I’ve cried, fucked, danced, walked home at 3 am to, tentatively extended to lovers, excitedly shared with friends and went down stoned music video rabbit holes of The Zolas. That’s all to let you know upfront that I’ve had a decade long bias in favor of the Canadian band. So when I got a chance to talk with Zach, lead singer and guitarist for the band, it was also an excuse to delve head first into revisiting their discography.

With their first album, they chewed off a huge chunk of the indie rock world. Having avoided the common early-career peak, the Zolas have masterfully savored that bite for a decade. Tic Toc Tic was the initial crunch, teeth grinding and a burst of ferocity. ‘Queen of Relax’ introduced us to the epitome of how they get across a character, indirectly and accurately. A theme that sets apart their lyrics overall. Just like in ‘Marlaina Kamikaze’ and ‘I’ve Got Leeches,’ they’re one of those special alumni who know how to use absurdist analogies to really pinpoint a certain universal experience. “I wish I could report some kind of ultra-legit commitment to being real but honestly I’m trying to rip someone off every time I write a song or conceive of an album. I guess I suck at it though so in the end nobody can tell. When it comes down to writing lyrics the type of ideas and stories that move me haven’t changed much since I started when i was 18. All my albums are in some way about nostalgia and apocalypse.”

Ancient Mars is an album I can only listen to now at poignant times. It takes me to a cinematically angsty and open-ended love. I was drawn to it first because ‘Strange Girl’ stood out to me. As the outcast weirdo who struggled with mental health, I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the “quirky girl” archetype. With pop-punk of the 2000’s villainizing the emo girl as a heartbreaker, and Brit-indie pop romanticizing her as a pot of gold, I felt like I needed to entirely embody into the archetype to be a muse. But ‘Strange Girl’ captured the nuance of it all, with a lens of just enough reality to balance out the haze of high school trauma. Theirs was a more 3D representation. Suddenly, being strange felt like much less of a burden. “ I’m overjoyed to hear that you think that. The lyrics that move me the most in songs are the ones that are like ‘damn that’s super-relatable and I’ve never heard someone else point it out before’. Kinda like stand up comedy. So I’m drawn to the little things that I know we all relate to but I haven’t heard written about before. Those are the things that make a pretty straight-up pop song feel personal. And so I think ‘Strange Girl’ and Swooner still pedestalize women like so much of the music you mention but they’re just being glorified for qualities that you don’t normally hear about so it feels fresh. It helps that I’m being genuine. I’ve always related to the types of women that don’t get basic-ass love songs written about them.”

My favorite song of theirs is from this album, ‘Escape Artist.’ And to me, it does just what Zach is talking about in terms of hitting you where something has yet to be said. I’m sitting here begging my brain to think of apt descriptions; dragging from inside every insecurity that song sees, strokes and seduces. All I can think of is how every time I listen, it feels like I’m floating in a river of running water. So you could color me surprised when Zach says, “The canonization of ‘Escape Artist’ does amuse me though. When writing it I had spent a lot of time honing the verse lyrics but the chorus still had dummy lyrics that I had improvised to crack the band up. Nothing good was coming for the chorus. I was totally stuck for weeks. Then eventually our bass player Hank said just keep these they crack me up and i said yeah fine but I can’t believe I’m gonna have to sing ‘cumming in the sheets’ for the rest of my life now. But once I accepted them in context, suddenly these accidental lyrics bent around the rest of the song to create a depth of meaning that was way cleverer than I am.”

The album that followed came with a bang - or rather a punch. Swooner’s single ‘Molotov Girls’ was a poppy-grrrl themed anthem underlined by a twisted self-awareness. Combining toughness of their debut with the maturity and orchestration of their sophomore, this album was the best of both with a new stylized sheen. (Special shoutout to the last song on that album; the almost Keaton Henson level heartbreaking ‘Why Do I Wait’). Perhaps their anchoring sound comes from Zach’s willingness not to push himself. As he talks, it’s clear that he’s a conduit of human experience. Not someone trying to guide it or pretend they’re at the other end of it. “My creativity is flaky as fuck and I have yet to figure out how to make it text me back. The quarantine hasn’t changed that at all sadly. The only thing the quarantine has done is let me give myself permission to do exactly what I want to do at all times and if that’s not creativity that’s ok. Spoiler alert: it hasn’t been creativity.” But the highs of creating and collaborating are still incomparable to anything else.

I ask him what his most delusional moment in the studio has been, curious to see how he’ll interpreted it and wondering if the answer will be an inebriated trip of some kind but he comes back with, “When you say delusional what first comes to mind is the fact that with almost every song — even a song that ends up sucking — there’s a point in the studio when everyone looks at each other and says “Oh my god this song is going to change our lives. I can vividly remember my first time feeling that way while recording my first band’s first album while Tom layed down a particular piano part. In that moment I couldn’t imagine a world where this doesn’t blow up. The song was called “Kate” and it was a cute song but you can look it up and see how there was no way in hell this swingy piano cabaret song was going to be a hit. It’s PURE delusion but it’s one of the best highs in the world.” And suddenly, I’m craving a high I’ve never had.

As the daughter of a philosopher and a Phil degree holder myself, I am inhumanely familiar with long poetic, robust sentences used to describe one meager thought. I’ve spent years digging through entire books for the nugget of meaning. Maybe that’s part of why I’ve always loved The Zolas, they’re the opposite. A short firework of descriptors illuminates football fields worth of shared connection.

Luckily, there’s gonna be a follow up to the pink and blue Swooner’s lake. “We haven’t announced it yet so here’s a Babyballou exclusive. We were meant to release the first single from our new album this month but Covid pushed things back til the fall. There's this separate little batch of apocalyptic songs, though, that feel perfect for the moment so to tide us all over the summer we're dropping a new song every 2nd of the month starting June 2 until our first official album single and video comes out in October.”

Before I let him slip away, I got Zach in on a fun e-game to personify some of his songs as people at a party/bar. Check his answer below!

Molotov Girls - poli-sci major who shops at Forever 21.

Male Gaze - gamer kid who’s just realizing that he’s picked up a twisted way of seeing women.

Marlaina Kamikaze - too heartbroken to have fun tonight.

Ancient Mars - the kid who after 1 drink starts telling everyone he loves them.

CV Dazzle - Did not bring ID.

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Listen to all the mentioned songs at Spotify

The Zolas: A Convo & Game with Zach

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