Inspired by acts including Fugazi and The Descendents, the group found themselves uninspired by the local trend towards ska punk and instead began incorporating elements of hip-hop into their sound, eventually recruiting rapper Ali Tabatabaee to join their ranks. After issuing the EP Yellow on the indie label Doctor Dream Records in May 1998, Zebrahead signed to major label Columbia Records to release their full-length debut, Waste of Mind, which appeared later that same year. The band’s follow up album Playmate of the Year was issued in mid-2000 and the Stupid Fat Americans EP followed the next year as an exclusive release for Japan. Zebrahead headed over to Europe with Green Day to support the records and played various festival dates as well. Throughout the years, they also shared gigs with bands like Less Than Jake, Kottonmouth Kings, 311, Reel Big Fish, and Goldfinger. Three years after having released a full length album, MFZB (aka Mother Fucking Zebrahead Bitch) appeared in 2003, and shortly afterwards lead singer/guitarist Mauriello exited the group to pursue other interests (namely start a new band I Hate Kate). His departure distressed fans, as the singing/rapping dynamic between him and Tabatabaee was crucial to the band’s sound. However, Zebrahead was soon back in action with the addition of new vocalist/guitarist Matty Lewis (formerly of Jank 1000) to their lineup. The song “Check” was featured in the hit video game “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3” for PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube. In 2006 the band recorded the song “With Legs Like That”, which features on the WWE Wreckless Intent Album, and is currently being used as WWE diva Maria’s entrance music. The band also had two songs, “Falling Apart” and “Alone” featured on the 2004 video games WWE SmackDown vs. Raw for the PlayStation 2 and WWE Day of Reckoning for the Nintendo GameCube. Zebrahead has also released 5 tracks exclusive to Japan. The Japanese bonus tracks include Dissatisified and Good Thing which were included on MFZB (2003)and Down In Flames and Riot Girl which are on their latest album Broadcast to the World. The one is a cover of the famous Cheap Trick song “Surrender” which is also on MFZB. The only other cover Zebrahead has done is the Spice Girls hit song “Wannabe” which is on Waste of MFZB, album only released in Japan. Zebrahead spent summer 2006 on the Warped Tour while their new album Broadcast to the World was released in Europe on July 3 through the German based record company SPV. The album which had come out in February of the same year in Japan, went gold in just over a month’s time. Due to Zebrahead’s growing popularity in Japan, Matty Lewis and Zebrahead bandmate Ali Tabatabaee were asked by SEGA to record vocals for a new theme song, entitled “His World”, which appears in the game Sonic The Hedgehog for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The entire band later recorded an alternate version of the song for the vocal soundtrack. The rest of 2006 was spent touring Europe and the US as part of the Broadcast To The World Tour. In March 2007, the band took two months off to begin writing new material for their, currently as of yet, untitled new studio album. The band later returned to Europe in May on a co-healine tour with MxPx and a headline UK tour. From June - July of the same year, Zebrahead toured America, supporting Unwritten Law with the band Bullets and Octane. On completion of the tour, Zebrahead spent more time writing material for their new album which had a planned release date of February, 2008. Recently, after several of the active users at MFZB.com made it apparent they were in need of update from the band during this ‘quiet’ period, Zebrahead responded by posting a video update to YouTube which was promised as “the first of many”. The video talks about the writing/recording process and has an update on Zebrahead’s official fanclub. October 2007 saw the return of Zebrahead to the UK as part of the annual Get Happy Tour where they shared the stage with Army of Freshmen, The Bloodhound Gang and Bowling For Soup. Zebrahead will be returning to Download 2008 (UK) after their first appearance in 2006. For the rest of 2007 the band continued to write songs for the new album. Demos were recorded and received input from Jason Freese of Green Day fame. In March 2008 Zebrahead entered the studio and recorded 18 songs for their new album. The first two songs, including “Art Of Breaking Up” were recorded with Howard Benson, while the remaining 16 were recorded with Cameron Webb. Zebrahead released clips giving an insight into the making of the album the same month. June saw Zebrahead return to the UK and Europe to headline a tour and play certain festival dates including Download, Leeds Slam Dunk Festival and Greenfield Festival. Several new songs from the upcoming album are likely to make their debut appearance in live form. On May 17th 2008, it was revealed via the band’s MySpace tagline that the upcoming album would be entitled “Phoenix”. A day later, Zebrahead’s fan blog, Postcards From Hell, revealed that the first single from the album would be entitled “Mental Health” and its music video was be directed by Elliot Dillman of Pandaworks. Official Zebrahead Site: www.zebrahead.com |
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