Let’s start with the basics. Who are you? Where are you from? What style of music do you create?
We’re a group of college students who met at Missouri University of Science and Technology (located in Rolla, MO). Chris Spirit Brown (guitar/vocals) is a St. Louis native. James T. Kaiser (guitar/vocals) has moved all his life but calls St. Robert home now. Christian Finch (drums/vocals) comes from Kansas City. Marty Aman (bass/vocals) was born and raised in Qatif, Saudi Arabia.
Our music can be classified as heavy metal or rock. We end up exploring different subgenres within our songs, not always intentionally at first — we just write whatever feels natural to us. “Spectre in Mirror” is something of a progressive metal tune, whereas “Charity” has more of an alternative vibe. “The Kill Divine” has a bit of a classic rock sound, and “Signals to the Lighthouse” is definitely our power ballad. We do our best to make no two songs sound the same while still retaining an identity.
Chris and James are the prominent songwriters in the band. Our lyrics tend to be narrative, covering topics such as cults, war, witchcraft, and seafaring to name a few. Guitar solos are a staple of most of our songs, with James often utilizing a wah pedal. Drum solos can be found here and there as well.
All four of us perform vocals in BaZ. Chris does most of the clean singing, James most of the screaming. Finch growls and sings baritone, both of which are showcased in “Charity”. Marty provides crowd shouts and sings backing cleans along with James and Finch.
What led you to decide on the name Begin At Zero?
Two of us are students of Computer Science, and another studies Computer Engineering. Our band name is derived from a concept that many programming languages use. Even though people naturally count “one, two, three, four…”, computer programs will often have to count “zero, one, two, three, four…” — hence, programs will “begin at zero” in their counting.
For anyone interested, there’s a Wikipedia article about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-based_numbering
You are a fairly new band. With that said, what has been the key to holding the group together creatively and as a sustainable venture? Do you see yourselves creating music far into the future?
There are two primary forces that keep us together and moving: songwriting and making progress. In our songwriting, we constantly seek different inspirations and techniques to keep from sounding like the same old thing. We strive to make progress with live shows, our recordings, and even less musical things like our color scheme and choreography. The constant creativity keeps us passionate about what we do.
Friendship and mutual respect have also been important in keeping us together. We listen to what everyone has to say. We hang out and have fun outside of practice. If one of us is feeling down, the rest of us are there for support.
Most of us expect to be writing music for the rest of our lives, even if it’s in more of a hobby setting rather than professional. We’ve talked a little about what we’ll do once we start graduating from college. We haven’t set anything in stone yet, but there is a desire to make BaZ a real full-time commitment for perhaps a year or so and try to get signed.
What are some of the challenges of being a new band? Was it difficult finding all the “right” members?
A challenge that any new band might face is scheduling time to meet up and making good use of that time. The best way to address this is to treat being in a band like any other job or commitment. We generally set aside our Sunday evenings for BaZ and make plans to go over a set for an upcoming show or learn a new song. Even if not everyone is able to come to a practice, those who do can still rehearse their parts to keep tight. Practicing individually is also very beneficial.
That being said, we have to keep our priorities straight. If one of us is sick, we make sure to take care of ourselves first. We put our work, school, and family commitments before BaZ. There was a time when one of us had take a break for personal reasons and the other members had to pick up the torch. Balancing life with being in a dedicated band is a challenge in of itself, but it also allows the band to be an escape from everything else we’ve got going on.
Finding the right lineup for BaZ took some time. We spent five months as two guitarists learning each other’s songs. It was frustrating at times not having a full band ready to go. On the other hand, this may have been a good foundation for us to focus on songwriting rather than scrambling material together for the sake of playing out.
Even after Finch became our drummer, we played our first few shows without a bassist. They were fun, but having the low end in there really makes a difference. Once Marty joined, BaZ felt much more complete, both in the quality of our songs and our presence on stage.
All things considered, we were lucky when it came to adding members. When we felt a new member was good, it was obvious. Likewise, it was fairly obvious when a person trying out wasn’t working. The unlucky situation is to have someone join to later find out they have musical or personal differences from the other members.
We have met bands in which there were some serious personality conflicts, even though everyone was an established member. The members ended up spending time fighting, which caused their live performances to suffer. “We have to like each other” was a kind of motto we had to adopt from the very start. It’s tough to work with people you don’t like.
Is the Internet proving to be a useful tool for exposing your music to listeners? Are you connecting with fans and getting yourselves heard?
The Internet is a necessary tool and the reality of music today. It’s been useful in that we can send a quick link to whoever we want to hear our recordings. Social media lets us use visual mediums (photos, videos, artwork, and even plain text) to catch someone’s eye in the hopes we’ll catch their ear as well. Conversely, Internet users are constantly bombarded by content. We have to compete with Vines, memes, chats, breaking news stories, and, of course, other music for attention.
We’ve gotten a few international listeners from submitting our music to Internet radio stations. The music video for “Strange Prices” also got some hits from online advertising. However, we have yet to strongly connect with fans from those outlets. As far as we know, the only people who can really identify our songs at the moment are personal friends. We’d like to expand our fanbase to include complete strangers, but we’re incredibly grateful for our pals who take the time to appreciate what we create.
We’re trying to spread our name and sound as much as we’re able to, especially now that Breathing Ash is released. We’re looking at every possible avenue, and not just online ones. We’ve given out free CDs at our live performances, making sure they were packaged nicely and had our name on them. At each show, we try to play at least one cover song so that we can resonate with audience members who don’t know us, hopefully laying some groundwork to get them invested in our original material. Networking with other bands is a must if you’re doing this sort of thing.
James has recently started reaching out to other musicians through screaming covers, and hopes to put up screaming lessons in the future. YouTube has proven to be the best outlet for this, but we also intend to cross over into other websites once we’ve established a good first pool of covers and tutorials.
Not everything we try will get us heard, but much like sending out job applications, we’re playing a numbers game. The more you put yourself out there, the more opportunities there are for people to discover and connect with you.
What’s in store for the rest of 2014? What can we expect to hear from Begin At Zero a few months from now?
We spent 18 months working on Breathing Ash, so a lot of the rest of this year is going to be dedicated to promoting the album. The music video for “Signals to the Lighthouse” is halfway done, we just have to shoot the rest of it. We’ve got some shows lined up and hope to play out some more after that. Other than that, we’ve been writing new material. We upload works in progress to our YouTube channel, which is sometimes how we learn each other’s songs.
Where can we connect with you? Stream your music?
- Our entire album can be streamed for free on Bandcamp: http://beginatzero.bandcamp.com/
- We have music videos, live shows, and other good stuff on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BeginAtZero
- Talk to us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeginAtZero
- We’ve also got a ReverbNation: http://www.reverbnation.com/beginatzero
- Trying to get more active on Twitter: https://twitter.com/beginatzero
Any last thoughts? Shout outs?
Chris: Huge shout out to my dad. He raised me on good music (Zeppelin, Floyd, Queen, etc.), got me to start playing rock, and taught me most of what I know about the recording process. Breathing Ash would not have been possible without him, and I look up to him more than any other musician. I’d also like to thank my mom, my extended family, and all of my friends in STL, Rolla, and elsewhere for being supportive of my creativity. Kudos as well to all of the venues, promoters, and bands we’ve worked with over the past year.
James: There are too many people in my life who helped me make it to this point, but I’d like to give a special shout out to Chris’ father who was essential to the recording of Breathing Ash, as well as our roadies Nancy and Shelby and any one-time roadies we’ve had. I’d also like to shout out to Daniel; we miss ya man.
Finch: I wanna thank all of our fans and all of our friends who help support us. It can be terrifying up on stage sometimes, and seeing one friendly face can make the difference between cracking your voice or rocking people’s socks off. Also a huge shout out to my girlfriend Shelby, who helps keep me sane during the long weekend of a show.
Marty: I would like to thank all of our friends that come to our shows and support our music and the band. All of you guys keep us motivated and inspire us to write more music. I would also like to thank all of the venues that invited us to play. I personally can’t wait to play more shows and write more music for everyone to hear.
As a band, we’d like to thank Middle Tennessee Music for reviewing our album and giving us a chance to answer some questions and make some statements. You guys rock!
