Zoo Trippin's Tiny Desk 丑迟迟辫蝉://测辞耻迟耻.产别/搁碍窜谤厂础耻虫搁谤驰">蝉耻产尘颈蝉蝉颈辞苍听featured the five band members wearing sunglasses in a cement underpass, performing a stripped down version of their 2016 song "Great White Buffalo."
The acoustic, ukulele-strumming tune cemented their crowning as , beating out 50 other bands from around Central Ohio. But it's far different than the bass-thumping, amped-up version they brought to the Broad & High studios.
Speaking to 星空无限传媒's Clare Roth, guitarist and vocalist Lynn Roose III says that sound is part of what keeps them here.
鈥淔or awhile it seemed like rock n' roll was dying off a little bit, going the way of the dodo, to pop music and whatnot," Roose says. "But in Columbus it鈥檚 alive and well."
For all the talk of rock, Zoo Trippin' are really musical vagabonds. While songs off their 2016 album feel most influenced by blues and funk, their next record Purple swings from metal to acoustic to modern country. They took another turn for last year鈥檚 The Sonny Black EP, which leaned toward hard rock.
Roose says their genre-commitmentphobia gives them a broader, more eclectic audience.
鈥淪ince we play so many types of music, I think at different shows we鈥檒l perk up someone else鈥檚 ears that weren鈥檛 digging the really heavy rock n' roll stuff we were playing," Roose says. "But suddenly we play something with a bunch of harmonies, it鈥檚 like, 鈥極h wow, that was nice.鈥�"
One such song is "Forget Me Not," written by singer Tony Casa.
鈥淭hat song, lyrically, was about my grandfather, Dante Casa. He was going through Alzheimer's. We just wanted to address it because a lot of our stuff is that upbeat cut-throat rock n' roll: Have a good time, party, this and that," Casa says. "But sometimes it gets dark and heavy. And we wanted to reach out to people, like, 'Hey, you鈥檙e not alone in this, because this is very common.'"
Zoo Trippin' were noticed by the National Alzheimer鈥檚 Association, which invited them to play benefit shows, which ultimately raised $100,000 for the cause. Casa says music is a particularly apropos way to approach the topic.
鈥淚n your brain, when it comes to the senses, they鈥檒l start to go one after another, but music somehow remains intact for a long time," he says. "That鈥檚 why, when you hear a song from high school, you get taken back to that place and that time. You can almost hear and smell and taste those times almost because it鈥檚 so strongly wired in your brain."
Zoo Trippin' has a slate of to play this summer, including Comfest and Red, White & Boom, along with a national tour coming up in November. But their home base isn鈥檛 changing any time soon.
"We want to travel the world and spread this music to every corner of the globe, but we will happily retire and die in Columbus, Ohio,鈥� Casa says.
