ZO Magazine has been lacing Richard Zeier’s Music throughout our pages, events, and inspiration triggers since inception! Richard’s production company, Pearl Music, has sponsored Music ZOne from the beginning of ZO. His contributed expertise, talent, and direction since our launch in 2014 have fueled our reach for multiple events, campaigns, and Expos over the years. He is also the Executive Producer for our film, The O.D.D. Room, and continues to guide us on that Project’s expansive pathway . . . yeah — we’ve seen him running with horses and actually, its quite infectious!
THE QUANTUM ASPECTS OF RUNNING WITH HORSES
By River Alexander for ZO
ZO: The tracks on this album cover a very wide palette of music touching on multiple genres. The flow of the album is amazing and we’ve been able to fit each of the songs into possibly the widest eclectic mix on the planet in our Time Travel Playlists on Spotify. I’m guessing that this passion for music came from your first moments of conception, and from meeting your Mom and conversations about your early forays into making music, you’ve kept the proverbial “peddle to the metal” with writing songs and composing since – can we say elementary school? Lol
Can you remember the first 2 or 3 songs that you ever wrote? Tell us a little about those if you remember, or something close.
RICH Z: I can actually remember most of the songs I’ve ever written, good or bad, because I started out making little booklets containing my songs, and still have them. Later on I got a little busy or lazy, and wound up with a collection of notebooks, notepads, and loose pages that are not well organized, but have most of what I’ve written. I would estimate, that over my lifetime I’ve written well over 1000 songs and instrumental pieces, and some kind of recording exists for mabey half of them. At this point in my life, there’s not much need to write more music (except for film scoring). I think my time would be better spent reproducing the best of my unheard archives.
ZO (cont.)That question is tied in with curiosity about the only vocal piece on the album, Verses of Destiny. Those are some pretty deep lyrics. Where did all of that come from? By the way, we love the photos from your Verses of Destiny Canvas video (click photos for larger view) . . . The passing of Time is always so interesting.
Lyrics: Verses of Destiny — by Richard Zeier ©1984
VERSE 1:
Life is a gift that you receive
Death is not the end don’t be deceived
You know it’s always been
VERSE 2:
Light is the colors that you see
Dark was the shadow over me
You know it’s always been
CHORUS
Don’t you understand the reasons for today
Did it just happen or was it planned this way
Is there life beyond the distance of your mind
What leads you to believe today’s the only time
VERSE 3:
Why is a question of your faith
When is expression of impatience
You know you’ll only wait
VERSE 4:
Love is a reason to forgive
Hate is a common force of evil
One will overcome
Yes, One will overcome
RICH Z (cont.) I was raised by devout Catholic parents that sent all nine of us kids through at least 8 years of Catholic school. I was relieved to be given a choice to attend public High School. I always had faith in God, but not much appreciation for formal religion. At 16 years old, my parents made Sunday church optional, and this happened to coinside with my starting to play in bands.
You could call this the beginning of my prodigal years. I was probably 17 or 18 when I wrote Verses of Destiny. Being a fairly prolific writer at the time, it was normal for me to write one spiritual song for every 5 or 6 party or political commentary songs.
RICH Z: Verses of Destiny quickly became a staple in the setlist of the band Flamin’ Amos, that I put together with my brother Tim and High School buddies Stu Balliette and Gary Pagelow. It was an incredible experience to be able to re-produce the song at Pearl Music, to where I could finally share with others what I had heard in my head all these years.
We really love your 8 Song Video Album Sampler!
ZO: You’ve come up with a lot of innovations in this album launch . . . First of all, this 4-Minute Sampler Video is the first one we’ve seen compiling snippets of video with a sampling of cuts on an album. How did this come about and what made you think of doing it?
RICH Z: It was simply a matter of economics; getting the most bang for the buck. But it’s not just about my investment, but moreso the investment of time that a viewer will afford to my story. If I want to hold someone’s attention, it’s on me to keep them entertained. With the average attention span of online audiences these days, you have to keep things moving quickly with fresh ideas, and that’s what this format does.
ZO: You have one other album project, Phenomenation, that had quite a few noted session players on it like, Mike Ruiz (Milk & Cookies) on drums, world percussionist Chalo Eduardo on percussion, Chi Coltrane and Martin Paulk on vocals, Greg Goggins on soprano sax and flute, Graham Dorsey on tenor and baritone sax, Greg Emler on trumpet and flugelhorn. Also, Tim Gaines (from Stryper) played fretless bass, and Karen Childs played piano on “Who You Are”. The CD was mastered by Gavin Lurrsen at the Mastering Lab.
Running With Horses was a 95% self-orchestrated project, with a few guest stars, like guitarist Edi Roque and some sweetening vocals by Bonita Z. There have certainly been artists that take this route like Prince (who famously played all 27 instruments credited on his 1978 debut album, For You, and frequently played the vast majority of instruments on subsequent albums) — but why did you make this decision for production?
RICH Z: I think it’s closer to 99% self-orchestrated, but I won’t quibble… There was no conscious decision made to do it myself, but shortly after Phenomenation, life circumstance forced me to take a day gig, and I spent the following years as an Avionics Tech. It was a good job for an electronics geek like myself, and provided enough income to equip the studio on a new level. The downside, of course, I was no longer working in the music industry and my contacts eventually drifted away. When I was finally in a position to walk away from Avionics, I had to spend a lot of time learning all the new software that didn’t exist when Phenomenation was made. When I finally did start working in the studio full-time again, I was excited to make full use of all the updated virtual tools that greatly increased my production capability.
ZO (part 2 of this question): Phenomenation has garnered over a million streams throughout it’s lifetime and is still generating consistent growth stats. I know a lot of personal life challenged you after it’s release, but do you have any regrets about waiting so long to put out Running With Horses?
RICH Z: I’ve never stopped creating new music, and over the years have accumulated a lot of material. Running with Horses is the result of every life experience since Phenomenation. I have very few regrets in life, and am satisfied and grateful to be exactly where I’m at right now.
ZO: Last question — so, what’s next?
RICH Z: Since the release, I am knee-deep in promotion for the album. The world has changed so much, some for better, some not, but when the dust settles, I’m going to focus on releasing singles, like most folks these days. Albums are a statement as an artist, that requires so much thought, where singles are just songs, free to live a life of their own. I think that will keep me quite busy, between producing other artists and scoring films.
Richard’s Music is prominent in the 13 Micro Episodes now featured for The O.D.D. Room – Time Travelers Chronicles.
In addition to a Game that is developing in conjunction with The O.D.D. Room, we are working on ideas to choreograph a dance and video to his song, Armor Bearing Intern for a scene in new filming we are currently planning.