Interview:

I met  Zack by pure accident. He'd e-mailed to say my article ( -on IK Multimedia's UNO synth ) had        prompted him to purchase one. I always like hearing that.  Zack went on to say he liked some of my            synth designs ( -especially the "Grab & Go Workstation" and "Rhythm Section" drum machine ) feat-          ured on the zine's "Synth Project" page.  Also nice to hear. Thanks for that Zack!                                                                                                                                                                                                              In passing Zack mentioned he'd written a rock-opera ( -leaving a link if I wanted to check it out ).               

Well I did, was quite impressed by it, and thought an interview ( -covering the genesis of how 

his "Underground Radio" rock-opera had become reality ) would make for a great CTN article.

Below then, is  Zack's interview.  Enjoy!  Be inspired!  Create! 

Tomm Buzzetta  -Creative Tech Nerds ( CTN ):  For our readers who may be unfamiliar with your  "Underground Radio" rock-opera, can you tell us a little about yourself, your band "The Electric            Buddha  Band", and give us some background on HOW the idea for doing this rock-opera came about? 

Zack Urlocker:  My buddy Rob and I had a band in the Bay area called "Electric Buddha Band". We used to    get together most weeks and work on songs together, mostly playing cover songs from the 70's and 80's and occasionally just some free form jams.  I'm just a three chord rock and blues guy with classic rock tastes.            I grew up in the 70's so I like a lot of what was called New Wave back in the day.  Rob is younger and

leans more towards shredders like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Hendrix.

We weren't really a proper gigging band ( -I think we did two gigs in total ) but it was a fun process. It was actually the first time either one of us had ever played with anyone else on a consistent basis.  Rob is a fantastic guitar player, whereas I'm, well, I'm certainly not that.  We also had two other guys: Dave and Moo who played with us.  They were great musicians.  Moo could play anything, though he mostly played drums with us.  And Dave was an awesome bass player.  At any rate, we played together for many months, but the band sort of fizzled out at some point. Dave left the area, Moo got busy with work and then I moved from the Bay area to Michigan where my wife was from. 

I suggested to Rob that we keep working on music together by writing ten songs each and then we'd pick      the best songs, throw in a couple of covers and see if we could record some demos.  We'd never done any songwriting or recording, so it seemed like a good challenge.  Unfortunately, Rob didn't write any songs and after I wrote a few songs, I decided that it should be a concept album with a proper theme that goes across all the songs. Then I decided to up the ante and declared that it would be a full-blown rock-opera!  It was an incredibly ambitious idea for two guys with no experience, but I liked the challenge. 

CTN:  Were you a fan of rock-operas?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Zack Urlocker:  I liked some rock-operas sure, but it was more the grandiosity of it that struck me as interest-ing. There hadn't been a really good rock opera in years and I was motivated by the great rock operas of the past.  Of course, everyone knows about "Tommy" by the Who, but that was actually preceded by "SF Sorrow", the first rock opera in history, which was by a band called "The Pretty Things". There's a radio show ( and podcast ) called Sound Opinions out of WBEZ Chicago and they covered that story and I found it fascinating.  The Pretty Things were recording at Abbey Road and it came out before "Tommy", so maybe they influenced Pete Townsend. 

There was also a great rock opera called "Junk" by a Swedish band called Brainpool that I absolutely love. KISS had made a dreadful flop of a rock opera with "Music from the Elder", and I thought, surely we could do better than that!  As I said, we didn't necessarily have the skills or knowledge to do this. But most people don't chal-lenge themselves enough, so I thought by having a really ambitious goal, it would be more likely we would persevere. I loved all those old '70's albums and so I thought a lot about what made them work and how to create a set of songs that would work thematically and musically together. But there also has to be enough variation in the style, tempo and vocals to hold up for an entire album. I love the Ramones, but after a while,  all their songs sound the same.

CTN:  Tell us a little about "The Electric Buddha Band" members ( i.e:  what instruments they play, "personas" they played in the rock-opera, how you met them, etc. ) along with some details on how and when the band was formed. Have any particular music groups or performers had a major influence on your band's sound, music or writing style? 

Zack  Urlocker:  This was a passion project for Rob and me. I play bass on all tracks and about half of the guitar parts. Anything that sounds sloppy, or is some pentatonic filled solo is probably me. I also played keyboards on a few tracks, but mostly just a few chords or arpeggios here and there. Rob did all the really great guitar solos and the really tight rhythm guitar parts. 

Basically, we'd work on one song at a time and I'd write the lyrics. Rob is a pretty good singer ( -certainly better than me ) but we knew that we couldn't pull this off without some other singers. As I was thinking more about the themes of the rock opera and the story, I started to think about the characters and plot. The first song I wrote was called "The Creeper" because it had a kind of creepy bass line. It had kind of a "swing" to it and I started to think about what if there's a guy called the Creeper? Who would that be? Why was he so creepy?    And suddenly that became the catalyst for the entire story. The Creeper is the head of a surveillance government who has shut down rock music replacing it with computer-generated jazz.

Well if that's the case, then there could be two guys who rebel against that and try to take down the government. So, I created two characters : "Louden Metal", an older guy who remembers back when                rock music was a thing, and "Joe Spectrum" who's a younger, cooler guy with some low-level data job in      the government. Louden shows him this cache of illegal musical instruments and they create, what else...          a rock and roll band! 

And then I started thinking about how every great story is a love story, so we needed a female character,    whom we called "Eva". And later I wrote some songs about Eva and from Eva's perspective. I had to think about the relationship between the characters. We got two guys and a girl, so maybe there's drama around that. Eva is sent in by the Creeper to try to spy on the band. But she ends up ( -surprise! ) falling in love with  the hero. As the band becomes successful in creating this underground movement, the two guys have a fight    about the original purpose.

Luckily,we were able to pull in a couple of other more talented singers to help us out. My friend Rick in Arizona is a phenomenal singer, and he became "The Creeper". He sings what I think are the best songs on the album. My niece, Ruby, sings as "Eva" and also does quite a few '70's style backing vocals. This was all new to me,    so I was listening to a wide range of songs by The Kinks, The Stones, The Beatles, The Clash and others so      that I could figure out what makes a good song? 

When are backing vocals used? What exactly do they sing? How do I make these songs sound like they're from the '70's? I'd listen to something like "Green Onions" by Booker T. and the MG's and I'd dissect it, take it apart and then think about how do I create something that sounds like it's from some altered version of the past?

Or what makes a really good Ramones-style punk song? ( -Hint:  three chords and some humor! )                  * -Tomm/ CTN:  Don't forget the "buzz-saw" guitars!  What kind of sounds do we want for a blues rock      song? Anyone can analyze the songs that they like and then by emulating them, they can create something    new because it's always filtered by their own view point and skills.

Sometimes you can hear the influences. For example the instrumental song "Escape From Mars" was absolutely written as an homage to Pink Floyd. You can hear it in the bass, the keyboards and in the use of sound-effects, in this case space sounds from NASA. But Rob has never listened to Pink Floyd in his life, so it's filtered through his own playing, which is more influenced by shredders than David Gilmour.  Sometimes, I'd tell Rob I'm trying to make a song sound like the band Television and he'd say "I've never heard of them". Or,  I'd ask for a Blues solo and he'd put some prog rock thing over it. So then we'd go on a little musical detour.

CTN: How did you write and record the songs? 

Zack Urlocker: I ended up writing most of the songs, though Rob's guitar skills were huge in shaping the overall music. Some songs are stripped down I-IV-V rock songs, some are more blues-influenced. Sometimes I'd just try to write something that has a different feel, so there's variation. At some point, everything was in 4/4 time. So I decided to do something in 5/4 time. The only 5/4 song I know is the jazz song "Take Five" by Dave Brubek, so I actually played something like that in the bridge of one song, just to change things up.

This sounds pretty nerdy, but after a while I put together a spreadsheet of all the songs, so I could track their progress and their musical characteristics.  I'd track the style of the song, key, tempo, structure, does it have a bridge, what kind of intro or outro, are there keyboards, who's singing, etc.  That helped me keep an eye on making sure there was enough variation. It was also important when putting together the final running order    -so you wouldn't have two songs too similar side-by-side.

Typically, I would lay down a drum track using the built-in drummer feature of GarageBand and then put  down a bass track.  Then I'd figure out what chords would go with that and I'd record some kind of rhythm guitar part.  Later, we replaced some of those rhythm guitar parts with Rob's better playing. Then we'd either have my sloppy pentatonic solos and intros or Rob's vastly more musical pieces.

Most of the time the lyrics were written after the music, so later we'd record vocals. But we never had everyone together in one place. It was always me bringing my laptop and coaxing someone to sing just one more "take". Here's one tip for anyone recording vocals:  Record as many takes as you can because you need to double or triple the vocals and so that means you need half a dozen or more "takes" to choose from. 

CTN:  For those who haven't been on your website yet ( www.rock-opera.com ), can you give us a rough outline of "Underground Radio's" underlying story line  ( -and what motivated you to write and record it? ). 

Zack Urlocker:  I hinted at the story earlier, it's basically set in a dystopian future. There's been 50 years          of Winter ( -remember, I moved to Michigan and it was a very cold year when this project started! ), and  there's an oppressive government that spies on all it's citizens using mobile devices. Rock music is illegal, all  the studios have been shut down and music is just this computer-generated jazz. Then we have two guys who decide they've had enough and they're going to create a band called "Underground Radio". That becomes        a movement and the next thing you know they're a real threat.

So, the government is trying to find them and put a stop to it. They send in this woman "Eva" to try to spy on them. And we don't really know if she's pure of heart or not. It's not the most original story, but it was enough so that I could write songs from each of the character's view-points. And, like in any situation, it's the dynamics between people that is most interesting. Of course, in today's day and age the idea of a surveillance govern-ment is not too far-fetched! 

CTN: How did you get started writing the songs? 

Zack Urlocker:  I'd never written songs or lyrics before and I found that to be a lot of fun. I read a few articles    on the subject and then just dove in. In your mind you think maybe you can do something and it will come out cool. And there were lots of times working on the project when I was completely overwhelmed. I thought I can't be doing this right. I'm recording the same solo 20 times and I still can't get it right. So there were many times during the process when it would have been easy to just delete all the files and throw it away. 

But one thing I found working on music, is you could always break it down to one small task. I can work on    one thing right now for an hour or two, and I can make it better. Maybe it's the umpteenth time I record a bass line and try to, you know, actually play it on the beat. Or, I gotta chop up six versions of Rob's guitar solo and see if I can't remove half the notes and turn it into something I like. But when I'd finally wrestle a song to the ground and get it to the point where it was something I actually liked -that was pretty cool. And that would    give me the confidence that I could pick up the pieces and work on the next song, whatever that was. 

I'll admit, I'm quite proud of the lyrics I wrote.

There are a couple dozen references in the lyrics and the music to classic rock songs. You might recognize the count-ins on "Self-Made Man" and "C'mon Eva". But there are way more obscure sonic and lyrical references throughout the album. I'm pretty sure Rob hasn't even figured all these out yet. I'm not a great musician, but I like the idea of a challenge. I'm sure there are readers of this site who are way better musically than I am.      But not everyone is willing to step forward and give it a shot. That's really the key to doing anything.                  ( -Amen to that!  -Tomm ). 

If you're a bedroom musician, I encourage you to get up at a blues jam and play live. Or write and record an original song. Or find a buddy and create a band. It might not be as god as your favorite band, but one thing      I loved about the Punk ethos is the DIY ( -Do It Yourself! ) mentality. You don't have to be as good as Greta    Van Fleet or whatever. You just have to start playing. Play every day. Play with others. Write a song. Record it. Repeat. All you need is a laptop computer and a USB cable!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          *( -Great advice  Zack!  Couldn't agree more.  People over-think stuff.  Make "Just do it!"  your motto and you'll be amazed at how much you can accomplish!  -Tomm, CTN  ).

And I think we succeeded in that regard. As much work as it was, it was a lot of fun and I'm really proud of    how the finished album came out.

CTN:  What has the reaction to "Underground Radio" been like from friends, family and acquaintances            ( -and especially  from the Kickstarter community? ). How much did you end up raising for the project?  

Zack Urlocker:  I like to do an ambitious project every few years and I think most people ( -when they hear you're working on a "rock-opera" -it's such a crazy idea ), they can't help but smile. It's like telling someone you're going to make a movie, or run a marathon. To a certain extent, you make a public declaration to hold yourself accountable. I figured it's much better to pick a big goal and struggle than it is to pick a "safe" goal

and get nowhere. 

Kickstarter was an interesting process. I had backed some projects on Kickstarter and I was mostly interested in seeing how it worked. We recorded everything in GarageBand, so it's not like we needed to pay for studio time or hiring musicians or anything. But I knew I couldn't do the final mixing, so the goal on Kickstater was to raise enough money to pay for professional mixing/ mastering, produce CD's and album artwork, etc.  

We raised just over $5,000.00 on a very modest goal of $2,000.00. At the low end, that would have been scraping the bottom of the barrel. But we had about 150 backers and some folks were very generous. This is    a hobby for me and Rob, so it's not meant as a money-maker. All I wanted to do is not loose my shirt in the process. But we also created some bonuses or stretch goals, so we'd produce some bonus instrumental tracks, more artwork, a tour poster, etc. I did some of the creative design ( -for example the album cover is patterned after the Beatles "Let It Be" ), but I hired professional artists. 

I also managed to hire a 30-piece symphony orchestra to record one song. I never thought that would be          a thing, but it actually worked out. It turns out you can hire the "Western Symphony Orchestra" in Lisbon, Portugal ( -over the Internet ) for a couple hundred dollars, through a group called:  www.musiversal.com. 

I sent them an mp3 file and they created a score and then recorded it and sent me a ZIP file of all the            instruments. Then I mixed it back with drums, guitar, bass. How cool is that? I got to listen to them perform      it live over the web and it was such an incredible experience. So, that became the opening track:                  "From The Underground".

We also included the original orchestra mix ( -wthout drums, guitars ) as a "bonus instrumental" along            with remixes of some songs. A lot of people were so surprised that we were able to get an orchestra.            I'm still surprised myself. I feel like I'm up there with "Meat Loaf"!

CTN:  How did you like the Kickstarter experience? Are there any lessons learned or "helpful tips" you              could pass on to other musicians and bands wishing to use Kickstarter -based upon your experience?

Zack Urlocker:  The Kickstarter project was tough. Because even though it's a platform, you have to find the backers yourself. I researched this quite a bit beforehand and found that very few people are out searching on Kickstarter to fund rock operas. Probably about 90% of the backers were people that Rob or I knew personally and we e-mailed them. I didn't like the idea of asking people for money, so I told most people to just back it at the lowest level which was something like $5.00, basically the price of a beer. But some backers were very generous and came in at higher levels ( -thank God! ) because they wanted the physical CD or the printed Libretto booklet with all of the lyrics and the story. 

We were a "staff pick" on Kickstarter and a few outsiders found out about the project, which was nice. The key thing is if you want to do something on Kickstarter is you gotta have rewards that people actually care about. And then you have to go ship those things. So I had to put together the artwork, work with Discmakers to get CD's made, figure out how to print books at CreateSpace, get them on Amazon, order up a box of em', package up everything to ship it out, etc. 

Kickstarter is an awesome resource, but you still have to find all your backers yourself. And however long you think it will take to finish your project, double it. Maybe double it again. I waited until we had most of the songs recorded and finished before starting the Kickstarter campaign. I didn't want to be that guy who takes money on Kickstarter and leaves people hanging for three years. I've backed projects like that where I'm still waiting!    I hit all the dates, except for the final print run of the Libretto, which I missed by only about 30 days. 

Since this was a hobby, I decided from the get-go that this was going to run on a "break-even" budget. So whatever money we took in would get spent ( -and then some! ) on mastering, artwork, videos, etc. We also made it clear to all the backers, that this is what's known as an "open source" project. So, that means anyone can take the songs or the lyrics and use, re-use and abuse them any way they want. For example, if someone wants to take the tracks and put them on a soundtrack to a video or movie, they can do that without asking. Or you could take the instrumental versions, and add your own vocals. Or remix them, sample them, whatever. It's all fair game to anyone who wants the songs. Anyone can download the songs free of charge and share them, burn their own CD, whatever.

CTN:  You've even had a book printed ( i.e:  "Libretto" ) based on the "Underground Radio" project ( i.e:  story,  song lyrics ,credits,  etc. ) that's available on Amazon now. I understand your niece had a hand in that. can you tell us about her contributions to both the rock-opera and to the book? 

Zack Urlocker:  I wasn't originally going to do any kind of book, but when I mentioned to some friends the idea of a rock opera they pretty much demanded a Libretto. I always liked when vinyl albums included the lyrics and if you were lucky, sometimes you had liner notes about the album. So, I wanted to create something that was more than just "meets expectations". I decided it would describe the story and the characters, also give credit to the singers and a couple of extra musician friends who played on a couple of songs and tell the story of "Underground Radio" and it's making. 

I was working a full time job while this was going on, so I ended up calling the book "The _ _ _damn Libretto" because I felt a lot of pressure. It was a labor of love and I wanted the CD and the Libretto to be very high quality for the backers and have lots of cool artwork. But it was an incredible pain in the ass getting all of    these details finalized, using layout tools, picking fonts, packaging, shipping things internationally, etc. 

My niece, who sang as "Eva", is also an artist and she had some very interesting abstract artwork, some of which I used in the Libretto ( -I believe I paid her for it, which is more than Rob got! ). I also hired a sort of comic-book illustrator for some additional artwork, which came out very nice. You can see the artwork on the website. The Libretto is something like $7.00 on Amazon, so I'm not making any money off this. And of course, you can download a PDF file with the entire Libretto free of charge. I think it's nicer in printed format, but    free is good too. 

*NOTE:  Zack's Libretto is really cool! Considering the quality of the artwork, layout and printing -I think he    could easily charge twice  the Amazon price and it'd still be a bargain for what you're getting.  -Tomm ( CTN ).

If anyone wants to make a full-blown graphic novel comic book from the story, I would love that. The story and lyrics are all "open source" under what's known as a "Creative Commons" license, so it's free to anyone to use any way they want. 

CTN:  Lastly, what's next? Do you and your band have any new albums, downloads or other projects in the works that our readers should know about? 

Zack Urlocker:  This was a big project and it took two years and an awful lot of work to complete. If Rob and I lived in the same area, I think it would be fun to stage this, or play it "live" at a small music venue. It would take a lot of practice for me to be able to play this live. And I'm not sure anyone would want to listen to the whole thing. But it would be kind of cool. 

I told Rob, next time we do this, we have to do something simpler and maybe change up the style of music.      It could go into a direction that's maybe a bit more "Proggy", which would suit Rob, or maybe a bit more roots rock. But I'd probably cut the blues and punk influences for now, just so it sounds more different. That said,      I read the interviews on your site with Erik Norlander and I bought his album.

I also bought an IK "UNO" desktop synthesizer he ( -Erik Norlander ) helped design for $150.00 ( used )  on Ebay. I don't know anything about synths, but if I can figure out how to make sounds out of it, that could shape things. If I end up out in California later this year, maybe I can chase down Mr. Norlander and get him to autograph my synth for me. That would be cool! 

I really like the '70's "Motorik" or what's called "Krautrock" bands like Neu! and very early Kraftwerk. I'd still want to put together real guitar and drums over it, but that could be an area of experimentation. I've been busy with other things, so I've only written half a dozen songs since then. I also have a new creative project which I will finish this year, which is a noir detective novel. Believe it or not, writing a novel is way harder than writing  a rock opera! It's called "Gumshoe Rules" but I have no doubt the title will change before it's published in 2020'.    https://inkshares.com/books/gumshoe-rules 

CTN:  I'm hearing Dave Brock's song "On the Case" running through my head now listening to Zack's descript-ion of his novel ( -see my review of Brock's "Earthed to the Ground" album ). I'm thinking a rock-opera ( or ) album based upon the story and characters in his novel might make for an interesting "follow-up" to the book.  Just a thought...  -Tomm ( CTN ).   

I could see recording a soundtrack to the novel, which would have a sound like Chris Isaak's "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" or Jerry Leger and the Situation, a great band from Toronto. It could be fun to put together a noir soundtrack with a few instrumentals. I've written the lyrics for a song that could fit nicely into the book or if there's ever a film adaptation. It's called "Everyone Gets What They Deserve", which is one of the themes        of the book. 

Meanwhile, I encourage people to give a listen to "Underground Radio" ( -it's free! ) and consider if that      guy Zack can create a whole album, well...anyone can! 

                                                          - END  OF  INTERVIEW -

Check out the following links to learn more about Zack's "Underground Radio" project. The Rock Opera  website ( below ) will give you everything you need to access most stuff:                                              www.rock-opera.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              You can download the entire ( 22-track ) album + it's CD artwork below: https://soundcloud.com/zurlocker/sets/underground-radio                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Below is a link to the "When We Were Cool" music video:                                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=324a_Tk4Xa8&list=PLCc-8N4wzySU2p8NyPVUxVAXoQKnXf1W2                                                                                                                                                                        

Tomm ( CTN ):  Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions Zack!

So there you have it. The story of how an "average guy" ( Zack Urlocker ) and his band "The Electric Buddha  Band" wrote and recorded a ( 22-song ) rock opera. Pretty impressive, huh? I hope it inspires YOU to create something unique and original of your own!