yes, I know, I am a geek, I cannot believe I bought it, I had to though, it was plastic wrapped in the shop and I couldn’t just read the article.
The article actually has a few mistakes, they were called Supra (in the Rockquest) and Glorafilia was their third single.
In the letter from the editor
there is a picture of the boys with no shirts on with the editor and the
hair and makeup artist. And they were on the cover. This is the magazine
that (ugly) Breathe were referring to on ICE AS.
If Zed had been landed with
any other name it could have China or Supra. That’s what bass play Ben
campbell’s dad thought of calling them. But luckily for them lads, it’s
not the name they eventually ran with. Back in 1996, three high school
lads took to jamming in heir home basements after school at Cashmere High
School in Christchurch, totally anonymous in he New Zealand music industry,
they were just three good friends making a lot of noise in their neighborhood.
"We started off in Ben’s lounge, then we moved down to the basement because it was a bit too loud," laughs Adrian, Zed’s drummer. Today with the recent addition of guitarist and Aucklander Andy Lynch, Zed is now a four-man band. Their debut single "glorafilia" which was released last year, stayed on the charts for 22 weeks and wonthe hearts of many a teenage girl. About to launch their debut album Zed are truly on the up and up. These babes are just gorgeous and play their own instruments, write their own songs and best of all, are Kiwis through and through. They cringe at the term ‘boy-band’ and are just the type of pop band that New Zealand teenagers have been craving for a long time.
In case you’ve been living
in a igloo for the past year and haven’t heard it yet, "glorafilia" is
a catchy song about a girl that everybody wants to hang with on a Sunday
afternoon, or so the song goes. The name Glorafilia was the title of an
embroidery book belonging to Ben’s mother that he found I the family living
room. Now ironically, the girl who plays Glorafilia in the music video
is now almost as famous as the lads themselves. And to think she was just
a mere mortal hand-picked from the streets of Christchurch. Ben, who also
wrote the song reflects.
"I was walking down the
street friend and ‘I was saying to her that we really needed to find a
main person for the video, preferably a girl’. My friend was like ‘what
about that girl over there’ and pointed across the street. I thought, ‘oh,
she’s pretty’, so went across and asked her to e in the video and got her
phone number.
In their very first year together as a three-piece band, the group entered the 1996 Rockquest. They made I through the heats and were placed fourth in the regional finals, but used the name Supra. Even today the band support the rockquest as a great example of the cut-throat nature of the music industry. "One band wins overall, which is a good representation of reality. There are so many bands but only one out of 600 make it at the end of the day". Remarks Adrian.
Newest member Andy also entered in the Rockquest but under a different guise - he hadn’t met the other band members at this stage. But like the others, he made it into the regional finals and won overall as "Most Promising Instrumentalist" for his guitar playing. For Andy, the only Aucklander in the band, music is not only in his blood but his backbone. The son of f two musical legends his father Bruce Lynch was the long time bass player for Cat Stevens and his mother Suzanne Lynch is known for being half of the 1960’s New Zealand girl-group The chicks. The link is in Zed’s manager and old time "She’s a mod" rocker Ray Columbus, who for a time also managed the Chicks and is now a long-time family friend of Andy’s parents. At the back of Andy’s house his parents set up a recording studio that was in the early days the home of Zed’s first demos. Maybe it will be a shrine in years to come?
Andy’s musical upbringing shines through in his passion for music. When asked if he had always wanted to be in a band he says. "It’s not so much that I wanted to, but that I needed to, because music is much like a drug. If I go away on holiday to a reclusive bach I take a guitar, and even ‘if I don’t play it I llike to know that it’s there just in case I want to. I usually do of course but I’ve always just needed to play music to keep my spirit alive."
Andy still remembers his first ever performance on stage with Zed. "I didn’t know what to expect because it was in Hamilton and when we were setting up to play there weren’t many people around. But later when we came back, we were ushered into this little sweltering back room. We then walked on stage and I was like ‘woah’. There were people everywhere!"
If you think you may recognize Andy from somewhere, you’re probably correct. He recently featured in the popular Just Juice TV commercial. Initially Andy was hired as the guitarist for the jingle but the director saw him and asked him to audition as the main talent. To shoot he commercial Andy traveled to Fiji with the cast and crew. "I performed alongside this amazing big towering black man called Taj Mahal, who’s actually got quite a history of great albums but nobody knows who he is down here", he says. The commercial has been a huge success. Andy finds it hard to believe it is still screening and hopes it will stop broadcasting soon. "I’m still being haunted by it now". He laughs.
Ben views Andy’s fruity fame with a bit of humour. "We just saw him on the TV and thought "he looks cute and he looks like he can play guitar", Ben laughs. However, when it comes to discussing the music of Zed, Andy has the seriousness and wisdom of an experienced musician. "as time progresses it’s getting a lot more character, musically". He states. Recording the album in Auckland’s Revolver studios took weeks of long days and late nights for the band. They started at 10am and often didn’t wrap until 1am the following morning. Adrian even managed to arrive at the Creme photo shoot with a dislocated foot, the result of a high energy soccer game played the night before while killing time in the studio car park. Zed are no tortured rock stars, but at the heart of it, pure New Zealand lads.
While recording Zed didn’t live the high life you’d expect from a modern day pop band. In fact, they even had to cook their own meals. Just like a flatting situation they took turns for dinner duty. They night Creme paid a visit it was Adrian and Ben’s turn. Spaghetti Bolognaise was on the menu - one meal it seems every New Zealand male has the ability to cook). Chefing aside though, the tunes beings generated in Revolver Studios more than make up for what these lads may lack in culinary cuisine.
So, to all of you Zed fans
walking the streets, be sure to keep your eyes peeled as it could be either
Nathan, Ben Adrian or Andy approaching you next to star in their future
music videos. Whatever the case you won’t regret it. This band is going
to be big!