Fighting Zero drops the bomb
[cover story, Feb. 28, 2007]

Explosive, commercially accessible modern-rock band will hold CD release party on Saturday

By Alan K. Stout Weekender Editor

 

If there’s any justice within the tough walls of NEPA’s music scene, “Fighting Zero,” the new debut EP from the band of same name, will immediately capture the attention of the region. Clocking in at just under 15 minutes, the explosive little modern-rock gem offers fiery yet melodic hook-filled songs, polished musicianship, passionate and sturdy vocals and punchy production.

This band rocks - and as this EP clearly reveals - it is a band that can rock with the best of them.

Based in Wilkes-Barre and featuring Scott VanFossen on guitars and vocals, Zhach Kelsch on drums, Dave Longo on bass, vocals and samples and Derek Spencer on lead guitar, Fighting Zero was formed in 2003 and its current lineup has been in place since the fall of 2006. The group features former members of Lifer, An American Liar, Idoleyez and 3 Stoned Men. VanFossen, 28, the group’s principle songwriter, also played with Postal, a successful cover band that toured up and down the east coast. A lifelong inner calling to focus on his own music led to the formation of Fighting Zero.

“I knew that I wanted to progress further than just playing covers, and actually wanted to push my own material out there,” says VanFossen. “I actually started writing when I was about 11 years old. I’d borrowed an ancient four-track recorder from my uncle, and that’s pretty much what started it. Even before that, maybe when I was like 10, I started experimenting with two tape recorders, bouncing the songs back and forth as I played another guitar track over it or tried to sing over it. It just grew from there.”

By the time VanFossen was a junior in high school, he had nearly 40 of his own songs written and recorded. Postal had also recorded original material. Still, Fighting Zero marks the first time VanFossen has been involved with a project that has officially released a CD.

“For all of this to come to fruition is one of the happiest times for me,” he says. “The disc itself - we’re all extremely pleased with how it came out. Our songs, by themselves - they all have their own legs and they’re all, in our eyes, extremely strong. For only being four songs and one little interlude, we feel like we packed 50 pounds into a 40 pound bag. We’re extremely happy with it.”

Tracks on the CD include “Live Love Lost,” “Horror Show,” “Newton’s Law” and “Refine,” a radio-ready modern-rock hit if there ever was one. Long says he’s also thrilled with the recording.

“As a musician, and also as a sound engineer, I’m definitely extremely pleased with how it turned out,” says the bassist. “I’m definitely really ecstatic about it. Everybody that’s heard the sound clips on MySpace has had nothing but great things to say about it. You can know - or think - that you have a good product, but as soon as you hear other people’s feedback, that’s really where it comes into play, as to how good of a job was actually done on it.”

Spencer, who previously served as lead guitarist in Lifer, says he enjoyed putting his touch on VanFossen’s songs, which he says were pretty strong to begin with.

“Since he brings in the songs in a mostly finished state, I like to take the songs almost from a listener’s point of view, and see how the songs feel to me, and maybe try to add parts that are going to accentuate certain choruses or verses, or just kind of make the songs more dynamic and give them more depth,” he says. “He basically brings in the recipe and bakes the cake, and all of us kind of work together to put the frosting and the sprinkles on top.”

VanFossen says major influences on Fighting Zero include “anything that is inspiring,” including Tool, Nirvana, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and even ’80s metal bands.

“Collectively as a band, we all like heavy music, but we also like bands like Dredj, who are very inspiring because they’re so different and ambient. We just take all of it in. We love Pink Floyd. We love Tool. Back in the day, I used to be a huge Phish fan. Dave is a huge Nine Inch Nails fan. It’s all over the place.”

For the past decade, modern-rock bands that have combined a hard-rock edge with pop sensibility have found great success on the national charts. Three acts from Pennsylvania - Fuel, Live, and of course, Wilkes-Barre’s own Breaking Benjamin - have been embraced by millions. Fighting Zero, with its own crafty modern-rock sound, seems to share some of the qualities of such acts and have already garnered some national attention, including that of Revolver Magazine. Ultimately, it will be the band’s songs that grab the attention of a wider audience, which leads to the question:

What inspires VanFossen to write songs?

“Everything around me inspires me,” he says. “I’ve actually taken poetry that people have written and put it into the form of a song. As for the songs on the disc, they’re all derived from some life lessons that I’ve learned. Relationships, feelings ... I don’t sit down and say ‘I’m feeling depressed. I’m going to write a song.’ For me as a songwriter, it doesn’t happen that way. They come out organically. Even the words themselves, all of a sudden, it’s like ‘Bang - there it is.’ There are times when I sit down and specifically target something that I’m feeling at the time, and write about, and it works, but a majority of the time, these things just come out, and believe it or not, I feel 200-percent better. These songs are like a therapist for me.”

And while VanFossen finds personal creative fulfillment and a cathartic outlet in music, he’s also always thinking about the listener.

“I try to write in a way that’s easily digestible and open for interpretation,” he says. “I get to scream into a microphone at the top of my lungs, and nobody knows specifically what I’m talking about, but everybody can still relate to it.”

The new EP was recorded in Northern California and was produced by Grammy-winning Sylvia Massy Shivy and Jim Wood (Dishwalla). Shivy’s range of work has included producing multi-platinum albums for Tool, System of a Down and Johnny Cash. The EP was mastered by John Cuniberti, known for his work with Metallica, Primus and Dave Matthews Band. VanFossen says he spent nearly two years searching for the right producer for the project and was thrilled to work with Shivy.

“I’d seen Sylvia’s name all over the place. If you pull out a handful of discs that you have in your rack, chances are, she’s touched them, somehow,” he says, adding that he was a huge fan of her production work with other artists and that he wasn’t sure what to expect when he first contacted her and asked her to give Fighting Zero’s songs a listen.

“She wrote back within a day, and said ‘I love these songs. I especially like the song ‘Refined.’ I think that’s a hit. I’ll do what it takes to work with you guys,’ ” says VanFossen. “And that was in the first e-mail. I couldn’t believe it.”

Once the band got to California and sessions began, they knew they were in the right place and had found the right person to twirl the knobs.

“Working with her, she really let us breathe on the songs,” says VanFossen. “Creatively, the songs themselves really aren’t changed. She would say, ‘Well, something needs to go right there,’ and she let us come up with it. A lot of producers try to influence their own judgment and try to write their own music into people’s songs, but she didn’t do that with us. The disc that you hear is all Fighting Zero. All of it.”

The band will hold a CD release party on Saturday night at Genetti’s Ballroom in downtown Wilkes-Barre. Also on the bill is Drama Club, Black Orkid and Ashfall. The quadruple bill will feature not just music, but also a few extra surprises in its production.

“We’ve been planning this show for a long time,” says drummer Kelsch. “We didn’t just throw it together. We’re trying, not only with the disc, but with the live show as well, to set ourselves apart. We’ve been working really hard at it, and we’re just trying to outdo ourselves and make it completely over the top.”

“We have a lot of fun with what we do,” adds VanFossen. “We want our fans to walk away from a show, and say ‘My God.’ If they’re a person that never heard us before, we want them to say ‘Why haven’t I heard of these guys before?’ or ‘I can’t wait for their next show.’ Every time that we hit the stage, we give 110 percent. It sounds cliché, but we really do. We play the best that we can, as tight as we can, and give everybody something to watch, sing along to, and have a great time with it.”

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