METAL, it’s the only word that can really describe The Zimmermann Note. Pure metal; blistering guitars, a thunderous rhythm section, and scorching vocals that feature Travis French on vocals, Damian on guitar, Joseph Valentino Madia on guitar, Carey Davenport on bass, and Jordan Villella on drums. Blending elements of hardcore, thrash, and black metal these five individuals are creating something brutal yet unique in their music and will carve themselves a place in the music industry as well as leave their own mark on Pittsburgh. I was fortunate enough to get invited to sit in on one of their practices and have a talk with them about various topics.

You have come from all kinds of different bands, (Fortiori, Better off Dead, Commit Suicide, Broken Free, Stroke Volume, & The Caulfield Principle) what was the inspiration for starting this band?
Damian- We wanted to combine a lot of influences between Broken Free and the music they’ve been playing for a while I was pretty impressed. It was during the waning days of Commit Suicide that I figured that I wanted to put a band together that didn’t sound anything like grind or serious death metal. We kicked a couple of ideas around and came up with a Swedish type influenced metal, we wanted to make it brutal or straight out driving or a Swedish type brutalness, a lot of hooks, not a lot of hardcore but a little bit of death metal. That was pretty much the influences we wanted to include with this band. We also came across Jordan from Better off Dead who wanted to incorporate some punk influences with the metal side.
Jordan- I really liked death metal/Swedish metal music, and I liked the other bands everyone else was in like Commit Suicide & Broken Free. And when I saw the ad, it was actually on pittpunk.com, “Metal Drummers Wanted”; so I applied and I was pretty happy that someone like Damian called me back. So we met up in McKees Rocks and started playing different music with all the styles combined and it was cool to be in a band playing metal music cause I’ve been a death metal fan for a long time.

You have a demo out. Where did you go to record and what was that like?
Damian- We recorded with a gentleman that was in a band before called Crayon Death, he had a practice space up where we are practicing at now in Pittsburgh. We actually had scheduled to record else ware and there was a mix-up and the kid had to work that weekend. So we actually got into a rush about how, when and where we were gonna do it. So a buddy of mine has a whole bunch of recording software. And I just asked him “Hey we are kind of in a rush; can we get a demo done?” And we actually recorded it in their practice space in our building. I think it turned out fantastic. We did it in like five hours. Travis came in and blew it out, and I think every one here is happy how it turned out.
Jordan- I’d say that this was the most laid back recording I’ve ever done. I’m used to going to the studio and doing metronome click tracks, which were a pain in the ass, but this recording the dudes were really cool. We recorded it live so it was just like a practice. It was probably one of the best recording experiences I’ve ever had.
Joe- It was nice to because we didn’t want this to be our album we were gonna sell. We wanted to get the songs down so we had an idea of what they were and so we had something to pass out to people.
Damian-We did this to give every one a good indication of where we’re at and where we are going to be progressing. We haven’t even scratched the surface yet. We probably are gonna progress further and more brutal than when we started out. We definitely feel we are headed in the right direction. This is The Zimmermann Note.

What are some of your influences?
Damian- For me it’s always been Slayer, old Metallica, old Exodus, Nuclear Assault, and Anthrax. A lot of these guys we are playing with now are more into the newer school like At the Gates, Carcass type of stuff. I’ve always been into it but never had the pleasure of playing it. For me it’s always been Slayer.
Joe- I’ve played guitar for a long time, listened to lots of different types of music. I’ve always liked heavy metal. As far as artists I think we all listen to similar things. But I think we all have other bands we listen too that have nothing to do with The Zimmerman Note, I think that’s the kind of stuff that comes together. Me personally I like a lot of Scandinavian metal, a lot of black metal, and I like a lot of hard rock. I like all different kinds of heavy metal. I also have to add that Dave Mustaine, James Hetfield and Dimebag Darrel taught me how to play guitar when I was younger.
Jordan- I listen to a lot of old crust music and peace punk music like Crass, and a lot of the weirder hippie stuff like Oie Polloi; which kinda runs side by side with old death metal like Carcass and newer stuff like Cattle Decapitation. Musically I’d say Nick Barker is probably one of my biggest influences; he is the old drummer from Cradle of Filth/ex-drummer from Dimmu Borgir. I defiantly also like Slayer and old Bon Jovi, ha-ha I’m joking about that one.
Travis- A lot of my influences from when I first started getting into heavy music, I started listening to bands like Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage a very long time ago when they were still smaller bands. Jessie from Killswitch is probably my biggest influence because my style is very multi-tonal which is very evident in what he does. From there I got into a lot of black metal and melodic death metal. The Thomas Lindberg projects have a lot of influence on how I sing also.
Carey- My influences started out with hardcore and kind of evolved into death metal and Swedish metal, Dark Tranquility is probably one of my favorite bands right now. I like gore grind like Aborted. I also like classical music, violin and piano the most. As far as bass writing and styles I like to put a lot of sweeps into my bass writing and sometimes tap. I like to do all kinds of things.

How are you lyrically driven?
Travis- I get a lot of shit for some of my lyrics, some people understand, some don’t. I try to bring something new to the table that other people don’t do. Everything is very intellectually driven or very emotionally driven. One of our songs called “Pascal’s Wager” is about an 18th century mathematician that put the odds for the existence of God in favor. So he believed there was a god merely because it was the highest common factor. He said it is better to believe in God and die than to not to and go to hell. I thought that that was a very foolish outlook on life. Not necessarily an outlook on religion, but a very foolish outlook on life in general. You should believe in something because it’s better for you to believe it. I get a lot of shit for writing like that. Some people would rather hear songs about girls. I also write very emotion driven songs, I’ll try to bring out the most hateful feelings I can. One of our songs, the newest one, is actually about Carey, our bassist, and his experiences with an ex-girlfriend and he told me that he would rather go to hell than to forgive this woman, that’s what the song is about, “Before the Burning Gates”. Its basically about burning the gates of Heaven to make sure that that person will never be happy because that’s the only thing that will ever make you happy because you are so vengeful against this person. I have very interpretive lyrics, so that people can think for themselves but also have a very deep meaning for me.

Where do you think Pittsburgh is headed with its music scene?
Damian- Pittsburgh metal seems to be a revolving door with bands around here, and it’s because of the scene, places to play, and people in general. It seems to me that a lot of bands only have there friends come out and watch them play to me I think that that is bullshit, but the thing is that when you get known around Pittsburgh a lot of people tend to come to see just certain members of the band perform and never stick around to see anybody else play. Which is a bad thing, it’s been happening since I was in a band six years ago called Gutwrench, and it’s been happening since then and it still happens now. I think that any band that comes out of Pittsburgh that does have a chance to make it anywhere will draw fans out of Pittsburgh but as the scene in general it’s a hit or miss situation. Either you have a band that’s kick ass or you have a band that sucks that your friends come and see. So to sum this all up I think the Pittsburgh scene is pretty much gonna stay the way it is now, which is, there are gonna be a lot of fair weather friends who will only come out to see your band play just for who’s in it. I think it will stay the same which is half of what it needs to be. It needs to be an all around scene which needs six or seven bands that are really sticking together and playing out a lot and making sure that a lot of the other people that see this band see the other bands. It needs fans who will come and see all the bands not just their buddy playing here or there. I see it staying where it is right now.
Joe- Why do you think that is?
Damian- Because Pittsburgh doesn’t have a base set of bands, there’s only 3 bands in Pittsburgh that people come and see; The Cheats, Sub-Machine, & Penance. Maybe even Endless or Built Upon Frustration. Those bands play with a lot of national bands, if Gutwrench were still together the scene would probably be different. Every body would see that we would have been together for almost ten years, why can’t we do that? Just like most bands in Pittsburgh, we broke up early. The scene is not really worth it around here because there are not a lot of people who stick with a certain thing. Another thing I can say is a lot of bands get jealous of other bands around here, because one band will be getting all the notice, fire, and notoriety and people don’t wanna see that.
Jordan- I think that a lot of the bands view other bands as competition and they shouldn’t view them as competition, they should view them as comrades.When Better off Dead played the Guitar Center Rockoff we noticed that a lot of the other bands viewed us as competition and not as friends when we were going around trying to talk to them. I think more of the bands need to be friends instead of being in competition, and there would be a lot more camaraderie, a lot more unity in the scene so we could have a lot more shows, a lot more venues opening up, and a lot more positive things happening. Instead of everyone saying their band is better than that band.
Travis- We are a fourth or fifth generation band, we’re the people that stick around and survive. It’s those bands with the people that stick around and survive that will eventually make it. Your first couple of bands aren’t gonna make it. Some people get fed up with things cause there first or second band doesn’t make it anywhere. Persistence is the key to music, that’s the only way your gonna make it. Some people think, I’m gonna start a band and I’m gonna get signed, no that doesn’t happen.

What is the main goal you wish to accomplish with this band?
Damian- The main goal we want to accomplish is to at least get signed and tour with some major acts. We would like to get recognized as a band to be reckoned with, we would like to really join hands with the hardcore scene to see what we have to offer. We’d like to play Hellfest, we would like to at least try to get signed to a major label, well a major label for this type of music. Maybe if its still underground its fine, the more music we create, who knows, Century Media may pick us up That’s what we want to do and we wont stop until we are on a label that we know we can tour with and we will be a band to be reckoned with.
Jordan- I think my goal with the Zimmermann Note is to just go out, have fun, play music that I really enjoy and see a lot of different people from a lot of different “scenes” get involved with different areas in music. There are all these boundaries and sub-categories of metal, metal-core, hardcore, emo-core, screamo, every one needs to stop putting walls up and just start having fun, playing music together, and just respecting everyone else’s music.
Joe- You could ask the same question to any band at any time in any genre, you do it cause its fun, and theres no drug, no experience that compares with playing music that you wrote, and seeing people really enjoy it. I think that’s all anyone ever wants. No one ever says “I wanna be U2”. It would be great to make a lot of money off of it, playing music, but I think anyone here in this room would say the same thing, its fun to play music with guys like these who I’ve become wonderful friends with. It’s a cliché but its true there’s nothing like seeing someone respond to music you made.
Travis- We’re not here to fuck around, we’re here to do something.

How do you feel the response has been for the band so far?
Damian- Fantastic. Seriously, I’ve been in four bands in my lifetime. This is probably the first time we put a demo out and within two-three weeks we’ve had a ton of people respond. Even people who were into my other band, Commit Suicide, they have responded from me being in that band, saying this is very impressive. And with the people I’m working with right now, I’m not trying to toot my own horn but I believe I picked the right group of guys to do what we need to get done. We are defiantly going to be a band to be reckoned with.
Joe- I don’t think that’s a cocky or conceited answer at all. I think everyone in this room thinks we’re really great. I think that’s important, if you don’t have confidence in your music and think what your doing is fantastic then why are you doing it?

Where does the name of the band come from and why choose that for the band?
Carey- The Zimmermann Note was the wire that came across from Germany to Mexico to try and get them to join forces over in Europe in World War I, the British intercepted it and they sent it to America, it was the catalyst that got us into World War I. I had so many band names I was thinking of and we all liked the war theme. The note could have been propaganda to get the U.S. into the war, but there’s more to it that just the name.
Jordan- We had been throwing around a lot of different ideas for band names and since The Scorpions was already taken, another band name we were throwing around was Mudrer,Kill,Death,Blood,Bleeding because it seems to be a popular trend with all the die, death, bleeding, blood….bands. We just wanted to have a name that really meant something, that you could think about and hopefully relate to.
Travis- With the name The Zimmermann Note, the kind of thing it implies, remember that America was kind of an isolationist country and we didn’t want anything to do with Europe and their dirty politics. It was kind of funny that those dirty politics are what brought us into that war and brought us to the point that were at today. Which if we didn’t get into the war and beat Germany, then we wouldn’t have fought Germany again later under the rule of Hitler. We wouldn’t have the United Nations. We wouldn’t have a lot of the rules and free trade we have now. This one little thing, an intercepted note, which we aren’t even sure existed because the British were very good at propaganda at this time, pretty much changed history. There is more to the name than the war theme. The idea behind the war theme was a soldier. A dying lonely soldier, a soldier always pushes on, taking a hit for someone because they believe in them.

Any parting comments?
Carey- www.thezimmermannnote.com, I love all these guys, and I love playing with them.
Jordan- Otherwise besides plugging the website and ALL THE MERCH WE HAVE ON THERE. I would like to plug something else. Go to www.projectskateshop.com, which is the website for my buddy who has a shop in Monaca, Pennsylvania.