Zach Person and his drummer, Josh Waibel, walked off the stage at the Mississippi River Festival after absolutely crushing one of the best live music sets that I have witnessed in a long time. How do I describe or even explain this dude? He hammers notes like Clapton, bends ’em like Hendrix and shreds like Gary Clark Jr. He glides across the stage like Prince with a Jagger-like swagger. He sings melodies echoing tones of Otis Redding.
He’s humbled by the comparisons (he got Hendrix more than once—what!?), but don’t mistake him for anything other than the completely unique entity that he is, turning heads and gaining fans every single show he plays. Whatever you’re looking for in a live music experience—dance and groove, nod your head, get a little psychedelic—you’ll get all of that and more at a Zach Person show. ALL of it. He’s a must-see. It’s that simple.
I sat down with Zach and his drummer, Josh Waibel, fresh off their blinding set. After profusely hurling superlatives at them, I finally was able to squeeze a few questions in there.
BTT: You guys just set that stage on fire, man; that was so good! You guys have a lot going on up there with the backing tracks and the amount of noise you make. Was the duo thing by design or necessity?
ZP: We had a carousel of guys that would sit in but it became difficult during the pandemic, so we just went with the two-piece.
BTT: It’s definitely working!
ZP: Yeah In theory it’s limitless, but there’s a lot of pre-planning for the tracks, so it doesn’t allow you to be as spontaneous. We like what we do but we’ve kind of pushed it as far as we can go with it.
BTT: There’s a lot of versatility in your music. Who were some of your influences?
ZP: I was into a lot of different stuff; a lot of soul and R&B growing up, that’s what was playing around the house. Then I started skating and the Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack kind of opened up my eyes and changed things a lot. In our set there’s moments that feel like AC/DC, Sly Stone—you can hear a lot of influences in there. And the ebb and flow of the set is purposeful to highlight some of that.
BTT: So is the writing as purposeful or is it just wherever the creative muse takes you?
ZP: Both. Actually for this last record (Let’s Get Loud), half the songs I’ve had for years.
I just went back and played producer and figured out what it needed to make it work. I’ll just step away if it’s not there yet. But I get a lot more done now because I used to be like, ‘This isn’t good enough’ and I would leave the song and forget about it, but now I try not to judge myself, and I take the song all the way even if it’s crap. And then I come back and listen to it an hour or so later, and I’m like, ‘You know what? I appreciate something about this.’
BTT: It takes that stepping back and letting go a little bit though, right?
ZP: Totally, it’s like this line is not good enough. Then you come back and listen to it in context, that line that I thought was really basic and not deep enough because it was so simple actually serves the tune better. The song “Wild” was kind of a funky blues tune, and I just kept chopping away at it; version 1, version 2, and I think the 12th version of the song became the sculpture, and I kept chipping away at it until it looked like a masterpiece.
Photos: Cory Weaver