zen fuse box

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series where we present the band's thoughts behind the creation of a song. Today's installment is The Text from our 2021 album Try it Now!

Steve 

     The music for The Text started with the bass and drum groove. With our second album Dogs in Helicopters, we inadvertently established a pattern of trying to present a tune which only had one chord, but was still interesting. On Dogs, that tune was Yesterday Always Knows, which is in F#. On Turnpike to Jupiter, it was…

For those interested in the guys' thoughts behind the song, we present a deeper dive into Je Ne Sais Pas from our latest album Try It Now!

Steve: 

     Usually, when I present a new song to the band I have a fully formed song with music and lyrics that we collectively refine and record, with lots of creative input from the other guys. In a break from form, this one was submitted as an instrumental track (working title “Police Raid," and second working title after lyrics were added, "Happy Place") that I…

With the start of Spring, we continue to work in socially-distant and covid conscious ways!  This past week, Steve spent some time in the mountains of North Carolina, where ZFB classics including Flat Rock and Yesterday Always Knows were composed. Steve reports that he has written two instrumental pieces of music, that may be developed into full songs for a future project!

Meanwhile, back in our home base of Florida, Rich set up an outdoor pop-up studio, where he and Pete worked on overdubs for our cover of…

For those wanting a deeper dive, we humbly present the guys’ thoughts on We the People, the first track on our 2021 album Try It Now! The genesis of the song was an instrumental arrangement by Rich, so we’ll let him go first: 

RICH: 

     In August 2017, like most Americans I watched the events from the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, with shock and disgust.  I also witnessed, in a peaceful display of strength against hate, that many counter-protesters came to Charlottesville.  Sadly…

Please head on over to YouTube to see our zany new video for the song, Try It Now!

Zen Fuse Box - Try It Now! - Official Music Video

Happy New Year!  

We are pleased to announce the release of our new album Try It Now!  It's been a long time in the making and now that we are in 2021 we thought it was the time to get the album out to you!  

Of course you can hear the whole thing on Spotify: Try It Now!

And you can also find it on YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon, and pretty much everywhere else!

For those of you who still like physical CDs, like we do, head on over here: Buy a CD!

We really do think this is our best overall collection of…

On every one of our albums, there are a few self-indulgent moments. This is one of the biggest. Originally a "hidden track" on the Zero Down Time cd, "Hit Stop Now (You Have Been Warned)" isn't a song, but more of a psychedelic audio collage. 

For this remix, we shortened it to its most essential elements, including the whispered discussion between Pete and Rich, (Extra bonus points if anyone can identify the book from which Pete was reading), and the ukulele outro by Steve that recaps lyrics from several…

The recording of this version of Greenhouse Blues predates the existence of Zen Fuse Box. It was recorded by Rich and Steve at Rich's home studio, maybe back before we even met Pete! No one is exactly sure when we met Pete, so it's a mystery for the ages. This was an instrumental knocked around by Rich's other band The Forefathers as part of their live set, but was never recorded on one of their albums. Steve, having sat in with that band on occasion, was familiar with the tune, so it made sense to lay down…

Secrets You Keep is the last proper song on our debut album, and that version is a heavy, dark arrangement reminiscent of Pink Floyd's more aggressive tunes. Steve wrote the song after watching an episode of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, which may be the only good thing about that show.

This "Low Budget Demo" version is just Steve on acoustic guitar and vocals, and was originally meant to preserve the song in order to teach it to the other guys. We never thought that 10 years later this humble demo would…

Strollin' was a tune Pete brought into the band in the very early days, and it's rumored this is the first song he wrote while he was learning some elementary guitar chords. For the longest time, Steve and Rich called this song Absence, until it's true title was revealed to us. This remix is mostly a cleanup and re-EQ kind of thing, resulting in a more punchy and present sounding tune.

We remember being really excited to hear this played on WMNF radio's Traffic Jam program back in the day! It was the first…