Biography
Between Zevious's self-released debut in early 2008 and the 2009 appearance of After the Air Raid on Cuneiform, the trio underwent a pronounced transformation. Guitarist Mike Eber, bassist Johnny DeBlase, and drummer Jeff Eber—Mike's cousin—pursued a far more volatile direction, one that echoed Robert Fripp's work with King Crimson on Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black, and Red, or, alternatively, the intensity found on Meshuggah recordings. The three players appeared to accept that bookings for subdued jazz-brunch sets in hotel lobbies would no longer be realistic, even though their earlier music had never been especially restrained.
Although the group is now identified with New York City and the Brooklyn metal community, its origins lie in Pennsylvania, where the musicians lived before establishing Zevious in the mid-2000s. Jeff Eber and DeBlase both spent time in Philadelphia; the drummer studied at the University of the Arts there and played with the avant-metal band Dysrhythmia, while the bassist, who already had varied performance experience, relocated to the city in 2005. DeBlase had graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and first encountered Mike Eber at the school in 1999. Both musicians completed music degrees at Muhlenberg and subsequently performed together in several projects across Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley and beyond.
Mike Eber settled in New York City in 2004. The following year, DeBlase arrived in Philadelphia just as Jeff Eber left the area for the New York vicinity. Despite the roughly one-hundred-mile separation, the Eber cousins and DeBlase formed Zevious, requiring the bassist to travel regularly for rehearsals and shows. The band's inaugural performance occurred in 2006 at Lounge Zen in Teaneck, New Jersey—now promoted as a sushi restaurant featuring a dance floor and live entertainment—with Mike Eber on hollow-body electric guitar, DeBlase on acoustic upright bass, and Jeff Eber on drums.
Additional jazz-club appearances followed. By 2007, DeBlase chose to relocate to New York City, partly to avoid repeated New Jersey Turnpike drives, and joined the avant jazz-metal trio Many Arms that same year. From August through October 2007 the now New York-based Zevious recorded its debut at Menegroth (The Thousand Caves) studio in Queens, engineered by Colin Marston of Behold... The Arctopus. Issued independently in 2008, the album presented a trio that alternated swinging and intricate passages, remaining largely straight-ahead while incorporating avant-garde touches: Mike Eber delivered mellow-toned jazz chord work and agile solos, DeBlase supplied angular counter-lines and a substantial tonal foundation, and Jeff Eber maintained the pulse while adding subtle detail that preserved his bandmates' timbral nuances.
Although Zevious's music already exceeded the expectations of dimly lit traditional jazz venues populated by conversation-focused patrons, the second album's ferocity would likely have cleared such rooms entirely, drawing instead listeners attuned to aggressive experimentation. More than eighteen months after the first sessions, the group returned to Menegroth in May 2009 to track After the Air Raid, again with Marston. Mike Eber switched to Telecaster, DeBlase adopted electric bass, and nearly every remnant of the earlier straight-ahead jazz orientation disappeared. The resulting set, while nodding to the cited King Crimson and Meshuggah precedents, emphasized distortion and incorporated references to Massacre, Japan's Altered States, and the avant-skronk guitar lineage extending from Sonny Sharrock through Nels Cline to Iceland's Hilmar Jensson.
Following years of touring across the United States and Canada while developing fresh material, Zevious revisited Menegroth and Marston in February 2013 to record Passing Through the Wall, issued by Cuneiform that September. The album pushed further into dense, assaultive polyrhythmic territory, aiming to induce a trance-like state through disorienting grooves and layered, high-energy textures. In October and November the band toured the U.S. in support, sharing many bills with Dysrhythmia—now Brooklyn-based and still featuring Jeff Eber on drums.
Although the group is now identified with New York City and the Brooklyn metal community, its origins lie in Pennsylvania, where the musicians lived before establishing Zevious in the mid-2000s. Jeff Eber and DeBlase both spent time in Philadelphia; the drummer studied at the University of the Arts there and played with the avant-metal band Dysrhythmia, while the bassist, who already had varied performance experience, relocated to the city in 2005. DeBlase had graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and first encountered Mike Eber at the school in 1999. Both musicians completed music degrees at Muhlenberg and subsequently performed together in several projects across Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley and beyond.
Mike Eber settled in New York City in 2004. The following year, DeBlase arrived in Philadelphia just as Jeff Eber left the area for the New York vicinity. Despite the roughly one-hundred-mile separation, the Eber cousins and DeBlase formed Zevious, requiring the bassist to travel regularly for rehearsals and shows. The band's inaugural performance occurred in 2006 at Lounge Zen in Teaneck, New Jersey—now promoted as a sushi restaurant featuring a dance floor and live entertainment—with Mike Eber on hollow-body electric guitar, DeBlase on acoustic upright bass, and Jeff Eber on drums.
Additional jazz-club appearances followed. By 2007, DeBlase chose to relocate to New York City, partly to avoid repeated New Jersey Turnpike drives, and joined the avant jazz-metal trio Many Arms that same year. From August through October 2007 the now New York-based Zevious recorded its debut at Menegroth (The Thousand Caves) studio in Queens, engineered by Colin Marston of Behold... The Arctopus. Issued independently in 2008, the album presented a trio that alternated swinging and intricate passages, remaining largely straight-ahead while incorporating avant-garde touches: Mike Eber delivered mellow-toned jazz chord work and agile solos, DeBlase supplied angular counter-lines and a substantial tonal foundation, and Jeff Eber maintained the pulse while adding subtle detail that preserved his bandmates' timbral nuances.
Although Zevious's music already exceeded the expectations of dimly lit traditional jazz venues populated by conversation-focused patrons, the second album's ferocity would likely have cleared such rooms entirely, drawing instead listeners attuned to aggressive experimentation. More than eighteen months after the first sessions, the group returned to Menegroth in May 2009 to track After the Air Raid, again with Marston. Mike Eber switched to Telecaster, DeBlase adopted electric bass, and nearly every remnant of the earlier straight-ahead jazz orientation disappeared. The resulting set, while nodding to the cited King Crimson and Meshuggah precedents, emphasized distortion and incorporated references to Massacre, Japan's Altered States, and the avant-skronk guitar lineage extending from Sonny Sharrock through Nels Cline to Iceland's Hilmar Jensson.
Following years of touring across the United States and Canada while developing fresh material, Zevious revisited Menegroth and Marston in February 2013 to record Passing Through the Wall, issued by Cuneiform that September. The album pushed further into dense, assaultive polyrhythmic territory, aiming to induce a trance-like state through disorienting grooves and layered, high-energy textures. In October and November the band toured the U.S. in support, sharing many bills with Dysrhythmia—now Brooklyn-based and still featuring Jeff Eber on drums.
Albums
