Zephaniah OHora

The thing about Zephaniah OHora that’s been discussed to death is some sense of astonishment that such a real deal country sound could come from New York City. Well, why not? As a newcomer to NYC, I’m personally grateful to Zeph for cultivating NYC’s country scene. He’s the guy in control of the live music schedule at Skinny Dennis, the best of the very few honky tonks in the five boroughs, and also the only place I’ve felt truly at home in New York, under a portrait of Willie’s watchful eye, Waylon on the jukebox, and Miller Lite in hand.

With his whiskey-smooth voice and classic country sensibility, OHora’s second record, Listening to the Music, sounds the way country music does in movies. There’s no question that OHora is a serious scholar, a musician’s musician in the style of Merle Haggard and Vern Gosdin. As the name of the record may tip you off, although plenty of the songs are about relationships and current events, they’re really about loving music and finding commonality with others through it. The record is tinged with gospel moments, particularly on the title track, where producer Neal Casal’s harmonies and John Shannon’s elegant guitar riff add a reverential aura to the hymn. Jon Graboff’s pedal steel is something else- I found my jaw hanging open at times, I obviously knew he had chops, but this playing is virtuosic. Although OHora’s music is so timeless, there’s still something fresh and modern, especially in the lyrics of the first single, “All-American Singer,” which seems particularly topical at the moment but could really apply to any stretch of time in American history.

Listening to the Music is out August 14th on Bandcamp, if you bought it. If you didn’t buy it, it’ll be available on all platforms on August 28th. I caught up with Zeph to discuss his unique release strategy, wearin’ cowboy hats in New York, working with my favorites Neal Casal and Jon Graboff, the Grateful Dead, and bad consumer habits.

What was your plan when you came to New York? Did you come to pursue music?
I just kind of fell into it. I liked the idea that maybe I would, but I don’t think it was even on my mind. I worked full-time at a big hair salon in Soho for a decade, which has since permanently closed due to COVID. I just did music as a hobby. In 2013, the owners of a bar called Skinny Dennis in Williamsburg asked me to be the person in charge of music because they knew that I knew a lot of music and musicians and we had similar taste.

They wanted a country thing going on there, or at least really good live bands. I think that bar sort of came in and saved some of the vibe of “old” Williamsburg. Through Skinny Dennis, I started to meet all these musicians and pieced together a band. I started playing there weekly, doing covers.

So how did you get from playing at Skinny Dennis to recording your first record? 
When I was playing with that Skinny Dennis band, I met Jim Campilongo. We started talking about the music we were into and we came up with this idea to start a cover band of 60s truck-driver country music. I started writing a couple tunes of my own in that style, with similar subject matter, just for fun. Then I started writing more serious stuff. Jim and I incorporated them into the setlist so eventually we were playing a bunch of my stuff. Jim said, “Hey, you should make a record.” So I did. It was really just to capture the moment. I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. It’s been fun. 

Neal Casal was at your record release party. How did that happen?
Jon Graboff played pedal steel in the band on my first record. Jon said, “Hey, my old friend Gary Waldman manages a few artists. Maybe he can help you get a label to release your record because I think it’s a really great record and it should be heard. You shouldn’t just put it out on MySpace or whatever.”

So I met Gary, he liked it, and we hit it off. I ended up doing distribution with an arm of Sony Music that Neal had also worked with. I think Gary invited Neal to my record release show at Rockwood Music Hall in the city.

Of course I knew who Neal was. I’d seen and heard tons of clips and recordings. I had tremendous respect for him. We hung out after I went on and he was just ecstatic about my recordings. He said, “Man, I’m going to buy a bunch of these records. Hey, man, this is so great.”  I think he posted about me on Twitter a couple of times. We stayed in touch from then just in a friendly fellow-music-admirer way. 

For me, Jon and Neal played such a vital role in turning me onto music through the Cardinals. How was working with them together?
It was amazing. I love Jon Graboff. I always have since the day I met him. He has an amazing respect for the song and songwriting, which I think is why he and Neal got along so well, too. On a musical level, they both have a tremendous reverence for not getting in the way of the song, as players. 

After our first day of tracking, we went to Skinny Dennis. I told Neal he had to check out the band. John Shannon, was playing that night. We hung out and they told stories about the Cardinals days and memories of some of the crazy shows they played and just how great that band was. It was really cool to just sit there and listen to that. 

Working with Neal, Jon, and Jeff Hill in the studio was amazing because they had all played probably thousands of hours of music together over the course of decades. 

Then we had my friends Arthur Vint on drums and John Shannon on guitar and Roy Williams on piano. Those are all New York dudes that I’ve played hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of music with. It was cool because it was two generations of friends.

Some of those guys had been playing the songs with me so long we barely even rehearsed before the sessions. Even Neal was like, “Man, I’m a little concerned you’re only doing this many rehearsals.” I just told him, “I think these guys are great and I think that once we get in there, it’ll really shape up,” and it did. From the first minute we got in there, it sounded great.

It’s just the best way to make a record, when everyone’s good friends and knows each other so well. It immediately just clicked.

What’s different about this record from your last? Any creative process notes?
I got Jeff Hill’s old upright piano when he moved out of this studio space he had on Kent Ave. I’d played a little bit here and there throughout my life, but I wanted to get better at it, learn how to expand my songwriting on piano. So a couple of those tunes are more piano driven.  

Sometimes I go long periods of not writing anything and freak out, feeling like I can’t write anymore. I have read books about the practice, just learning how, even if you don’t feel inspired, to get your brain to kind of let go, stop analyzing and pull some stuff out of your subconscious mind and get it down on paper. 

Touring is off the table for the moment and people have to get a bit more creative to promote new releases. Any thoughts on live streaming, socially distanced shows, etc.? 
On one hand, I like the streaming thing because I think people really appreciate it. People that are feeling real despair or loneliness right now because maybe they live alone. It’s really a good thing to do.

But on an artistic level, I don’t really love the audio quality. Not interacting with people in the same room is a little strange. I feel like making recorded music is a better offering to the world, if I’m going to invest any energy anywhere. 

And I can’t do it with a band, so it’s just me and the guitar. Thinking about getting a band together… So many people in New York have left either temporarily or permanently. It’s kind of sad and scary, but also you just have to try to find the silver lining.

Are you concerned that New York is going to turn into a bit of a cultural wasteland as people are forced to leave because they can’t afford it?
I think that was already a concern and now it’s just even more so. All these small businesses will go under- or have gone under already. You may find it’ll just be all the corporations and the major chains buying up real estate and vacated storefronts, potentially around the entire country on a broader level than we’ve ever seen. 

But I think maybe it’s still too early to tell. It could be the kind of thing where stuff gets burned away, and within the ashes of that rise new creative endeavors or maybe a better approach to certain things. Maybe there’ll be more artists, or people that will take up the torch and start a new kind of community of sorts. Also, consider that so many companies won’t be renting offices anymore since they’re learning everyone can work from home. Maybe that’ll open up these spaces for people to live in, maybe rent will go down. Who knows? It’ll be interesting.

It’s the same thing with touring. To me, touring was sort of an old world model that didn’t work anymore. It’s just not like it used to be. It’s extremely expensive and difficult. Maybe we’ll see that you don’t have to go road dog it endlessly to break even. Instead, you play more strategic places and more special events and things. I think it’s similar with the New York thing- maybe there’ll be a new perspective and new things will happen. That’s my hope anyway.

I’m optimistic some days, very pessimistic others. I hope that Skinny Dennis survives so I can get my job back and still continue to be able to hang out there and expand with them. But the whole industry is so unpredictable now, I don’t know what’s going to happen. 

I really hope Skinny Dennis survives, too. I’ve appreciated having a spot where I can go wearing my cowboy hat without getting too many looks.
Way back when I first moved to New York, I used to be so into the Sweetheart of The Rodeo Byrds-like cosmic country thing and I had long hair. I was wearing these cowboy hats in Williamsburg, where I lived and people were just like, “Who the hell is this guy?” It was right before the country thing became cool, so people were just like,”What is he doing walking around here, wearing a cowboy hat in New York?” It kind of took some balls. People were like, “Go back to Texas!” 

What have you been listening to lately that’s kind of uplifting you or inspiring you? 
I still on a regular basis listen to a lot of classical music. I’ve been going back and listening to a lot of Bob Dylan. I was a fanatic for years. Khruangbin, Circles Around the Sun, a lot of instrumental music

I think it sounds boring to say, “I’ve been listening to the Grateful Dead!” but by default I have been because I’m making all these playlists. I’d been hosting this Dead Night at Skinny Dennis for six or seven months which was going really great. We got a new sound system installed there so the sound was great, and every Monday night it’d be packed.

Once the lockdown happened, some New York dudes and I decided to start a livestream thing where I play all these shows that I collect. It’s been fun because people hang out in the chat room and talk. I’ve been listening to a ton of that because every week I have to prepare three hours of shows, and I don’t want to just play one show. 

A sidenote, I listened to the Grateful Dead NYC Appreciation Club stream while I transcribed and edited this interview and if you love the Dead, it was a TREAT. Excellent song selection and execution, peppered with tidbits of history. You can listen to that here on Wednesdays at 9 PM EST.

Any time I’m at a certain point emotionally and I put the Dead on, I just feel so much better.  
They’ve obviously been getting a resurgence in popularity, especially since 2015 with the 50-year anniversary shows. It kind of became cool again- even though I’ve always thought it was cool. Now it’s starting to feel a bit cliche, but it is just a great band. There’s so much stuff to listen and learn from that it never really gets too old for me, you know? Maybe I’ll feel differently in a couple of years, but I’ve been listening to them since my early 20s and it’s been a pretty good run so far. 

I wanted to ask you a little bit about your release strategy – releasing the album to folks who bought it first before it hits streaming platforms.
I originally planned to do a whole clip talking about how important it is for people to try to break away from the default that everyone has been trained to settle into. People expect to be able to listen to music for free or for just ten dollars a month. Essentially, if there’s an individual artist you really love, you get to listen to their music for free because they’re not getting that 10 bucks.  Even if you listen to their album like 500 times. 

My solution was, “Well, why don’t we just try and really push the pre-ordering and offer some special packages and have it only available on Bandcamp exclusively for those people that buy it? Then send it out two weeks before the album comes out and see what happens.” I really wanted to shake the tree a little bit. If I was someone like Taylor Swift or someone at that level, I would have done something like saying, “If you cancel your Spotify subscription, I’ll send you my album for free!” But I don’t have her resources or her clout.

Initially during the peak of the pandemic, I put it on Bandcamp for “name your own price.” I thought, “Man, if I could just encourage anyone to even spend a dollar on my record, I’ll get that counted as an album sale and maybe I could chart.” So if you only want to pay a dollar, you get a much better quality product. It’s a dollar that you wouldn’t have from streaming.

I think that Bandcamp will be the future or set some precedent because I think more and more, people are waking up realizing they’re totally getting screwed by Spotify, who could be doing so much more to help artists. They have so much power and so much money and so much reach. And they’re just doing nothing because they’re making tons of money off the backs of artists. It’s really messed up. 

I think disillusionment with Spotify is at an all-time high since CEO Daniel Ek’s recent comments about the need for artists to churn and burn.
I love Spotify. I’ve loved it for discovering music. There’s so much great stuff that I have on vinyl, but you can’t get on the iTunes store anymore or Amazon. And I’m not going to sit and listen to vinyl every day, all day or take a portable record player everywhere with me. But I have been thinking more and more about it.

My girlfriend is a fashion historian. She knows a lot about how bad the fast fashion industry is for the planet and for human rights. For example, people go to H&M for some beach clothes or whatever. And people have this expectation, thinking, “I shouldn’t have to pay more than ten dollars for this pair of pants.” It should cost more than that, because to make it that cheap, you have to pay people about nothing. They’re basically indentured servants.  

I just kind of started to see a parallel. Spotify kind of works like that, for the artists. Spotify is like, “Well, you get all this exposure.” Great, but I can’t make any money. My record cost about thirty thousand dollars to make. And people spend more than that making albums. And then there’s an expectation that it’ll be free to listen to. It’s crazy.

Why do you think more artists aren’t resisting putting their work on Spotify?
It’s just one of those things where you have to. You can’t not have streaming available because everyone’s using it and consumers aren’t willing to go to Bandcamp to get that app and download it. It’s not really the consumer’s fault. They’ve just been trained to take advantage of the convenience of Spotify. 

When there’s an oppressive authority with that much power, people are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to experience personal loss from doing so. Just like if you worked for a company and your boss doesn’t want to give people vacation time. Well, you’re afraid of losing your job, so you have to cooperate. That’s kind of what Spotify has done to artists. It puts you in a position where if you don’t have streaming available, you will really be screwed. 

For me, unfortunately because of the outlets I’m going through to release the album, they have agreements with Spotify that any artist they distribute music for will also go there. And that’s how powerful Spotify is.

I’ve been really inspired by Emma Swift from Nashville, she’s releasing a Bob Dylan covers album (available today!). She doesn’t do any streaming at all. She’s been really vocal, actually walking the walk. I admire her. She sold over a thousand preorders already for her album. She’s not on a label and she’s doing it all herself.

I talk to some press and radio people and they’re trying to convince me that I shouldn’t consider not doing streaming. And you almost feel like you’re full of yourself for wanting to buck the system. But you don’t go to Amazon and say, “OK, my favorite author just released a new book and I can just go and read it for free because I have Amazon.” You don’t do that with books. You still have to buy books. Why aren’t we buying music? I don’t understand. It’s not any different.

I also don’t think we need to be hearing 10 new albums a day. I personally need to spend time with an album, absorbing it. That can’t be done in one listen.
Another weird thing about low-quality digital audio. Rob Fabroni told me about this, he’s a famous producer for The Stones, this legendary dude.

They’ve done studies with muscle tests and reactions in various environments. So, if you hold your arms out and they push your arm down in fluorescent lighting, your muscle reflex is a little slower because of the electromagnetic energy of fluorescent lighting. It’s distracting to the brain. Rob said it’s the same thing with digital music.

There seems to be some science backing it up. They fill the space in digital music to make it a smaller file with white noise. There are studies that show that people are less likely to finish listening to a whole song if it’s a low-quality MP3. With streaming, it’s even lower quality.

It’s fueling this bad consumerism habits thing. When you think, “I don’t really have the attention span for this whole song or this whole album,” there has to be constant content being produced and it burns out the artists. The music doesn’t get heard. People just don’t have the attention span. Social media affects that, too. It’s really bad for all of us. All these things are somehow connected.

I do think that people younger than me are becoming more aware of these things. I think they actually appreciate music more and they want to buy it, which is why I think Bandcamp is doing so well. It’s more personal, it connects you to your audience. And it’ll be the same thing with clothing and food. People will pay more if they know it’s going to go to a good cause.