Zach Oliver’s “British-Born Bastard” sums the artist up perfectly, and that’s according to him. He is, British-born, and he’s a self-described “bastard” too. With the release of his new 10-track LP, Banzai, he’s also behind the idea of taking charge of his own personal anthem and “battle cry”.
“I feel alive in this music,” the Torontonian said. “I think that’s where the name came from.”
“I love that ‘banzai’ is used as a patriotic cheer and battle cry. It’s kind of like the Japanese version of ‘hooray’ and shouted in the same sense as ‘long live the King’ in English.”
“This relates exactly to how I felt making this,” he added. “It’s a battle cry for being original. I wanted to celebrate coming into my own.”
“Although 90% of the album is about a relationship, a lot of the back-end emotion came from just being 21 or 22 years old, and figuring out who I wanted to be and what I wanted to say.”
“By the end of making this record, I found a sound I believed in. I was finally just being totally myself in my writing.”
Oliver came to Essex, England when he was eight, and when his hobby playing music started to get serious, he brought music to his everyday life. It was at Fanshawe College’s Music Industry Arts program where he really dug in, setting his path as a musician.
Watch the video for “Get Mine” below, listen to Oliver’s music on iTunes and Spotify, visit his website for more details, and then follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
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