Zombie Americana Shares Intriguing Info About Debut Album

Zombie Americana is an electronic-rock duo composed of singer-songwriter Bryce Fox and songwriter-producer Ross Ryan (aka Stayloose). Zombie Americana have released their self-titled debut album on October 30 and the duo started producing it two years ago. The album’s music is a unique blend of dark alt-pop merged with nostalgic rock sounds from the pre-Internet era.

Zombie Americana’s album background is the societal chaos of American society that longs for some truth and salvation beyond a social media-drenched wasteland. This album touches on topics including smartphone immersion, lack of independent thought and self-absorption. Here is One EDM’s exclusive interview with the Zombie Americana duo, whose album comes just in time for Halloween and the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Kenny Ngo: You guys have created an album titled Zombie Americana, which is named after this current project. Why did you decide to create that album?

Zombie Americana: It wasn’t really a choice, it just sort of happened. We came together in the summer of 2018 to work on what we thought would be two or three songs for a collaborative EP. What fell out the other end was this almost operatic rock album about a societal collapse. We realized it didn’t really fit anything we were doing in our solo projects so after some deliberation we decided to form a new project.

With very current themes, your album comes out right before the election. What do you hope people will take away from your music?

We hope this helps people to wake up to more independent thinking, to slow down and appreciate life for the moments it provides. To really see through the smoke and mirrors that society has put in place.

A lot of the album was written a while ago, can you touch upon what the creative process was like while writing this record?

Honestly much of this was written in the blink of an eye. We came together for a week in the summer of 2018 to work on a potential collaborative EP. What came out the other end was seven songs that were unlike anything either of us had been doing before.

We shelved they work for a year before we made any decisions on how to approach it as a whole project. Once we’d given it a face and a name we became aware we should write a few more pieces to make it a full 10 tracks. The final songs (“Propagate”, “Crybabies” and “Better Off Dead”) were written over a five-day span in Nashville.

You guys blend together a lot of different genres; what are some of your biggest sonic influences?

A lot of our old school influences came through on this body of work. Not intentionally but I think both of us growing up in the ’90s, much of that came through on the LP.

In your opinion, which songs from Zombie Americana were your favorites to produce?

“Bad Trip” has been a favorite from the jump, it has a lot of cool modern elements. “Zombies” as well because of its challenges of walking the line between 90s’ Beastie Boys-esque rock/hip hop and modern. But honestly, each song is so different and was such a challenge that it was all a blast to create.

How does the backdrop behind the album’s music reflect the current societal and political landscape of the United States (and to a larger extent, the world)?

It’s odd that all this material was created almost two years before we really moved into the current state of society. It was almost foreshadowing in a sense. We really had no intention at first to release this around the election or Halloween. It just somewhat became perfect timing. 

Here is a general question, how have you guys been doing since the beginning of autumn?

Well, it is zombie season!

Are you currently planning to make new music soon?

We’ve got some ideas in the works. Surely we will get together in the near future and see what happens.

2020 is almost over in a couple months. What are your hopes for 2021?

More independent thought. Would love to see society come back to a more personal connection instead of via social media. Although, that really feels like a pipe dream.

What are the locations outside the United States that you guys would love to visit once everything gets better again?

Anywhere we can rock the stage again!