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Zeke (Blind Marky Felchtone – vocals, guitar, Donny Paycheck – drums, Jeff “The Kid” Matz – bass) has been tearing shit up since 1993, delivering some of the fastest, raunchiest rock ‘n’ roll ever heard on such classic albums as ‘Kicked in the Teeth’ and ‘Dirty Sanchez’.  They also toured relentlessly, sharing the bill with bands like The Supersuckers, The Voodoo Glow Skulls, and even Pearl Jam.  In 2001 they released what many consider to be their best album, ‘Death Alley’.  

By late 2002, however, life on the road was starting to take its toll on Zeke.   Zeke frontman Blind Marky Feltchtone says, “After 11 years of touring with this band, and being in a little hotel room with 6 guys every night for 200 days out of the year, I was out of my mind.  I wanted to kill everybody.  I was willing to do whatever; we had a tour with the Melvins that was supposed to happen when we came back from the European tour.  I think we all just mutually decided that we needed to take a break.”  The band actually announced they had called it quits, but considering their penchant for speed it’s hardly surprising that they staged one of the fastest reunions in rock history. 

In 2003, Zeke released the album ‘Live and Uncensored’.  It didn’t take much persuading to get them back together to hit the road in support of it.  Marky says, “We just started getting a lot of offers and stuff for shows.  Relapse really wanted to get an album out of us.  Jeff and Donny contacted me and said all this stuff was going on.  We didn’t want to disappoint these people.”  After the tour, which saw bassist Jeff Matz and drummer Donny Paycheck pulling double duty playing for opening act Camarosmith, Zeke signed with Relapse and recorded their most recent masterpiece, ‘Til the Livin’ End’.   

Of his band’s new home on Relapse records, Marky says, “I didn’t know much about them outside of the fact that Donny told me they were interested in getting an album from Zeke.  I looked up some information on them and found out they had released the new album from Alabama Thunder Pussy.  High on Fire, which is another band I really like, were on the label.  They also put out that Pentagram retrospective.  I figured if they were putting out those bands then obviously it’s a good idea for us to deal with these guys as well.”   

‘Til the Livin’ End’ was released by Relapse in April of 2004, and found the band mixing some slow and heavy numbers with their trademark faster than light material.  Marky says, “It’s hard for me to gauge how much we’ve changed, or how much we haven’t changed.  But this band isn’t predicated on just doing one certain thing.  The idea is just to play intense rock ‘n’ roll.  It doesn’t matter if it’s really fast, or really slow and heavy.  The intensity has to be there and it has to be powerful, but that’s all we’re really going for.  We still have the same influences; that hasn’t changed at all.  It’s a little bit less punk rock now than it was before.”   

Perhaps the most obvious of Zeke’s influences is Motorhead, especially on songs like “Hold Tight” and “Dragonfly”.  With the exception of Marky’s vocals, the songs sound like they could have been outtakes from the ‘Ace of Spades’ sessions.  “They are outtakes from ‘Ace of Spades’. We didn’t write those songs.  They were ghostwritten,” jokes Marky.  “Lemmy transmigrated to my body and wrote those songs.  Actually that’s bullshit.  Motorhead’s a big influence.  So fucking what.” 

Although no one would ever accuse Zeke of being lightweights, it was still somewhat surprising to me to find them touring in support of the ultra heavy Superjoint Ritual.  Marky says, “It’s funny, because I was talking to the guys in High on Fire and the guys in Speeddealer, and they’ve both toured with Superjoint as well.  They kind of scared me.  We had already accepted the tour, and Jeff from Speedealer was like, “I don’t know.  You guys are really gonna’ do this?”  I was like, “I guess.”  And he said, “Oh man, get ready.  It’s going to be pretty bad.”  The guys in High on Fire told me that it was okay for them, but they were hoping it might have been a little better.”  Despite the dire warnings, for Zeke, the experience has been positive.  Bassist Jeff “The Kid” Matz says, “I think it’s been really good.  I’ve been really surprised by the crowd’s reactions.  We’re just high energy rock ‘n’ roll, and people have been really receptive.” 

While touring with Superjoint Ritual could potentially expose Zeke to a whole new group of fans, Marky isn’t really worrying about it one way or the other.  He says, “Whatever happens happens.  I’m just here to deliver rock.  That’s my job, that’s what I do.  I don’t have any expectations or goals outside of doing that job.  If we make a lot of money that’s great, if not that’s great.  If a bunch of these kids coming to these shows that aren’t already Zeke fans start buying our records that’s great.  If not, I’ve done my job.”  After the tour is over, Marky and the rest of the band plan to keep on doing their job.  Jeff says, “We’re going to be doing a headlining tour of the west coast.  Then in June we head off to Europe for a few months.”  For a band that was history not so long ago, Zeke is certainly making up for lost time.  As the name of their latest album implies, Zeke seems more than capable of going the distance “Til The Living End.” 

Visit the Zeke website.