Artist description We are everything challenging and abrasive about rock music. Their's a line you can cross after a certain skill and fidelity level where you can become deliberately unlistenable in a sheerly musical way. We play hopscotch on that line.

Music Style dark and progressive alternative rock

Musical Influences Everything we've ever listened to, some more than others.

Similar Artists Primus, Killing Joke, Gang of Four, The Jesus Lizard, Sweep the leg johnny, Floater, Captain Beefheart,

Artist History There is a very small state in the North East corner of the United States called Connecticut. You may have heard of it. They have lots of squirrels and trees. They also have introspective bands hidden in unheated garages they have no music scene and most bands from there won’t admit it. Zealous Fuel is from Connecticut. They have issues with that. Four life long friends in a small, unheated garage writing songs because that’s what they always do every Sunday morning. They’ve never bothered to play more than four shows in a year. Yet they have fans that have seen every single show they’ve ever played. Even the really bad ones at record stores. They approach each song individually and it may take two or three years to finish it and many do. They write each song for themselves and not you. Sometimes this is painfully obvious. Until they’re satisfied with it no one ever gets to hear the song. There are lots of these. The songs are written in pieces so the chorus may have been written in 1995 but the stanza was probably written in 1998. They wrote a lot of stanzas that year. Zealous Fuel had obvious problems fitting in with the Connecticut club scene. They didn’t know any cover tunes and didn’t want to. They certainly didn’t know how to play Free bird. Instead they played campuses, record stores and booked a series of unity shows at various halls. At the time it seemed like a great idea. In the end they were banned on a couple campuses and run out of Windham county and accused of a variety of degenerate behaviors. (There have been no formal charges filed) Their legend has spread from their hometown and gotten them banned in advance at several venues. You could call it discouraging. Their first hand made demo "Australian Surf N’ Turf" was duplicated on a Sony dual cassette deck in the drummer’s bedroom. The guitarists stuck the labels on the cassettes and the bassist stuffed the inserts into them individually. The drummer hand numbered them with a stamper. It sold out twice. They wouldn’t make any more because it was a pain in the ass. Their second album "It does that sometimes" was professionally duplicated and may or may not have sold out a first run of 300. The remaining stock was last sighted in a certain guitarist’s closet. But by that time they were well into the recording sessions planned as a 3rd release. The sessions were long and took over a year. There was much ass-pain had by all. The tennitive release of a live EP was planned as a hold over. It was titled "Sometimes they play live." The disc was compiled but never pressed as the recording sessions for the studio album had sucked the life out of all those involved. Yeah, they took their sweet time with that third one. "The Unknown Label" is their first full-length CD. It was recorded over two years at Wolfsong studio by Dick McGee. Wolfsong studio then closed its doors forever due to job-related stress. Zealous Fuel prefers not to think it was their fault. The album was then was mixed and mastered by friend and fan Mike Ryan. Finishing this record has taken over two and a half years. Zealous Fuel is completely sick of these songs now.

Group Members Mike Kelly -Bass & Vocals Tanner Johnson- Guitar Beeb -guitar Thatcher -drums

Albums 1996-Austrailian Surf n' Turf, 1998-It does that sometimes, 2001-The Unknown Label

Press Reviews Zealous Fuel The Unknown Label [Sleep Dep Records; 2001] Rating: 7.0 You felt cool just being there, like you might be witnessing the birth of something vital. Eastern Connecticut doesn't exactly have what you'd call an amazing music scene, but there we were, several dozen people mashed into a rented room at the Willimantic Elks Club, focusing our attention on the pile of gear crammed in the corner and the musicians strewn among it, trying their best to deal with a cantankerous sound system. About ten bands played at the event that day-- the organizers called it Inertia-- and truth be told, most of them weren't that memorable. You had a half dozen of those sloppy metal bands with one technically competent member that seem to spring like weeds from the high schools of Connecticut, and some sort of electronic set that was so nebulous no one could even tell when it had begun. As far as I can remember-- and this was all years ago, you realize-- there were two bands really worth seeing that day-- the charmingly cynical folk duo Adam's Leaf, and the headliners, a four-headed monstrosity called Zealous Fuel. The Fuel came on as the sun was going down outside, and left behind a trail of splattered brains and warped minds-- more than a few audience members were left mentally paralyzed by the band's brand of particularly outre weird rock. I can't remember exactly how much time has passed between that show and the present, but listening to Zealous Fuel's first actual album (they released two cassettes that they distributed themselves in the late 90s), I can tell you that they're no less bizarre than they were back when I first saw them. Let's say this: tons of people will totally hate this music. At times, it seems like that might even be the point. Drummer Thatcher Graham's self-taught grooves aren't the least bit conventional and his fills are sometimes downright childish, but the way the band locks into his naïve rhythms is remarkably effective. Bassist/vocalist Mike Kelly probably has the strongest chops in the band, dishing out funky, freaky bass lines while the dual guitars of Jason Beebe and Tanner Johnson careen around him with precision or drunken abandon, as needed. And then there's the little matter of Kelly's vocals. Delivered alternately in a vaguely tuneful sneer and a low, rumbling growl, they don't really conjure much you'll have heard before. Taken together with the band's turn-on-a-dime grooves and strangely juxtaposed instrumental parts, they have an almost Beefheartian effect, though Kelly never gets quite as affected as Don Van Vliet at his strangest. Graham is the band's main lyricist, and the boy has an odd head on his shoulders to be sure. The Unknown Label opens with "Sticks To Your Ribs," blasting in with a thick drum and bass groove motoring away under Beebe and Johnson, whose guitar has just about the ugliest tone you could imagine. The music sways wildly back and forth between this, the teetering, almost martial stuttering of the verses, and the strangely melodic chorus. The effect is pleasantly disorienting, leaving the listener appropriately off guard for the rest of the album. The band's crunchy signature song, "Zealous Fuel," clamors along like some sort of demo Killing Joke might have recorded after their fifth or sixth rehearsal. Kelly's sterling bass line on "Failure" is lodged in the middle of a muddle of guitars would shame even Mudhoney, while "The Sound of Corduroy" answers the question "what if Gang of Four and the Melvins had mated?" Suffice to say there are a select group of wackos out there who will enjoy the fruits of their hunt if they track this down. People who aren't looking for a bizarre curio that mixes metal, funk, punk and a few other things into an indiscriminate stew should probably steer clear though. For my part, just hearing something so willfully different and strange is enough to make me breathe easy for the future of music. -Joe Tangari, April 18th, 2002 www.pitchforkmedia.com

Location Mansfield, CT - USA

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