Zealous Fuel
. . .
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.
