[Photo courtesy of Megan Young]

By Kourtney Gierke, Contributor

Zappers is the five-piece prog rock band consisting of vocalist, Mairin, bass player, Micah, guitarist and keyboard player, Mallory, drummer, Ted, and guitarist, Zach. They are the latest rock band out of Athens to keep your eyes on. After their performance at the 2024 ACRN Battle of the Bands, I got the chance to speak with the very talented and equally hilarious Zappers about their performance, creative process and what we can expect from them in the future.

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

Kourtney: I’ve heard that this is your third performance over the last three weeks. How do you feel that this performance went tonight?

Mairin: I felt like it was the best. I felt the energy was the best.

Ted: Yeah, our other two [shows] were outside and I feel like it was just harder to perform outside.

Mairin: Outside, everybody was just far away from the stage so we couldn’t really interact with the audience.

Micah: This is our first complete performance.

Mairin: This feels real. This feels like our first real one. Our first two shows were warm ups.

Kourtney: You guys really brought the energy tonight. I want to know: what do you do beforehand to get on stage and bring that stage presence?

Zach: I had a couple sips of alcohol. I was also, like, screaming in the bathroom. Screaming does wonders for the nerves.

Mairin: I had more caffeine than I should’ve.

Mallory: Yeah, I had a lot of caffeine too and I regretted it.

Mairin: I also had a lot of cough drops today to kind of ease my voice. We had practice last night, so just going from practice, my voice felt weak this morning and having to play the show tonight, not a fun feeling.

Kourtney: How did you guys come to form the band?

Mallory: Well me and Mairin used to be in another band, Potting Soul. Oh yeah, and Micah! But then me and Mairin left.

Mairin: I was playing drums in [Potting Soul], but my major is Voice (Performance). So I wanted to focus more on vocal stuff and start a band where I sang in it. And I knew Ted from home and Zach from CMDI, our major.

Kourtney: And where did you get the name Zappers from?

Micah: We were brainstorming, and we knew we were covering a Frank Zappa cover of the Allman Brothers. And when we were brainstorming, I was just like Zappa, Zappers. Boom.

Kourtney: That’s perfect. What is your favorite part about being in Zappers?

Mairin: I really like everybody, just a lot of really good musicians.

Zach: I agree. We have a good time.

Ted: My favorite part is getting so much money.

Micah: We made so much that I literally went and splurged at Dollar Tree.

Mairin: The last two shows we played have been unpaid. This is our first paid performance.

Micah: The practices are just really fun. We have a lot of chemistry. We all laugh.

Mallory: We go off on tangents a lot.

Mairin: We are like a mutually ADHD band. Last night we spent, like, twenty minutes messing with all the silly noises on the electric drum kit.

[All imitating the electric drum kit sounds.]

Kourtney: How is Zappers different from any band in Athens right now? What sets you guys apart?

Mairin: I feel like we don’t take ourselves very seriously, and I feel like we’re playing a lot more prog-leaning stuff. There’s not a lot of prog in Athens right now.

Zach: We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take our musicianship very seriously.

Mallory: We don’t have a specific genre yet, so our originals have been bouncing all over the place.

Micah: We have a lot of influences.

Ted: I’d like to say we’re making a new genre. Zap-core?

Mairin: We all come from different influences, like our favorite musicians.

Kourtney: That leads into my next question, what are some of your biggest influences?

Micah: I feel like some of the biggest ones of mine are like The Beatles. Blink-182 is up there.

Mairin: Vocally, definitely like Paramore. Generic female vocalist answer, but Paramore. Also, Dallon Weekes of the Brobecks and IDKHOW. That’s a big vocal influence for me.

Ted: Alright, put this on the record. Listen to The Dodos. In all caps, LISTEN TO THE DODOS. Put that in. Put that on the record.

Mallory: I try to listen to and learn about a new female guitarist, so I’ve lately been listening to a lot of Jocelyn Gould, she’s a jazz guitarist. I really like jazz guitar. I listen to a lot of Pink Floyd, if we’re talking prog rock. And then Adrianne Lenker. Love that b—-.

Zach: I tend to pull from a lot of different things. Starting out, I was heavily influenced by Eddie Van Halen, just all the Van Halen s—. I’m big into a lot of the jazz and jazz fusion type players, like Matteo Mancuso, Guthrie Govan, Frank Gambale and Greg Howe. I mean, I could go on and on so I’ll just keep it short there. Oh wait, and Tool.

Mairin: A lot of what we’ve been playing is just what we want to play. We’re not influenced by a specific genre.

Kourtney: Alright, you guys performed a couple originals tonight. Which song is your favorite?

[All unanimously say Monk.]

Mallory: Your arm starts to hurt at the end of it.

Micah: Yeah, it was killing me.

Mairin: Yeah, I wrote the lyrics over the past week and I was blanking. So it is about “The Shining” because I had the book in front of me.

Zach: We write very deep and avant-garde lyrics, so interpret it how you will.

Kourtney: What is the creative process for making music as a band?

Mairin: Zach comes in with a riff.

Mallory: Hey, I came in with a riff for that one indie song! I had something!

Zach: We collaborate. I like to write a lot, so I usually have some very unique sounding riffs, songs in general, or weird chords I’ve been messing with. Interesting harmonies, whatever I’ve been inspired by in the moment, and I come in with it and we jam it out.

Mairin: Yeah we come in with one riff, then we figure out the key and s—, and what we want it to sound like, and then build upon that. Lyrics and melody are usually the last thing. Sometimes we’ll be playing and I’ll either hum or even just scat on top of it.

Mallory: Yeah we usually have like a full song and then Mairin will be like, I got lyrics.

Kourtney: What can we expect in the future from Zappers?

Zach: We’re going straight to Madison Square Garden, gonna play in Madagascar, Sentinel Island, possibly the Fiji Islands. We’ll be around.

Mairin: Well, we just had our world tour of Athens. You can find us on Instagram, @zappersband. 

Micah: Hope to see us a lot more next year. Trust.