When Zaramela formed in late 2011, they were just six (now seven) high school kids jamming together. With influences as varied as Alt-J to The Roots and a whole lot of everything in between, these Chicagoland musicians have quickly found both their sound and a following with Portillo’s Italian Beef close at hand.
Lead singer Kris Hansen reflects upon how they originally formed thanks to Glenbrook South High School and a friend from down the road.
“We originally got together because of high school jazz band, that was kind of how we sort of got to meet each other,” Hansen said. “Pretty much a week before the conception of the band, we called Inho [Park] because he wanted to play bass with us and that was kind of the missing piece for us.”
One contributing factor to the group’s success has been the ability to connect with the other bands in the growing and increasingly more inviting Chicago music scene.
“Just from the past couple of months, what we’ve seen with Chicago music in general is this huge collaborative effort in the city right now just to come together as a musical collective,” Hansen said. “And to start to work together especially in the hip-hop community, there’s just a lot of outreach. A lot of bands and a lot of artists really want to start working with other bands and artists and that’s really cool. We’ve made a couple of relationships here in the city.”
Bassist Jameson Brenner feels as if it is their role to help cultivate the scene for all of the bands within it to grow.
“Basically, that’s what we spend our time in Chicago doing,” Brenner said. “If we’re not playing or making our own music, we’re going to other shows of other artists, supporting them, working with them or building those relationships because that’s changing the Chicago scene and everyone realizes that if you help everyone else out, it’s only going to better yourself and make for your shows to be better.”
Brenner also attributes this rise in collaborative spirit to the lack of a real label presence in Chicago as opposed to in New York or Los Angeles.
“Everyone here that’s making it is nine times out of 10 going to be doing it on their own,” Brenner said.
While the band has played Wisconsin before, this is the group’s first trip up to Madison.
“We’ve played Milwaukee before, we’ve played The Rave—that was a whole lot of fun—but it’s really exciting to come up here to Madison,” Hansen said. Brenner then added, “I’ve got a whole lot of friends that go to school up there, so I’m really excited to see them and to check out what they’re doing and where they’re at.”
The group is set to co-headline The Frequency Friday, Feb. 21. with Madison’s own Maffa Rico. They will also be joined by Marykate w/ Al Cheekz and The Art of Cool.
