Zebra (band)

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Zebra

Background information
Origin	United States
Genre(s)	Hard rock Heavy metal
Years active	1975-Present
Label(s)	Atlantic Records, Mayhem Records
Members
Randy Jackson Felix Hanemann Guy Gelso

Zebra is a hard rock band that came together in 1975 in New Orleans, Louisiana. It features Randy Jackson (vocals/guitar), Felix Hanemann (bass/keyboards) and Guy Gelso (drums). Their mainstream debut on Atlantic Records was in 1983, highlighted by the singles "Tell Me What You Want" and "Who's Behind The Door". Like Twisted Sister, Zebra cut their teeth on the East Coast club circuit, frequently playing at clubs in Long Island, NY.

Zebra started their career by playing covers of Led Zeppelin, Moody Blues and Rush songs: it was their early fans' reaction to their Led Zeppelin renditions that helped convince the band to bring their act to New York.

They had introduced their original material into their cover sets years before they were signed to Atlantic Records, including "The La La Song", "Free" and "Bears" (originally entitled "The Bears are Hibernating").

Zebra had been noticed as an original act to contend with by local colleges and even had some of their early original performances recorded by Long Island FM radio station WBAB, culminating in the inclusion of one of their songs on a release of "WBAB's Homegrown Album", which commemorated some of the station's best local acts and performances culled from their on-air "Homegrown Hour" program.

The band continued to tour throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and in 2003 released their first album of all-new material since 1986. A DVD of recent live performances, mostly from a show at the Hard Rock Cafe in New Orleans, is set for release in early 2007.

[edit] Trivia

Jackson explained how the band came up with their name: "We were sitting around an uptown New Orleans bar called the Boot trying to come up with a name ... after a few pitchers of beer, we saw a picture of a lady riding a Zebra (actually from a 1922 Vogue magazine cover) on the wall, liked the image and decided that was it."