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Biography Zebrahead

Zebrahead is an Orange County, CA-based rap-punk band which was formed in La Habra, California.

History

Early Years

The band was formed in 1996 by vocalist/guitarist Justin Mauriello (formerly of Once There), guitarist Greg Bergdorf (formerly of 409), bassist Ben Osmundson (formerly of 3-Ply), and drummer Ed Udhus (formerly of 409). All four musicians, whose bands at the time shared the same practice space, found themselves experimenting with different sounds together and soon became friends. After deciding that they wanted to explore their musical options further, Greg, Justin, Ben and Ed quit their previous bands and Zebrahead was formed.

The group who were inspired by acts including Fugazi and The Descendents, found themselves uninspired by the local trend towards ska-punk and instead began incorporating elements of hip-hop into their sound, eventually recruiting rapper Ali Tabatabaee to join their ranks.

Professional career

After issuing the self-titled EP Zebrahead on the indie label Doctor Dream Records in May 1998, Zebrahead signed to major label Columbia Records to release their full-length debut, Waste of Mind, which appeared later that same year. The band?s follow up album Playmate of the Year was issued in mid-2000 and the Stupid Fat Americans EP followed the next year as an exclusive release for Japan.

Zebrahead headed over to Europe with Green Day to support the records and played various festival dates as well. Throughout the years, they also shared gigs with bands like Less Than Jake, Kottonmouth Kings, 311, MxPx, Reel Big Fish, Unwritten Law and Goldfinger.

Three years after having released a full length album, MFZB (aka Mother Fucking Zebrahead Bitch!) appeared in 2003, which the band spent the majority of their time promoting overseas in Japan where the record soon went gold. Zebrahead found themselves performing at various festivals including Summer Sonic Festival and Punkspring, as well as headline shows throughout Japan.

Change In Line-Up

Shortly after their 2004 Japanese tour, lead singer/guitarist Mauriello exited the group to pursue other interests. The news of Mauriello's departure was broken to fans via the band's official website in December 2004. His exit from the group distressed fans, as the singing/rapping dynamic between him and Tabatabaee was crucial to the band's sound. The same month, Matty Lewis (formerly of the band Jank 1000) received a call from Zebrahead's management Todd Singerman (who also had a management deal with Jank 1000), and was informed that Zebrahead were looking for a new co-lead singer. Lewis set out to California to try out for the role, and after being heavily impressed with what they saw, the four remaining members officially named him Zebrahead's new co-lead singer with him being formally introduced to the world at a "secret" show at the Anaheim House of Blues on March 12, 2005.

Broadcast To The World

After two years since their last CD release, Zebrahead, now armed with a new vocalist, released their fifth studio album Broadcast to the World on February 22, 2006 in Japan. The CD had great success and went gold there in just over a month's time.

After touring Europe and the UK at the start of June 2006, including a spot on the annual UK Download Festival, Zebrahead spent the rest of the summer in the USA on the Warped Tour. During this time their current album Broadcast to the World was released on July 3 in Europe through the German based record company SPV. October 24, 2006 finally saw the long awaited, American and Canadian release of the record via new label ICON MES. The rest of 2006 was spent touring Europe and the US as part of the Broadcast To The World tour.

In March 2007, the band took two months off to begin writing new material for their, currently as of yet, untitled new studio album. The band later returned to Europe in May on a co-healine tour with MxPx and a headline UK tour. From June - July of the same year, Zebrahead toured America, supporting Unwritten Law with the band Bullets and Octane. On completion of the tour, Zebrahead spent more time writing material for their new album which has a planned release date of February, 2008.

Current And Future Events

Recently, after several of the active users at MFZB.com made it apparent they were in need of update from the band during this 'quiet' period, Zebrahead responded by posting a video update to YouTube which was promised as "the first of many". The video talks about the writing/recording process and has an update on Zebrahead's official fanclub.

October 2007 saw the return of Zebrahead to the UK as part of the annual Get Happy Tour where they shared the stage with Army of Freshmen, The Bloodhound Gang and Bowling For Soup.

At the present, the band is still continuing to write and record their new album scheduled for a release "early next year". Demos for the new album have been recorded and received input from Jason Freese of Green Day fame.

Members

Current members

Ali Tabatabaee

See main article Ali Tabatabaee

Matty Lewis

See main article Matty Lewis

Ed Udhus

Ben Osmundson

Greg Bergdorf

Former members

Justin Mauriello – Vocals/Guitar (1996 - 2004)

Zebrahead In Popular Culture

Throughout the years, Zebrahead have had their work featured in popular culture. Some notable appearances include the following, in chronological order:

In 1998, the band provided uncredited instrumentation for Lemmy on the Grammy-nominated Metallica cover, "Enter Sandman" ( Extreme Music).[1])

The song "Playmate Of The Year" featured in the 2000 movie Dude, Where's My Car?.

Part of the song "Now or Never" played in the 2000 movie Little Nicky.

Part of the song "Runaway" - "In another town|With the same old Bacardi" is used in a Bacardi banner ad.

The song "Check" was featured in the 2001 hit video game "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3" for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube.

"Now or Never" appears in the 2001 Warren Miller ski film Cold Fusion.

"I Am" appears in the 2002 Warren Miller film Storm.

Two songs, "Falling Apart" and "Alone" featured on the 2004 video games WWE SmackDown vs. Raw for the PlayStation 2 and WWE Day of Reckoning for the Nintendo GameCube.

The band has also had the tracks "Falling Apart" and "Rescue Me" on the 2004 game S.L.A.I. Steel Lancer Arena International, as well as the Japan-exclusive "Are You For Real?", for the PlayStation 2.

Their song, "Lobotomy For Dummies", is featured in the 2006 game FlatOut 2.

In 2006 the band recorded the song "With Legs Like That", which is featured on the WWE Wreckless Intent Album, and is currently being used as WWE Diva Maria's entrance music.

Due to Zebrahead's growing popularity in Japan, vocalists Matty Lewis and Ali Tabatabaee were asked by SEGA to record vocals for a new theme song, entitled "His World", which appears in the game Sonic The Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Ali and Matty both recorded their vocals on August 29th, 2006. Shortly after, on September 19th 2006, the entire band recorded an alternate version of the song (known as "His World (Zebrahead Version)" to fans) for the game's vocal soundtrack CD. This version uses Zebrahead's traditional instrumentation and resembles their other songs.