pot. They call it a mocha It's the car maker and a hot plate for an electric mocha and then in the United States. I have a pelican It's a mocha the coffee the little Cups the you got to be caffeinated before you play It's a wonderful thing that coffee is. As far as your solo albums that you've done, I assume where you have your own label, are you still working on your own label or are you having other people produce your albums? I still do my own records and then once they're done, I'll go license them and distribute them myself. Like most guys now, I have my own studio. I can record as I need. Yeah, it's, you know, I know we talk about Dark Night and Silent Night and this and that, but my main focus has always been my own music. It's not Christmas or this classical stuff. It's always been about, you know, writing good songs, writing melodic songs, writing songs that you don't have to be a guitar player to appreciate or bond. Two years ago, I released my latest album called Vermeer. Right. That was a great record to make. Todd Sukerman from Styx played on the record. I'm really proud of the record. I think the songs stand up. When you're young, like we were talking about earlier, you're going to NAMM, you're like, I'm the hot guy, I'm the hot guy. Whoa, you know, but as we settle in, like I realized like, I wanna play songs. I wanna play melodic things. I want people to be able to hum what I'm playing. It doesn't. There's a million guys that could play fast and I can still play fast, yes, but let's play some music. Let's not worry about like the crazy, crazy. You'll get a little bit, you'll get some of that in the live show, but let's play some songs. And so that's why every record I do, it feels like it's like exploring, where's my head at now? Where, what songs are waiting to come out at the sound, Esoteric, anything like that. My goal is always my own music. writing my own stuff and touring on that. That's what I want to do, you know? Well, we actually talked about that in 96 because Sing is, I believe, your third album. And so all I had heard was the first couple of albums. Obviously they were of the day, which I think I said back then. But that album seemed to be a transition for you. And you did talk about that Okay. Now I've done those two things. You can see how fast I played. I've listened to all your albums all the way up to this point. And, and you've definitely done that. And one thing that I always appreciate with, with your music is just the sound of the drums and the rest of the instruments are really good. Is that, do you bring a producer in? Do you bring somebody in else to mix? So is that something all you? Good question. And thank you for the kind of words. To your point. It is about the song as every artist goes through in the arc of their career. The early stuff, I'm still working it out. I don't know who I am. I don't, I wanna be my influences, right? So of course, even on the first record, I have a song called Climb the Alps, Tony McAlpine, you're imitating what you like. But then there's different eras. So then sing was the beginning of an era that was really kinda. solidified with the next record, which was Staring at the Sun, that had Steve Smith and Ross Valerie and as the rhythm section from Journey. That's when songs started to be written. So as I go through the songwriting, takes more and more precedent. So as far as I'll record everything myself, I tried mixing Vermeer 35 times and I lost all perspective of it. I did progress mixes, I'd mix it, I'd mix it again, and couldn't hear it anymore. I took it to one of my longtime buddies that had done singing and staring at the sun in Melodica, Joe Veers, and he is in Columbus, Ohio, and he has a beautiful Neve, 90, 98, out of Olympic Studios. He mixed it, it was the best decision I ever made, because he had a fresh perspective, and he did such a great job on it. So it sounds like a record, you know, I don't want it. I don't want my record to sound like, you know, I put a drum loop, da-d about mixing and where he was oftentimes the last guy at the board sitting there at the mix, kept getting in the way of it. And finally, at one point or in certain albums where he just had to say, oh, I got to step away from this, they would mix it, they would come back to it the next day, and it would be all wrong, because everything they heard was wrong. Seems like he did the same thing where he had to just step away and let somebody else. take a listen to it and then go from there. I think it's a healthy way for an artist to do because they've spent at that point, how much time have you spent with those songs, right? Just amazing. And for me, it's mixing time. It's so funny because you would think the guitar would be the most important thing for me. Oh, gotta hear the guitar, gotta hear the guitar. But I'm always pushing the guitar, the leads down so it sounds like a cohesive thing. not just like the car is sitting on a bunch of backing tracks. So, you know, like my concern always is how do the drums sound? Drums are the most important thing in the whole world. You could have the best drummer with a crappy guitar player and the guitar player sounds great, but you could have the best guitar player with a shitty drummer and he sounds horrible. So it's always about the drums in the foundation of everything. Well, especially the drums, I think, sound really good. How did you, what made you title the album Vermeer? A big fan? Why did you go with that? Very unique. That's the question I wish more people would ask. That's a good question. Because people are like, first of all, what's a Vermeer? But obviously we know 1600s Dutch painter, right? So I saw a documentary on Vermeer. It's called Tim's Vermeer. Oh, I saw that, yeah. You saw that? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's great. And they try to explore, well, for those that don't know, a Vermeer is highly, highly realistic. It's a, they don't know, they're not sure how he did it. If he did a camera obscura, I think they call it with the mirror. There was some trickery going on. There's some trickery that he, how he matched the color to what looks like a photo. So in this documentary, they were talking about how he might have done this, right? So all his paintings are done in one room. They're all one room. It's the same room in all these paintings. So one room, no one knows how he did it. There was some kind of trickery going on. At the time in his life, he was not a famous artist. He just, he toiled in his, in one room in obscurity. He gave everything to his craft and his art. years later he was recognized. And so in some way I thought, that sounds like me, right? I'm not one of the big, I'm not the Vaisatriani level of player that everyone knows. I toil in obscurity, don't really know how I did it. Everything may not be one take, you know. So it felt like a net, like, man, it's like he's an instrumental guitar player back in the 1600s. This is how he does it. So I just thought there was a parallel of things. Yeah, well, that was cool. When I saw that as the title, I went, oh, that's super interesting. When you think back to 1996, when I interviewed you, what has surprised you the most in the direction that your career has taken, maybe that you didn't think was going to happen back then? That's such a good question. I would say. I'm surprised how focused and unrelenting I have been over the years in what I do. I think maybe back when you're a little bit younger in your early part of career, like this is fun, we're like rock stars, we're whatever, whatever that means, right? There's a lot of superficiality, if that's even a word, about it all. But I think maybe what has surprised me is I've gotten more serious as the years go. As I get older, I get more serious. I'm more in tune with the craft. I'm more in tune with composition. I've never wavered where a lot of guys they'll weed themselves out as they go. And you know, they get a real job or they, you know, whatever they do. Now they sell insurance or whatever. I'm too stupid to do that. So I've been dedicated and my level of dedication it's gotten stronger. So I think that's what would surprise me to talk to a younger me. It would be interesting to say, you have no idea how intense this is gonna get for you. This is more than a lifestyle. It is the life choice. It's the life's work. So that's a good question. Yeah, maybe that's part of the issue with some of the musicians that end up not making it their career is they realize, wow, I've really gotta put the pedal to the metal. and keep it going all the time. It's not gonna just perpetuate on its own. It's one thing to be a dreamer, but you have to be a doer. The world doesn't come up to your door and bang on your door because they need your new music. You have to put it out or you have to, Malcolm Gladwell with the 10,000 hours, things happen when no one's looking. You know, they say, uh, find something you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life. And, uh, I guess I've worked it. I love that quote. Well, Neil, thanks for coming on the instrumentals of rock podcast. I really appreciate it. Mitch, you're a legend. We'll, uh, try to get together. Maybe when you get back from China and find out, um, you know, how that went. Yeah. Thank you so much. And listen, thanks for, uh, not just for me, but for all of us players, like keep keeping the faith and. keeping this going and like this is the work you're doing is very important. Like it perpetuates what we do. It keeps the culture alive. It really means a lot. You're doing good work. So keep, please keep it up. Well, thanks a lot. It's my pleasure. I love instrumental rock whenever a song comes on and after about a minute or so I'm going, okay, instrumental. Nice. All right. I like it. You know, whenever you hear an instrumental, it's something special. And I've always liked that aspect of it. All right, man. Thanks a lot. You got it, man. Later. I just want to say thank you to all of you from around the world that have listened to these first episodes of the Instrumentals of Rock. Either as a podcast or if you've watched it on YouTube, I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to it. Share it with your friends and family if you're so inclined. Cheers!