We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Zach Black. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Zach below.
Zach, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Although I’m mostly what people call ‘self-taught’, because I didn’t have any formal training on my current primary instruments of electric guitar and singing, I really learned how to do what I do by spending most of my life learning from and surrounded by talented musicians. My first instrument was the drums! I got them for Christmas when I was 7 years old. I’d wanted to start playing because my big brother was already playing electric guitar, and I thought maybe we’d start a family band. It’s funny I thought that because he literally would never play with me. Not even once! But that reasoning, that I wanted to play with other people, and I knew a lot of kids were playing guitar, was the reason I got into it. After a few years of drum lessons, I wasn’t playing so much as I was getting into sports in middle school and spending much of my time on that. Luckily, I met a cool kid named Max who noticed my frequent rock band t-shirts. He struck up a conversation with me, and upon learning that I played the drums, roped me into my first band with him. That was really the beginning.
He played guitar and although we mostly jammed with me on the drums, he also taught me some guitar, and we started playing with other musicians. I took an interest in the ukulele and the bass, and upon meeting an older kid who slapped the bass, I decided to focus on that towards the end of middle school. Before my sophomore year I moved back to Hawaii where I’m from and decided to pick up the ukulele through the moving process, in part so I didn’t have to lug a bass across the country. I’d spent most of my time on the drums, guitar, and bass learning songs that I loved, but for some reason when I picked up the uke, I kind of just started playing. Everything that I’d learned from the other instruments came together naturally, and listening to a lot of Jack Johnson and John Mayer at the time, I decided to start writing songs.
Before I knew it, I was creating different combinations of the chords and was starting to alter the chords in various ways to get a unique sound. I also experimented with different rhythms, timings, and changes, as well as what I could do with my voice, which at the time was extremely limited. But I started writing songs, and though a lot of them were trash, some of them weren’t bad. I also got into playing drums at my church where I learned a ton about working and playing with a band from our worship leader Kahale Morales. Finally, around 16 I started working at Hot Licks Guitars where I was around all kinds of talent, mostly guitar virtuosos, but one of my friends was a great folk songwriter, and another was into modifying amps and pedals to experiment with tone. During this period, I learned so much that I’m applying every day in my current work.
Finally in 2012 I came to Austin and started working with different bands. This is where I learned how to find the right people to play with, communicate with and organize everybody effectively, and all the other type of logistical stuff that comes with running a band. In the 10 years since I’ve been here I’ve learned so much from all of the older musicians in town, from getting direct advice or an occasional lesson, to just watching them and seeing how they do things. I should also note that I really learned how to sing singing backing vocals for my college band Bad Rituals. In addition to those things, nothing helps you perfect your craft like getting out into the music scene and gigging, and Austin has certainly given me that! All of my experiences led up to the point where I was polished enough at my crafts; singing, playing guitar, writing songs, and leading the band, that I could start Souls Extolled with the right guys from the beginning, and knew what I was doing enough to be able to just get to work, and not waste time figuring out a lot of the basics.
In terms of what skills are most essential, I’m tempted to say that because every skill is needed, none is really above another. But for me, in this in environment where basically everybody is really good in terms of musicianship, I’ll definitely stress how important it is to know how to work with people. Mainly that’s just proper communication but there are some other nuances to it. I haven’t met very many musicians here weren’t pretty damn good, but I’ve definitely met plenty that are severely hard to work with. It’s kind of like having a valuable trade skill but no sales abilities. If you can’t sell the work to get paid what you need for it, having the skill doesn’t really matter. In the same way, if you’re a badass guitar player but you don’t communicate well or are just a dick, your road’s going to be a lot harder.
For me I think my biggest obstacle in learning things faster was simply arrogance, and some ignorance. For arrogance, I always had what I would have called a ‘Rock N’ Roll’ mentality, meaning that I didn’t really have a whole lot of respect for classical training and music within institutions. I just felt like music was cooler when it came from young punks like me who taught themselves to play their instruments and created badass shit just out of passion and personal experience. Now that I’m older, I just want as many tools in my arsenal as possible to make me better. Going back I would have taken a lot more lessons, and probably taken advantage of music programs in my schools and such that I always scoffed at. For ignorance it’s just that you don’t know what you don’t know. When I first got to Austin I was pretty isolated to UT and my friend group, and even as I got out into the scene, it was really limited. Once I was out of college and had more time, I started just going out to a lot more shows, wanting to know what’s going on. I learned as much doing that as with everything else I’d done prior, and so I wish I just gotten out their sooner.
Zach, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Well, a lot of it’s in that last question, but in short, I’m a half-Mexican-half-white kid from a military family who grew up in Hawaii and came to Texas in 2012 to go to UT. I’ve been playing music since I was little, mostly rock, and have also been listening to a lot of rock, hip-hop, and reggae since I was very young. I knew I wanted to come here and start a band as I was studying my topical interests of political science and religious studies. I ended up being involved in several different projects before everything finally came together; the right guys, all of my previous knowledge, etc. for Souls Extolled. As far as what we do with Souls Extolled, we’re trying to make the music that we want to hear right now, that we feel is missing. Although I’m sure it’s out there somewhere, when we started genre-mashing ska-punk, grunge, indie-electronic stuff, and alternative rock, we felt were coming upon a new sound that also sounded familiar. Like, if this hasn’t been done already, someone ought to do it. There’s also a huge part of that with the themes and style of the band. It just seems like it’s fallen out of style for musicians to really care about shit. Most music is about miscellaneous stuff, or if it is targeted, it lacks nuance and therefore has that weird ‘political’ feel of catering to some specific audience. We’re all about spirituality and political theory, but more than we want to put out our opinion and get people to agree with us, we just want to make people think. A lot of our songs that are about serious shit have double-meanings and/or can be interpreted in different ways, and that’s the reason why. We like to approach hard or big topics thoughtfully, with a lot of nuance and room for interpretation, so agree with our perspective or not, you might say ‘that’s interesting’. Finally in terms of style, a lot of modern rock bands are pretty static on stage. People aren’t really putting on a show anymore like the great rock bands used to. We’re definitely trying to bring that cocky, come fuck with us, vibe back, and make sure the shows are super energetic as well as visually interesting.
In general, we’re trying to combine all the elements rockers like us love from all the generations of rock music. It’s a blend of all the good stuff, packaged together. Modern and experimental, yet familiar and badass as fuck.
In terms of what I’m most proud of, it’s a tough one because I’m really proud of every accomplishment the guys and I have achieved. Every one of the records, with the latest MMXXII being the pinnacle, are big because those are forever. I’m really proud of a lot of the shows that we’ve been on. And these tours, they’re definitely big!
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The goal is for JP, Joe, and I to get to be in a badass rock band! We wanted to have the experience of mostly getting to play live shows, but also getting to work in professional studios, and getting to work with seasoned creative professionals behind the soundboard, setting up the mics, for photo and video shoots, and putting together shows. In our experience pretty much everybody we’ve met around music has been fucking cool, and so it’s just a good time. Usually when I’m asked our goal I say ‘just to keep going’. The reason is, although I do have some concrete goal-posts in mind, is that I know if we just keep going, working hard, and having a great time while we do it, everything is going to come. Just got to focus on the experience, both enjoying and creating it for all the Restless People who follow our band.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
My Dad, who’s a former military officer and not a musician, said to me once when he was watching me play that he was jealous. He said, ‘it must be very relaxing to be able to pick up that guitar and just go to another place like that.’ He was totally right, and I’d never thought about until he said that. In general, it’s a drug, and the best kind of drug. A drug that very addictive but also totally good for you and everybody else too! At this point I can’t even imagine how I would keep my head straight without picking up the guitar every day. That’s definitely the most rewarding aspect! It’s also very rewarding to get to play our music out in public settings, and to get recognition. We never expected that, and the music really comes from our hearts and is totally who we are. So, it’s nice when that happens. It’s validating.
Another aspect of it is, it’s a huge part of my identity. I don’t what I would be if I wasn’t a musician. But I grew up thinking musicians were the coolest, and so I think a musician is a pretty cool thing to be. I’m super thankful to be a part of that, and I’m pretty sure JP and Joe feel the same.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://soulsextolled.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/soulsextolled
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/soulsextolled
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/soulsextolled
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/soulsextolled
Image Credits
the ones where i / we are in togas, the look sort of roman, are Patrick Kirk Thomas all the others are Caden Leavell