ZELA
Photo Credit: Brian Nicholson
With only five tracks released so far, brother-sister electro-pop duo ZELA has a lot going for them. Max Griff’s technical production easily goes from bubbly to epic and Liv Griff’s vocal prowess is apparent; she is confident and extravagant but not aggressive. Their entire discography has been released during a global pandemic, but neither that nor their residence in Northeast England has stopped their explosive tracks from stretching as far as Los Angeles, Rome, and Paris. ZELA has made such an ambitious turn in electro-pop in their meager 8 months professionally putting out music, and their computerized vocals and vast sound design can easily be seen in nightclubs and radios in the next few months. They envision themselves and the Reading and Leeds Festivals soon, and at their current growth rate, it doesn’t seem like an impossibility. We recently spoke with ZELA about their name, their brother-sister dynamic, and more!
How did you guys start making music?
Well we’re brother and sister with a year in age between us, so we’ve had more or less the same musical upbringing, and always played in bands together growing up. Our dad is a musician, so we were raised in a household where there were always instruments littered around the house and music coming from every room; it’s in our blood. We’ve only actually been releasing music under the name ZELA since March, but we’ve been writing and recording and getting everything in place for the last couple of years. With ZELA, we started writing and recording demos on a Macbook and quickly realised that dark electronic-pop was our vibe, and that we were really fucking good at it. So we took our demos to our producer George at Homefire Recording Studios and that’s where we brought ZELA to life.
For starters, I love the little Z on all the covers of your singles! How did you guys come up with that?
Liv: We wanted something unique to us to represent ZELA in a bold way, so the Z seemed like the most simple and effective way to do that really. We liked the idea of staying consistent with the artwork in some way, whilst changing the subject to represent the song. Everytime I see a Z now I immediately think of ZELA so it’s definitely working.
What does the name ZELA mean?
It doesn't actually mean anything to us in a literal way, the word to us has no deep meaning behind it we just like how it sounds. Our mum actually came up with the name in a dream she had, she knew we needed a name for this new project we’d been working on and one night she’d dreamt she was watching us perform live with ‘ZELA’ scrawled on the backdrop behind us. She quickly wrote it down on a magazine so she wouldn’t forget it, and the next day we found it and loved it straight away. It’s bold, simple, memorable, exactly what we wanted.
Who does what in this dynamic duo of yours?
Liv: I write all lyrics and vocal melodies, Max writes the music. When it comes to performing live, Max plays drums and electronics and I basically upstage him on vocals and guitar.
Does it ever get difficult working with a sibling?
We have what we call our ‘Gallagher moments’, yeah. In some ways we’re really similar and other ways we’re very different; which is both good and bad I suppose. But for the most part we get along well, I think being so close in age helps; plus we have a great creative team around us at Homefire Studios so often there’s more people involved than just the two of us.
A quick listen to any of your songs will display the wide array of influences you guys have, from electronic music to alt music, to synth, even. Do you guys have a strategy when it comes to meshing all of these together?
Liv: Not at all, we just write and do what comes natural. Max makes the music and I’m in control of all things vocal, then we finalise everything together with our producer George. I think when you’ve been brought up on such an extensive variety of genres like we have, it sort of ‘seasons’ your brain sonically; what you listen to really does play a huge part in how you create, even subconsciously. So with that in mind I think it comes very naturally to us when we’re creating for ZELA, we definitely share the same vision so I just trust Max to do his thing and he trusts me to do mine and it always works.
Your music is listened to all over the world, from Rome, to London, to Paris, to, you guessed it, LA. What’s it feel like to know the extensive breadth of your fanbase?
It’s mad cool, especially since we’re so new on the scene. We’ve only been releasing music since March, which means we’ve technically only ever released music during a global pandemic so far.. so given the circumstances I think we’re doing alright. We love what we do, so to know ZELA is reaching as far as LA so early in our career is dead exciting.
Everything ZELA has come out in 2020. Any tips on how to have such a strong work ethic?
Staying focused on what’s in front of you in the present whilst working towards your goals is really important. We’ve always been a step ahead when it comes to releasing, we had everything in place for months in the lead up to our first release, so that we could be prolific with the rest of the singles and keep that momentum up. So we’ve really not given ourselves any time to stop and think, I think being impulsive is key.
With only four songs out, you guys have a whole career ahead of you. What’s your next move?
We’ve got loads more music lined up and we’ve been working on some visual ZELA projects too which we can’t say too much about just yet, but it’s all dead exciting.
What’s your guy’s biggest hope for the future?
Honestly we just can’t wait to play live. As soon as the world goes back to some kind of normality and we figure out the best way to play shows it’s gonna go off. Obviously if we’re thinking bigger picture; headlining Reading and Leeds and the Pyramid stage, but baby steps and all that.
