Interview with The Zells

by Kylie Wishnewski and Gabi Herring

On Wednesday January 10th, 2024, WPTS Radio featured the Pittsburgh indie rock band The Zells on their weekly live show. Between sets, WPTS staffer Kylie Wishnewski and social media director Gabi Herring interviewed the band about their influences and upcoming endeavors.

WPTS: We’ll start off pretty easy. How did you guys meet, and how did the band get together?

The Zells: The four of us—we all went to high school together and we were playing in bands together all through high school. We’re from the Northern Hills, Allegheny River folk. And then, actually, it was playing in the Oakland scene, ten years ago? Nearly 10 years ago, now. Some of the houses are probably still active. But that was when we met Tyler. He was playing in an incredible band called Trash Bag. And then we all kind of came together. And this iteration [The Zells] of this started in 2016.

WPTS: It’s cool to hear that this has been a long standing tradition, all of you guys playing together in various forms.

The Zells: Yeah, in our adult life, The Zells have been the main project that we’ve all focused on. But we’ve got a long, long history of playing together like this.

WPTS Radio: I don’t know if it’s the confines of a small room and whatnot, but do you guys usually like to play in a kind of circle, all facing each other? Is this something you usually do?

The Zells: I feel like we do for practice, but it would be great if we could do this on stage! I feel like circles are democracy and we’re all on an even playing field. Didn’t Tool used to do that? The lead singer would just not face the audience for the whole show? It sounds like a move Tool would do.

WPTS: I think this is probably a record setting number of vocalists we have, because all five of you guys got in on the vocals, which is very cool. How does that relate to the songs? Do you guys sing your own songs?

The Zells: Yeah, for the most part. You can kind of decipher who has written what by the lead vocalist. More and more as we’ve gone throughout the years a lot of those duties have been shared and traded as we’ve created this sort of creative language between each other. We’re sort of striving for The Beastie Boys, but we’re never quite getting to that level of trading off. We’ve always loved bands that do that like Archers of Loaf and stuff like that. You’ve got this many people who want to sing—might as well use it.

WPTS: It was very fun to watch all of you guys moving around playing different instruments. You touched on this a little bit in the last question, but my final question for this segment is what are some of your most major inspirations as a band? You can answer as a whole or individually.

(The Zells complete influence list: Fountains of Wayne, That Dog, Archers of Loaf, Thin Lizzy, Guided by Voices, The Exploding Hearts, Baked, Lost Boy, Silver Car Crash.)

The Zells: We’ve been fortunate enough to meet a lot of people over the years that I think influence our sound and that’s what’s been fun about doing it for so long. You just keep hearing more stuff that keeps making you excited about it.

The Zells played 3 more tracks before taking another interview break.

WPTS: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever gotten inspiration from for a song?

The Zells: Bryan Ray Trout, which was the fourth song we played—In the pandemic, I noticed that Bryan Ray Trout is the Christian name of actor Skeet Ulrich. And I realized that the only two movies he was ever in that got famous both came out in 1996. So then, I was like ‘man, I wonder what the rest of the 90s were like for that guy?’ Can you imagine peaking at 24 in 1996? So, that song is actually set three years after, [in] 1999, and it’s kind of exploring the psyche of Skeet Ulrich. I mean, imagine you were in The Craft and Scream and then all of a sudden you’re begging for a spot on NCIS San Diego.

WPTS: If you were to get rid of one genre of music, what would you remove from existence?

The Zells: Whoa… Shoegaze. No, I’m sorry. I’m just kidding! I’m kidding, everyone. That’s a really hard question. I think at this point it’s hard to imagine moving anything because the fabric of everything is so intertwined. We’ll just get rid of bad, lame, surface level music.

WPTS: Do you guys have any social media that you would like to share that people can find you at?

The Zells: the_zells on pretty much everything—Twitter, Instagram. We’re on Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube, AppleMusic. Yeah, wherever music is sold.

WPTS: Perfect. Do you guys have any upcoming music coming out or shows coming up?

The Zells: We just put out that split at the end of the year, Queensburgh. Go check that out! And then our next show is going to be at the end of March. Hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s very exciting. We’re taking a couple months off working on new stuff such as that last song you guys heard which is the first time we’ve ever played that for anyone.