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Tangerine Nightmares
An interview with Steve Moore and Tony
Paterra of Zombi
By Bob
Ignizio |
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l to r: Steve Moore and Tony
Paterra |
Originally based out of Pittsburgh (now residing in
Chicago), the duo known as Zombi took their collective name from the
European release title of hometown filmmaker George Romero’s ‘Dawn of the
Dead’. But Zombi aren’t yet another death metal band that watched too many
horror movies. Rather than taking their inspiration from the films
themselves, bassist/synth player Steve Moore and drummer Tony Paterra were
paying more attention to the instrumental prog rock scores to the films by
artists like Goblin and composer Fabio Frizzi. Even more than
horror soundtracks, Zombi cite Tangerine Dream and other synth heavy prog
rock bands as influences. So while their dark side certainly shows up in
their own compositions, especially when creating horror film soundtracks of
their own, there’s more to Zombi than music to munch guts by. I caught
up with the band after their set at The Beachland Ballroom, and here’s what
they had to say.
Utter Trash: What the hell possessed you to try and
play seventies style prog-rock soundtrack music?
Steve Moore: It’s what I grew up on, I guess. It was
infused in my body at an early age. It’s what I like to hear, it’s what I
like to play. I couldn’t really play anything else, I wouldn’t be happy
doing it.
Tony Paterra: I think we’re just looking to play
music that we would actually like to listen to.
UT: Growing up in Pittsburgh, did the whole George
Romero zombie thing and the ‘Dawn of the Dead’ soundtrack by Goblin play a
part in getting you into this kind of music?
TP: Not so much. I definitely like the movies, but
on the musical end it was more just my love of old prog rock and my love of
synthesizers and the sound they create. I just really wanted something
based around that sound.
Steve: It came a lot more from Tangerine Dream or Yes or King Crimson than
it did from horror movies, even though it’s there.
UT: How did the two of you hook up together?
SM: Online dating service. (laughs) We were playing
in other bands that would play together and we just met each other through
the very small Pittsburgh scene.
UT: Were you playing more traditional rock stuff
before?
SM: It wasn’t really traditional. It was sort of
no-wave, post punk type of rock. A little edgier, a little more angular.
TP: I was playing rockabilly for a while, just eight
months. I was doing that because I really had nothing else to do, I
couldn’t find anyone to play with. And then I got into a very similar thing
to what Steve was doing. No-wave, punk, frenetic type of music. And then
we met each other like that.
UT: I only recognized one song in your set from the
‘Cosmos’ album. Do you have other releases?
TP: Two of the songs you heard will be coming out on
our next record. The first song we played was off of an EP release we did a
couple years back. It was kind of a tour-only EP. We printed up 150 or so
and sold them on the tour. We sold all those. And then we have a self
titled release we put out when we first started. We plan on re-releasing
both of them together hopefully next year.
UT: Have you done any soundtrack work?
SM: We’ve done two horror movie scores now. One for
a movie called ‘Homesick’ written and produced by Adam Katz and directed by
Adam Wingard. It’s kind of a traditional early eighties slasher kind of
flick. It should be out on DVD through Synapse films this fall. The second
one we did was for a movie called ‘Murder Set Pieces’, written and directed
by Nick Palumbo. It’s a very gory, very brutal, extremely mean spirited and
misogynistic torture film. It’s playing select cities right now, Chicago,
New York.
UT: Is soundtrack work something you want to pursue
more of, or do you want to focus on your own albums and touring?
SM: Truthfully we like them both, because it gives us
an opportunity to be almost two different bands. When we do the soundtrack
work, it gives us a chance to be the sort of band everybody already thinks
we are, that whole Goblin worship type of thing. So the soundtracks are
really a good way for us to get that type of stuff out of our system.
Whereas I think our live stuff and the actual albums we release is a very
different vibe. I’d say we’re influenced more by ‘Popular Science’ than we
are by ‘Fangoria’.
UT: Do you plan on keeping the band a duo, or would
you like to incorporate some other musicians in the future?
SM: It’s not always going to be a duo.
TP: When we started we tried to get some other people
in, but it wasn’t happening. So we just decided to push on as a two piece.
We were writing lots of stuff, it was coming pretty easily. But there are
limitations, and we’d like to remove those. I don’t know if we’d add a
permanent member, but we’d at least like to have someone come out and play
with us on the road, so we can play some of the things we’re planning to
record.
UT: It’s got to be hard for Steve to play both the
bass and keyboard parts on some of those songs.
SM: I think on the next album we want to expand our
sound. Add some guitar, add some additional keyboard parts. On ‘Cosmos’ we
wrote the tunes according to what we could pull off live. We wrote right up
to the point that we couldn’t do it live without an extra person. On the
next album we’d like to write songs up to the point where we feel they’re
complete. If that means they need guitar or additional keyboard parts we’ll
record them. When it’s time to tour we’ll see about additional musicians.
UT: You’ve had some time to live with ‘Cosmos’ a
while. How do you feel about it?
SM: I love it. I like it a lot. I’m very proud of
it.
TP: I’m very happy with it. I’m glad Relapse picked
it up, I’m glad that other people are into it. We listen to it every once
in a while to see how things have progressed, how we’re playing it live. So
yeah, I like it a lot.
UT: Were you surprised that a label like Relpase
that’s known mainly for heavy metal wanted to sign you?
TP: Very surprised. I think it was different. They
have a few people there who are sort of into darker stuff, and they saw
something they liked.
SM: They do a lot of experimental and ambient albums
on their Release sub-imprint. Almost borderline minimalist techno. I think
they originally thought it would be like that, but when they heard the full
album I think it was a little more rock than they anticipated. But it still
has the same dark, atmospheric, almost cinematic sound. I think they saw
there was a crossover between their metal audience and people who really
like horror movies and horror film scores.
UT: Is it hard to find bands to tour with?
SM: It’s not as hard as you might think. Right now
we’re touring with The Fucking Champs, and it’s terrific. These guys are
really great, and really terrific musicians. I think that’s the kind of
bands we want to tour with. Good musicians, good people. We don’t want to
get pigeonholed into playing with only metal bands or only experimental
bands. We would rather play with good bands. So far we’ve been very
lucky.
UT: When can we expect a new album from you guys?
SM: Hopefully next spring, maybe March. We’re going
to be recording it right after this tour. We’re going to be doing some
writing actually in the studio, building the songs up a little bit. Right
now we have it all worked out as far as we can with just the two of us.
Once we record those tracks, we’ll probably add some other things. But it’s
pretty much written, the structure is there.
UT: Will it be similar, or will there be a shift in
the sound?
TP: There will be a shift. Not drastic, but it’ll be
different. It’ll be more aggressive. Bigger, fuller, but still
recognizable as being us. I’m very excited to record a lot of this stuff.
They’ll be a lot more ambitious.
UT: Anything else you want to add?
SM: I’d like to say to the people of Cleveland -
Pittsburgh Steelers AFC champs.
TP: I think my dad’s going to be angry with me even
for being here.
Visit the Zombi
website.
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