Indie Pop Band The Real Zebos Have No Style on Sophomore Album
September 23, 2022 (Omaha, NE)
The Real Zebos have no style – and they are okay with that. The sophomore LP from the Omaha-based indie pop band finds them scratching every itch from festival-ready indie rock to introspective bedroom pop.
They took inspiration from nowhere – literally, having all grown up in rural towns in Nebraska and Iowa. Not exactly cultural hotbeds.
“I felt insecure comparing us to other artists,” says Co-Frontman Connor Brandt. “Say, someone who grew up in Brooklyn and had one parent who was a candlemaker and one who was a music teacher… they started busking on the streets at age 7… attended Berklee… you see what I’m saying. It’s easy to compare yourself and wonder, ‘What’s so special about me?’”
Rather than view it as a negative, the band decided to embrace the feeling of being a blank slate.
“I had an epiphany that it may not be such a horrible thing. In fact, it’s far more rare to grow up in small-town-Nebraska than New York City. Maybe it’s the lack of that cultural/musical background that makes our music unique.”
“We’ve always felt like we don’t have one defined sound as a band, so we took this project as a chance to lean into that.” says Co-Frontman Jordan Gaul.
The band has experienced success with their song Rock Star Skinny, and was forced to wrestle with the idea of people’s expectations for the first time. “here’s the decisions you have for me / it’s either pretentious or mad corny” says Brandt on the track, “no style.”
“I was worrying too much about how I would be perceived. I thought, if I make something that appeals to other musicians and music nerds, it will not be accessible to the average person; but if I write a simple pop song, the music snobs will turn their nose up at me. It just felt like a lose-lose situation. This album, and particularly the title track, was just me letting go of all that and making a song that I wanted to make.”
The theme of letting go is also prevalent on the bombastic album-opener “bcuz i can”
“It’s an homage to that feeling of saying, fuck it, I’m just going to make whatever I want, because I can. I wrote about the time in my life when Jordan and I first met and played with the idea of starting a band. It was the end of my freshman year of college. After having such high hopes that college would change something for me, suddenly it was over, and everyone I knew was going home. I was feeling very aimless and alone and I didn’t know what else to do with my life. So I said, okay, I guess I’ll try out this whole ‘musician’ thing.”
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Although the band started on a whim, The Real Zebos have grown from a dorm room project, to a real band with real fans. The group was formed after a random Craigslist encounter between co-founders/songwriters/frontmen Connor Brandt and Jordan Gaul in late 2014. After three years of releasing demos online to an audience of zero, The Real Zebos filled out their lineup to become a real band, adding guitarist Jake Strange, bassist George Cooper, and drummer Logan Swander.
The five-piece has amassed a dedicated following in the Omaha area, as well as fans sprinkled around the globe, thanks in large part to their hit song Rock Star Skinny racking up over 3 million streams on Spotify. The band maintains an engaged audience across social media, including over 31,000 followers on TikTok. They have so many unreleased bangers they’re “not quite sure what to do with it all.”
Their sophomore album no style is slated for release September 23, 2022. It’s an album that wipes the slate clean and will only leave their audience guessing as to what will come next.
“We already have the next album and the next next album planned out,” says Gaul. “I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned to find out.”
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“no style” Track Listing:
1. bcuz i can
2. Indie Girls
3. We’re All Going Solo
4. Simple Love
5. no style
6. Cynical
7. Running in Place
8. What Is My Life?
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Band Contact: therealzebos@gmail.com