When you speak to a group as interesting as Zac Brown Band, there's bound to be plenty to say! Check out Part 1 of our interview here first, and read on to find out more about how the band has grown throughout the years, craziest souvenirs they've picked up along the way, and dream collaborations - enjoy!
Q: When you first came to the UK in 2011, there were six of you in the band, and it’s just kept growing. Now there are nine of you! What does the recent addition of newest member Caroline Jones bring to the band?
A: Caroline is a force of nature. We were friends with her before she joined the band, so we knew her dedication to her instruments and songs, but it was always inspiring to see that level of hustle from her. For The Comeback, I had more time to create because the pandemic, I had time at home to sit and write for guitar parts that all work together and I knew I needed another great acoustic player. Also, Clay sings all the really high harmonies for us but to keep him from blowing out his vocals singing higher than is comfortable for him, we found Caroline. She can hit those notes effortlessly. Caroline has octaves above any of us, so it made sense to have her join to serve the harmony in the band and also because of her being such a great innate instrumentalist.
When we create albums, we want to be able to recreate what we did on the album live, so that when you see these songs live, you're getting the same experience and it's not just some guy singing over the tracks playing behind him which is happening a lot these days. So we needed Caroline to pick up some of the other instruments so we could have everything you hear on the album. From a purist standpoint, for us to be able to pull off the music that we record, we need everyone in the band.
Caroline's family to us. She's the closest thing to a living Care Bear I've ever met. After she'd been, opening for us and hanging out with us, it was just natural to say ‘I think you should do this with us’. And we support her solo career as well so if there's a time when it makes more sense for her to not be with us and be doing her own thing, then we'll have to wish her well and support her in whatever she's doing.
Overall, for us, it's necessary to recreate what we're doing and just have good vibes as a band. I couldn't imagine being in a band where everyone hated each other. You watch documentaries about bands like The Eagles and think ‘how do they do that?’ I can't be around that. It has to be good vibes, everybody taking it seriously, everybody picking up each other’s slack. Sometimes it gets hard it something messes up or the song starts off a half step from where it’s supposed to be, but the band can adapt to that on the fly. They know what's off, they're going to adapt, and they'll play in a completely different form.
The secret to anything is that if you're gonna have a band or a business or anything, be the worst person in it. The reason that we're successful is because of the talent that’s surrounding me and that everyone lifts that up. It's not about ego, it's not about trying to do just what feels fun to you, it's about serving the songs and so everyone in the band gets that and does it.
Q: You’ve travelled all across the world and played at some of the most iconic venues so I'm sure you've picked up a lot of souvenirs along the way. What are some things you’ve picked up over the years that really hold a lot of meaning for you?
A: I know one is this mannequin hand that we have. Somebody stole it and I think I cut one of the fingers off of it. I remember specifically weird things like that! It's still on the bus right now actually. I used to take it and tuck it into my shirt, and so when we would go out, I’d just have this spare hand that I’d use to pull out my wallet and be sifting through it and stuff. Now it’s just become this joke that we’ll have forever where we carry this hand around with us.
Another one is one year, we all bought didgeridoos in Australia and it was such an ordeal to ship them back. We didn't get them for like a year or something like that.
Lots of little weird things that have popped up over the years. There’s also Dave Grohl’s glove from one of the award shows. He wears gloves when he plays drums, and afterwards we were walking out and he was just like ‘do you want this?’ So I wore Dave’s glove for the rest of the night like Michael Jackson.
Q: You've collaborated with some huge artists throughout the years - are there any artists that you’d still like to collaborate with?
A: My favourite female vocalist is Adele, so she would be a dream for me. I had the opportunity to meet her before her album 21 came out, and I didn't know about her then. We’d just played a song and she came up to us after and said ‘I really love your music.’ Then the year after, 21 came out and I was like ‘oh my god, I missed the chance to talk to her!’ It's a bucket list to do something with Adele. I don't know how I'm gonna pull that off but she’s definitely a top one for me.
We had a chance to play with Chris Cornell, which was just unbelievable, and Dave Grohl too. One band that kind of runs pretty steadily through everyone is Pearl Jam and we've never had a chance to play with those guys so I think at some point playing with any one of those guys would be really cool.
A huge thank you to the members of ZBB for taking the time to chat with me! I have so much more C2C content still to come, so stay tuned on @CiarasCountry to be the first to know when that's posted. Thanks for reading!
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