Say ZuZu is gearing up for a reunion show in Portsmouth. Band members recall the decade they spent chasing every young musician’s dream.

Alt-country band Say ZuZu played its final run of shows at The Stone Church in Newmarket in February 2003. It was the end of a saga the band members could faintly have imagined more than 15 years earlier, when they picked up guitars and strummed their very first song. They didn’t know it then, but with those first few chords they were embarking on a musical journey that would bring them across the United States and around Europe. And, when they weren’t traveling, they always returned to the bustling Seacoast music scene of the ’90s, where numerous other energetic young bands were pursuing their own dreams. They would take risks, experience incredible highs and demoralizing lows, and have the time of their lives.

Say ZuZu will reunite on Friday, Aug. 31, for a show alongside Portland’s The Mallett Brothers Band at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth. It’s the final show in this summer’s Loading Dock Concert series, co-presented by 3S and The Wire.  

Say ZuZu’s story is charming not only because of the genuine talent, earnest ambition and infectious humor of its members, but because, in a way, they represent every band that has ever dreamed of making it in the music biz. Or, really, anyone who has ever had a big dream and given it flight.

Singer and guitarist Cliff Murphy, a founding band member, captures that feeling of momentum in describing a gig at a ramshackle venue in Memphis. Though ZuZu had played shows before crowds of hundreds, the audience on this particular night included just one person. The band played two full sets for that one listener, sparing no energy.

“I remember just feeling at the time that we were great, and that we’d never been better, and on the one hand being bummed that there was just one person there, but at the same time just loving playing,” Murphy said.

The Wire caught up with Say ZuZu as they looked back on their rock saga and geared up for their reunion in Portsmouth.

ZuZu’s Petals: starting out
In 1987, Durham native Jon Nolan spent the summer of his freshman year in high school with his uncle in Maine. The family musician, he led sing-alongs around the campfire and taught Nolan how to play guitar.

“He taught me three chords that summer. I forgot two of them, I wrote a song with one of them, and I taught the song to Cliff and my brother James,” he recalled. “Immediately, we were a band... We played that one crappy song for four hours, and we were like, ‘Whoa, this is awesome, we’re gonna be the next Beatles!’”

Murphy and James Nolan were a year older than Jon, and the two elder boys had known each other since seventh grade.

“All three of us were just big music fans and we would hang out and talk about music endlessly,” Murphy said. “I remember James kicking me out of the car one time at the intersection of Routes 4 and 108 because I insisted George Harrison was a better Beatle than Paul McCartney... Eventually he came back and picked me up.”

The trio named their newly formed band ZuZu’s Petals. Jon and Cliff sang and played guitar and James played bass, and they recruited various drummers through high school. The Petals recorded their first album with local guru Jim Tierney and called it “Say Zu Zu to the Groceryman,” the ad slogan for Nabisco’s Zu Zu Ginger Snaps.

The recording soon caught the attention of Kevin Guyer, owner of the now defunct Rock Bottom Records, a popular hangout for musicians in Portsmouth located downtown on Fleet Street where RiverRun Bookstore now stands. Guyer helped ZuZu’s Petals get gigs and began selling their album in his store.

But they soon discovered that several other bands had adopted the same name, including a modestly popular trio out of Minneapolis.

“Somebody came in to buy their record and bought our tape and was very pissed,” Nolan recalled. “Kevin Guyer said, ‘Either you change the name or we’re not selling your tape anymore,’ and we saw our epic career going down the tubes.”

In 1992, the band officially changed its name to Say ZuZu, borrowing from the title of their debut album.

After high school, Jon and James went to the University of New Hampshire, while Cliff shipped off to Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. Jon and James began playing as a trio with drummer Chris Keefe, and Cliff rejoined them during breaks. Their desire to continue pursuing the music only grew.

“When James and Cliff graduated a year ahead of me, I promptly dropped out of school and rock and roll took over,” Nolan said. “We started playing as much as we could.”

With the release of a self-titled album in 1994, the band started generating regional buzz and began gigging more heavily around Portsmouth. Say ZuZu had established itself as a prominent player in the Seacoast music scene.

Highway Signs: finding a voice
The vibrant mid 1990s Seacoast music scene, catalogued in the local documentary “In Danger of Being Discovered,” was powered by rock bands coming out of UNH and the surrounding area—Groovechild, Thanks to Gravity, Percy Hill, Fly Spinach Fly, Truffle, The Queers, Heavens to Murgatroid, Gandhi’s Lunchbox and others.

There was also a solid core of older folk and blues musicians who had been playing for years, expanding the vanguard Boston folk scene to Portsmouth. Murphy said ZuZu’s members often interacted with veteran performers like Bob Halperin, Harvey Reid and Ed Gerhard, who helped build their appreciation for the music’s acoustic roots.

“We saw a lot of acoustic music live,” Murphy said. “Looking back, these are the people who really mentored us, the acoustic people.”

Around the same time, they discovered alt-country band Uncle Tupelo (precursor to Wilco), and started listening to Neil Young’s back catalog. They found themselves veering toward a sound that, today, is known as Americana.

The band’s rootsy style set them apart from other young groups populating the Seacoast. Murphy said they were “misfits,” and he didn’t mean it in the rebellious, punk-rock kind of way.

“We weren’t on the fringe, we just were really earnest and kind of square compared to everybody else,” he said. “We were somewhere between that UNH jam band world and the Portsmouth rock scene. We weren’t rock enough for the rock scene and we weren’t a jam band, and when we tried to be, we sucked. So we didn’t really fit in.”

Nevertheless, Say ZuZu befriended other prevalent Seacoast bands and often shared the stage with them. Heavens to Murgatroid just sold out a Press Room show commemorating the 20th anniversary of their first album release. Tim McCoy, a founding member of Murgatroid and still an active musician, says ZuZu carved its own niche.

“They definitely had a distinctly different following than we did,” he said. “That was the cool thing about the scene. It wasn’t a one-sound thing… Every band brought something completely different.”

Murgatroid had made a local splash with the release of its 1992 debut CD. With their punk-influenced, power-pop sound, they, too, had a unique niche. But McCoy said all the various styles on the scene revolved around the same musical nucleus.

“They’re all slices of what we know as rock ’n’ roll, and fans of good music like whatever it is, as long as it’s good,” he said.

Further inspiration for ZuZu came while casually hanging out in Portsmouth one afternoon. Willie Nelson was playing a show at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom that night, and his band was drinking coffee at Cafe Brioche in Market Square (now the location of Breaking New Grounds). The Nolan brothers struck up a conversation with bassist Bee Spears and harmonica player Mickey Raphael, both long-time members of Nelson’s entourage (Spears died last December). They were looking for cigars, which James provided, and they all hit it off.

“They offered to help us record with this guy in Tennessee who had recorded a bunch of Willie Nelson’s albums,” Nolan said.

That guy was Bradley Hartman, who also recorded the soundtrack to “Honeysuckle Rose” and work by Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash and others.

Nolan soon called Raphael to take him up on the offer.

“We were like, ‘Hey, we’re those guys with the cigars from New Hampshire.’ He was like, ‘Oh yeah.’ And so he put us in touch, and in ’95 we went down and recorded a record called ‘Highway Signs and Driving Songs.’”

To the band’s delighted surprise, that album would eventually help bring Say ZuZu to a whole new audience across the Atlantic Ocean.

Bull: hitting the road
By the time ZuZu recorded “Highway Signs,” Mark Wentworth had become their permanent drummer, and they often practiced at his house in Maine. He lived near a used car lot where a 20-passenger school bus was for sale.

“We would go over to the lot and get in the bus, unbeknownst to the owner, and be like, ‘Man, it would be so great if we could buy this thing,’” Nolan said.

The $3,000 price tag seemed formidable. But Wentworth’s grandfather unexpectedly offered them a loan, which they eventually paid back with money from gigs. They nicknamed their new vehicle “The Bull.”

“Buying a vehicle that was dedicated to getting us around from gig to gig was really exciting. It was one of these steps that you imagine when you picture your trajectory of success,” Murphy said. “As soon as we got the thing, we knew that we wanted to get on the road.”

First, the band booked its week-long recording session with Hartman. During their stay, living out of The Bull and sweating in the Tennessee heat, they stumbled into a fancy dinner full of country music stars.

“This bus boy was going to show us a place to shower, but instead we ended up chatting with Amy Grant and Vince Gill, who we somehow convinced to come down and sign the inside ceiling of the bus,” Nolan said.

These were the first in a string of musicians, both famous and unknown, who would sign the ceiling of The Bull in coming years. Among those to eventually add their inscriptions were Robert Cray, Patty Griffin, David Lowery of Cracker, Jay Farrar of Uncle Tupelo, and almost every member of Willie Nelson’s band.

About a year after that first stint in Tennessee, Say ZuZu booked Hartman again and recorded the album “Take These Turns.” A three-week tour of the South followed, with former Groovechild member Steve Ruhm replacing Wentworth on drums. They slept in a loft in The Bull, which they had decked out with the band’s name above the windshield and bull horns attached to the front grill.

Heading out on that first tour heightened the band’s sense of its identity and mission, and their friends back home shared in their excitement.

“It felt bigger than us, and it felt like our friends and family and coworkers could see that we were embarking on this exciting idea,” Murphy said. “We were taking a chance, and they wanted to help us on the way.”

For the next couple of years, the band continued to play across New England and the nation. They also established a website—still a bit of a novelty in the mid ’90s—through which they could sell CDs. They soon got an e-mail from famed Italian fashion photographer Fabio Nosotti, who had gotten his hands on a copy of “Highway Signs” and loved the album. He had passed it along to Paolo Caru, editor of Buscadero magazine, Italy’s premier music publication. Caru also owned a record store, and he quickly ordered 100 copies of the CD. A short while later he ordered 100 more, then 300.

“In six months we had sold maybe 3,000 CDs,” Nolan said. “For a little rink-a-dink indie band in Newmarket, we couldn’t believe it. We were high-fiving.”

Shortly thereafter, the band got a call from an Italian promoter who said he wanted to fax them an offer for a tour. The band was so ecstatic they nearly forgot a key detail, Nolan notes. “I hung up and I was like, ‘Holy shit, we have to get a fax machine!’”

They borrowed his father’s ancient fax machine, and when the offer arrived, they could scarcely believe what it said. The promoter would cover all their expenses for travel, meals and accommodations, and pay them thousands of dollars on top.

Say ZuZu toured Italy for the first time in 1997. They brought along a couple of friends as a road crew, including Chris McCoy, brother of Tim McCoy. Their first concert in the country, at a centuries-old, 200-seat theater on the edge of the Alps, would be a memorable highlight of the band’s career. Following a multi-course meal at their four-star hotel, they walked across the street to the theater and played in front of a sold-out crowd, which enthusiastically applauded each song. Afterward, they signed autographs, sold CDs and were interviewed by a local TV crew.

Then they went back to their hotel suite, where, in a moment of elated mock gluttony, Jon Nolan and Chris McCoy literally rolled around in lira.

Following the 19-day tour, Say ZuZu came back home and recorded their critically acclaimed next album, “Bull,” at Big Sound in Portland, Maine. Following its release in 1998, they toured Italy again. They also hired a manager, Bill Beasley, then manager of Portland sensation Rustic Overtones, who had just signed with Arista Records. The next destination for ZuZu seemed inevitable: a record deal. 

Hope, Arkansas: a true story
During one of their early tours, Say ZuZu met a well-connected Texas band called Slobberbone, with whom they became fast friends. Slobberbone was signed to New West Records (currently the label of Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson and John Hiatt), and they began lobbying to get ZuZu on board.

Slobberbone also helped their new friends book a tour in Holland, where they had a following similar to ZuZu’s in Italy. ZuZu toured Holland for the first time in 1999, with a quick swing into Belgium.
Confident they would soon be signing with a prominent label, the band released one more independent album, a live disc appropriately called “Live.” But the deal with New West fell through, and Beasley’s efforts to shop the band to other labels fell flat.

Then, in 2000, James Nolan left the band and entered graduate school, and Ruhm went off to flight school. Jon and Cliff forged ahead, adding Tim Nylander on drums and Jon Pistey on bass. They recorded the album “Every Mile” and, at long last, landed a deal with German label Blue Rose Records.

The band’s final domestic tour in early 2001—now referred to as the Hell Tour—was disastrous. After an early gig was canceled and another shifted to a new location, the band was forced to make a nightmarish overnight drive from Chicago to Dallas. Along the way, someone inadvertently filled The Bull’s tank with diesel at 4 a.m., a mishap that caused them to forfeit the show in Dallas.

On the way to another show in Houston, two of The Bull’s rear tires exploded just outside of Hope, Arkansas. They missed that gig, too (Nolan later wrote a song about the incident called “Hope, Arkansas: A True Story”). Then it was on to Austin for a return to the South by Southwest festival, where they hit another snag.

“We limped into Austin and I was gassing up the bus and I noticed that the front two tires were completely bald,” Nolan said. “We were just like, ‘That’s it. Sell the bus.’”

Say ZuZu sold their beloved bus to a church in Austin, which planned to use it for Meals on Wheels. The Bull and its collection of rare signatures was gone.

More problems arose during the band’s final overseas tour of Italy, Germany and Holland. Due to a series of miscommunications, the band did not arrive in Germany until months after Blue Rose had arranged local press for the tour.

“Things just weren’t going as smoothly as we wanted,” Nolan said. “It was kind of like the nail in the coffin, I guess.”

The band did record a concert on the tour, and Blue Rose turned it into a double CD and DVD called “Live in Germany.” Released only in Europe, it would be Say ZuZu’s final recording.

Ending the band that had dominated their lives for the last 15 years was a difficult decision. But it seemed increasingly apparent to the band members that the project was no longer sustainable, economically or emotionally.

“That was a heartbreaking realization, because we were and are family, and this was a dream, it was a mission,” Murphy said. “It was something that, for a very long time, sort of fully embodied my identity.”

The Gang: one more night
Say ZuZu played a run of three sold-out farewell shows at The Stone Church in February 2003, and then they hung up their bull horns. They played a single reunion show at the same venue in 2007, and later played three nights in Wisconsin, with Tim McCoy sitting in on bass. McCoy will play bass for ZuZu again at 3S on Aug. 31. The rest of the band will include Jon Nolan, Cliff Murphy and Tim Nylander.

McCoy has remained a pillar of the Seacoast music scene, playing with Weed Inc., the Lemon Fresh Kids and, now, Tim McCoy and the Papercuts. In an interview that took place before Murgatroid’s sold-out show at The Press Room,  he said that for him, the August reunion shows are more than nostalgic powwows.

“I’m really looking forward to both of them for a lot of the same reasons,” he said. “I don’t even look at it so much as a walk down memory lane, but as just a chance to get together and do another night.”

Murphy now lives in Baltimore, where he has released a solo album and still performs occasionally. He said he looks forward to singing with his old friends and returning to Portsmouth, where 3S Artspace is helping to launch a new chapter in the local music scene. That scene is home to just as many talented and ambitious bands as ever, and some are developing international clout, in the way Say ZuZu once did.

“Now that I don’t live in the area anymore, I think I have a better appreciation of just how deep the (music) community is in the Portsmouth area,” Murphy said.
Nolan is now married, the father of three children, and owner of a recording studio in Rollinsford called Milltown Recordings. He still gigs in the area with his band, Jon Nolan and the Working Girls, and he is at work on his second solo album.

Nolan struggles to articulate what made Say ZuZu’s saga so special. It’s the same inexpressible sentiment that applies to any young American band that has worked, played and made music together for years, always in search of the next gig. The thing that matters most is that they all went through it together.

“The special thing about Say ZuZu was kind of feeling like you’re in a gang,” Nolan said. “There is a chemistry that is unique to a band that has a lot of history, I think. It’s just a blast to be with the guys. That’s the best part.”

Say ZuZu and The Mallett Brothers Band will perform at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth on Friday, Aug. 31, from 6 to 8 p.m. Donations are encouraged. For more information, visit www.3sarts.org.

< Prev		Next >