The rehearsal room that Zebra Woman has in Almagro is orderly, it does not seem to reflect the period of pre-release chaos they are experiencing. Santiago Piedra (vocals and guitars), Gonzalo Muhape (bass) and Patricio García Seminara (drums) define being «well and tired», and it makes sense. Since 2022 they have been playing non-stop here while they finalize the details of their second album, Class B. For example, the show they will give this Saturday 10/14 within the framework of the Indie Week at the Teatro Ópera de La Plata, which will bring together the main exponents of the new scene.

Zebra Woman was born in 2018 as a spin-off from other musical projects whose common denominator was Patricio (he played in a band with Gonzalo and in another with Santiago). His motivation was to make music that they didn’t hear anywhere. «Later it turned out that it existed, but we weren’t finding it,» explains Patricio. Their sound was macerating between 2018 and 2020 and settled on the first album, Zebra Woman2021.

Dark music and lyrics, along with a voice that sings like a lament, resulted in the categorization of «postpunk.» When playing, the songs were linked to isolation due to the pandemic, by lyrics like that of Summer (without people): «Don’t leave me alone/ Everything falls apart again/ The city suffocates you/ Everything finally excites me/ And staying still while everything is deformed/ Before it arrived I was already alone/ How strange the summer is going to be without people «.

• Was it based on the experience of isolation?
• Santiago: Maybe, it has something of that, but also of the spectrum of the natural. It is true that he came out at the right time, but he had his own feelings, which in the quarantine were enhanced, and logically people were also enhanced. I think that in music, especially when you talk about what happens to you, each person attributes it to what they feel. Moments go by and today, perhaps because of that, you hear a song that a person made in the ’60s and you think that he wrote it for you, and no.
• Patrick: They take on different meanings. Before, yes, but now I no longer think about the pandemic when I play and listen to old songs.

• When making art, everyone has references or artists who set their course, which ones are yours?
• Patrick: The influences of each one are very different, but also those of the first album are different from those of the second album, surely because of the music that challenged each one at the time.
• Santiago: They also change a lot. There are things that accompany us over time, but also depending on what. Musicians who are references to an instrument, the way they play, people who you like how they compose and people who you like how they produce, that is also changing. I feel the second one different in the production and musical approach. We are associated a lot with something postpunk and there is some of that, but we were neither strictly listening to postpunk nor wanting to do something postpunk. It ended up coming out something like this. The only postpunk band that I remember listening to a lot was The Chameleons, who I feel marked a path for me within the first album.
• Patrick: I listened to a lot of Flaming Lips at that time. We had put together a playlist that included Silvio Rodriguez, too.
• Santiago: And we have a really Beatles thing, with Gonzalo we are mega fans. There is something about the production, the way of making songs that we like about them, which is what lasts because the musicality, the styles go out of style, but when a song is good, it is good; There is nothing to give it to him with.
• Gonzalo: In those years, 2018, 2019, we listened to El Mató a lot, we went to La Plata a lot because things were happening there at that time. I also remember when shoegaze was reborn, which is that more spacey genre, I became a fan of My Bloody Valentine and I told them that we had to do something like that, and then nothing to do with it. I also really like The Ramones, and nothing like that.

• The way of singing is very particular, it refers to Viva Elástica but also to Echo & The Bunnymen
• Patrick: They told us about Viva Elástica several times, especially about the first album.
• Gonzalo: I didn’t know them, I met them when they told us that we reminded them of them.
• Santiago: Miguel Abuelo also told me.
• Patrick: Santi reminds me of Nekro.

► «We don’t have room for the rock and roll star»

Chaos and exhaustion, that is the summary of the recording of Class B. This second album, already under the wing of Sony, was recorded in December 2022 at Estudios Unísono, in the midst of the euphoria of the World Cup and with just a month of pre-production. In 2023 they dedicated themselves to mixing it, finalizing details and showing singles. When listening to it, the melancholy of the voice and the lyrics follow the line of Zebra Woman, but the sound breaks with that continuity. The search was to escape the categories with which they were defined by musical criticism. And, also, because they say that they do not feel comfortable with the commonplaces of rock: the pigeonholing and dogmas.

Listening to the album, there are few vestiges of post-punk and grunge, which characterized them on the first album. And even a guitar sounds in an acoustic version in The fire of burning. In that sense, it is difficult to define Class B in a genre. They prefer the term alternative rock and yes, it sounds like rock, with touches of garage, punk and indie rock. If it had to be defined from a less rigid plane, less linked to the Wikipedia of rock, it could be said that they are songs that you listen to and remember a little about your ex. Absence sits in the front row.

The concept seen on the cover of the album and the singles refers to B-class movies and is also noticeable in the songs, in that idea of ​​»men who lose», with a kind of anti-hero narrative, zero rockstar pose, that materializes in sensitive hits like And don’t tell me anything either Ghost.

• What was that recording like?
• Santiago: It was crazy and super hot, but we had a good time. We were lucky to be able to spend more time in the studio, to have a little more budget. The first one had the peace of mind to have more preparation time, but we also ended up more in debt. This second one was lucky enough to have a little more budget, and at the same time we ended up a little more burned.
• Patrick: We arrived at the first one with everything composed, everything super rehearsed and everything super finished. And in this we finish the ideas in the studio; There you already have a difference.

• Did they take risks?
• Patrick. Yes of course. Having already sent us to record with such a short pre-production was a risk. I also feel that it is important to have separated ourselves from that judgment that people have, that they categorize us as a postpunk band and this album for me has nothing postpunk or grunge.
• Santiago: The song is purer. I feel like we’re also trying to run away from that a little bit, because we weren’t looking for that mega heavy thing, in the sense of the genre. It seems incredible to me today to be able to mix as many genres as you want, that has to be the future of music with instruments. Now that we’re starting to expose ourselves a little more and suddenly they classify you as a rock band, they put a lot of weight on you and you want to escape because it seems like shit to you. It seems to me that what kills rock the most is rock itself. And especially with the label, there were people who were already gasping that now we were going to sell out. Then we released the singles we wanted to release, a double single that is kind of anti-commercial.
• Gonzalo: Sometimes people pigeonhole you and say that you make this type of music. Then they will demand that you continue like this. Implicitly, because they don’t tell you. They expect your second album to be more of both extremes and we went in a completely different direction.
• Santiago: Marketing is the best thing you can do.

• Don’t you feel pressure for the second one?
• Santiago: I felt it before, but when the album began to take its final shape it was overwhelming. It’s a more personal battle that you lose when you don’t like it. When he finished closing it, I loved it and it seemed like a complete work, which is always a challenge, especially making a heterogeneous album. We are looking to make an album that has a concept and that is meant to be listened to from start to finish, which is very difficult because music is not made or consumed that way nowadays.
• Patrick: We sat down with the whole team and we couldn’t think of any singles, which is also why the ones that came out are so confusing. We wanted the entire album to come out.

• Do you feel like you’re part of an alternative rock tradition?
• Santiago: I feel it again, and I feel it as a response to more traditional rock.
• Patrick: Rock and roll star doesn’t fit me.
• Santiago: We are the anti Grapefruit. I kind of feel like big people want to put you in that place: «They’re making rock with guitars, you have to make heavy rock.» There is nothing more pigeonholed, more stupid. It’s as if rock had really killed rock, because generations are changing and everything is much freer in that sense. Rock is a genre that demands a lot from you, and not even artistically, but more superficially, in decisions such as whether you sign with a multinational. They’re not even watching what you’re doing. Because, if it doesn’t compromise my artistic vision, what difference does it make if I have more budget to make things? There is that prejudice, and you see it especially in people who are still super relevant. It seems like a joke to me.
• Patrick: Like Nirvana fighting with Guns N’ Roses. That thing about sex, drugs and rock & roll, I shit on everyone, I break up hotels and make a mess. Toxic masculinity. That rock thing from the ’90s from Argentina too, which had a lot of impact; That makes us very sick.
• Santiago: I don’t feel that rock has been able to evolve, lower the idiotic prejudices and concentrate on what really matters, but that it remained a façade; What matters is that you are playing with guitars and not the content of your music.

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