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Under-Radio
Lord M's Lucky 13
 Eric
Zimmermann was born in Kings Park, NY. He started playing guitar in high school.
After graduating college he decided to pack it up, head out to California and start
a rock and roll band. Since then he has collaborated with some excellent musicians,
and spawned the project Under-Radio. He is also a Grammy-nominated mastering
engineer. The second album from UR is slated for release September 2003.
LM: You recently signed with Lion Music to do another album; will that be an
Under-Radio release or something different?
EZ: It's going to be something entirely different. It's going to be a beastiality
porno. If that doesn't work out, it will most likely be an Under-Radio release. The
release date is September 2003.
LM: How did you get Under-Radio together?
EZ: I met Mark Zonder through a band called Ocean Seven. Mark and I discussed doing
some songs that were fairly straight ahead, so that's what we did. Mark will also do
a few tunes on the next Under-Radio CD as well. I've known Chris Howard for about 10
years and I met Matt Bissonette when I moved to Los Angeles. I've also known Robbie
Wyckoff for a while now too. Not only are all the guys very handsome, they are all
great musicians as well.
LM: The name Under-Radio is very
interesting, what does it mean to you?
EZ: It's kind of a joke on itself. I was trying to figure out a band name and I
asked myself what it was that I had. I said, "Well, basically what I have here are a
bunch of songs that will never get on the radio, since they won't be on the radio,
they will be under radio."
LM: You're a native New Yorker. What made you decide to pack it up and head to
California?
EZ: Always wanted to be in a warmer climate, so that had a lot to do with it. I
never knew how bad my allergies were until I moved to California. It was weird,
after a few weeks in LA, I felt better than I ever did. Maybe my lungs are more
acclimated to smog than mold and pollen. But the main reason was the music scene was
virtually non-existent in New York. We will touch on that later.
LM: What other projects are you currently involved in?
EZ: Just finished a tune for Frontiers Records that will be on the Red Cross benefit
CD. Carmine Appice plays drums. Robbie Wyckoff sings, Mike Valerio is on bass and
Chris Howard played percussion. The song is United off of the Judas Priest album
British Steel. It's a bit different than the original - a little bit faster and
structured different.
I have an entire CD; 53 minutes worth of music completely recorded that I would like
to see get released. I worked on the CD with a guy named Justin Kagan but it needs
to get mixed and mastered. However, that hasn't happened do to a bunch of really bad
excuses. I think that fans of progressive rock would really dig the songs; a lot of
thought went into the writing and recording. However, at the rate that things are
getting done with that, we are more likely to see George Bush hanging out at Crazy
Girls with Usama Bin Laden.
LM: I hear you are a Grammy
nominated mastering engineer. Tell us about that...
EZ: When I moved to California, I started an audio post-production business with my
Cousin Vinny, and we decided to name the studio Zoo Dog. I figured I'd move to Los
Angeles and work with a bunch of rock bands, but that turned out not to be the case.
I ended up with a nitch in the underground Hip Hop community after one of the CD'S I
mastered did very well (Dilated Peoples, "Work The Angels.") That led to different
things and now I master Snoop Dogg's music as well as a lot of other well-known Hip
Hop artists.
The album that got nominated for the Grammy is by a girl named Mystic. She's got a
really great record and a real unique thing happening, her style could best be
described as Sade singing/rapping over really interesting Hip Hop beats. There is a
lot of creativity behind that record and the underground Hip Hop scene in general.
Basically, mastering is the final fine-tuning aspect that you want to bring a
recording thorough before pressing CD'S. Mastering is where you can maximize volumes
and balance out eq's and take care of any miscellaneous edits. Mastering makes the
CD sound like a consistent CD instead of a bunch of random cuts.
LM: Is the music "scene" different in California than it is in New York?
EZ: Yeah, I think it's quite different, when I left New York, it seemed that
everything was dying, there were no clubs left on Long Island to see shows. I think
the last one that was doing it when I left was a place called Industry. In addition
to that, the scene in Manhattan was pretty dead too. You could walk into a club on
Bleeker Street and not really have anything going on.
In California, there is definitely a lot more going on with music. There is a
publication out here called The Music Connection and you can probably see close to
500 ads of musicians looking for musicians during any given week. So you have the
people out here, it's just a matter of finding who is best suited for your band.
One of the things that I find most amusing in Los Angeles is the opportunistic
aspect of the city. There is definitely that element of people taking an interest in
you to find out what you do and who you know. Quite frankly, I think that's a bunch
of bullshit and I find it entertaining to observe as a third party. People from New
York have a reputation as being rude. I think the word Rude should be substituted
for the words Straight Forward
LM: At what point in your guitar playing did you decide "this is it for me, I want
to be a rock star"?
EZ: I'm sure when I was a kid I had the delusion of wanting to be your proverbial
rock star. I mean, what kid wouldn't? When you're in High School, you think that if
you're a Rock Star, you crank out a masterpiece like Dark Side Of The Moon in a
month or two and spend the rest of your life having strippers fighting to buy you
drinks in between blow jobs.
I'll always have the desire to be a working musician. I know a lot of "Rock Stars"
and one thing I can say for sure is that the image and time of 'stardom' is
generally fleeting and sometimes VERY fleeting. I've seen guys have high-profile
gigs for less than a day. However, the guys that are great players and have their
heads screwed on straight are guys that have careers. That's what I admire.
LM: When you first started playing you traded your porn collection for a friend's
guitar. What exactly did you trade?
EZ: It was a bunch of Penthouse and things like that. I remember my friend that I
traded them too ended up getting mad at a kid around the block. So my buddy cut each
one of the pages out, and in the middle of the night took all the 'disassembled'
magazines and threw them all over the kids' parents lawn. It was pretty funny. The
next day in school, the 'victim' says to my friend, "The strangest thing happened
this morning, when I woke up and looked out the window, I saw a bunch of paper on
the lawn. When I went outside, there was porn and shit like that all over the place,
so I picked it all up and threw it away." A few months later, the kid ended up
getting caught with several hundred ripped up Penthouse pictures in a bag under his
bed.
LM: What type of guitar did you
get from the deal?
EZ: I got a Memphis. When I got a better guitar, I decided to try to build a
fretless guitar and pulled all the frets out of it. It didn't work and after that it
was officially dead.
LM: You are also a martial artist. What style do you study?
EZ: Krav Maga. It's what the Israeli Army learns. It's practical and effective. It's
not about meditating and eating rice cakes.
LM: What advice do you have for up and coming guitar players?
EZ: I think the best advice is to start recording yourself right away; the bottom
line is the tape (or hard disc) is not going to lie to you about what you're
hearing. Another thing that is also very effective is to get in a band weather it's
original or cover. That will help with understanding writing and song structure.
LM: Under-Radio is a stylish mix of soulful blues and good ole rock and roll. Do
you plan on keeping this vibe musically or will you experiment with softer or harder
styles of music?
I have the next CD all demoed in terms of the music. As we speak, I'm running it
through the 'de-sucker', which is touching up all the pre-production aspects of the
CD. I'm going to have Gregg and Matt Bissonette come in to do the rhythm section in
February and that's instantly going to add a new element to the music. Once that is
done, I'm going to add my guitar parts and have Robbie Wyckoff come in and sing. As
of now, all the tunes on the next CD are vocal.
In terms of a style on the next CD, I think I took more liberties in song structures
and styles in a lot of respects. I like diversity. If you look at the catalog of
classic bands like The Doors and Led Zeppelin, you have a wide spectrum, which is
something that I really like as a listener. Let's look at The Doors for instance:
The same band that wrote about going out and drinking the bar dry wrote tunes about
banging their Mothers and killing their Fathers seven songs later. That's pretty
diverse if you ask me.
So to answer your question, there is quite a bit of experimentation going on with
the new CD, metrically, harmonically and stylistically. I can't say what it sounds
like because it's not done yet and I don't know what I'm going to ditch and what I'm
going to keep, but I won't rule anything out yet. As of now, I've got one tune that
kind of reminds me of Ritchie Valens and another that is a polar opposite. All in
all, when it's done, it will most likely sound like whatever it turns out to be.
Visit the artist website:
Under-Radio
http://www.ericzimmermann.com/
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