IT’S ALWAYS an absolute pleasure for us here at Backseat Mafia to be invited to premiere a new artist who brings the quirky thrill to music, has that excitement of the new, appears from behind the curtain with a tune that’s fun and breezy and effortless, combines melody and fun in new shapes. So, obvs we’re completely made up to be debuting tune from a bright new indiepop talent, Lazy Daze, today.
Zach Miller is the one-man creative force behind Lazy Daze. He’s a singer-songwriter and producer based these days in LA, though he’s originally from Cincinnati; he moved over to the coast a couple of years back now in order to pursue his passion for music and has since slowly built up a catalogue of songs.
And when you take a listen to the track we’ve got for you, “Reminiscing”, you’ll see how well his project was named; it’s a proper laidback breeze of twangy riff, wordless backing vocals – always the best, I find – a rush of summer guitar sun with a British post-punk edge. Music to lay back to, eyes wide shut.
Zach’s simple aim? To make your day a bit better with his sounds, as well as to create more of a space for Asian-Americans in the indie scene.
Zach says of the track: “‘Reminiscing’ was written about all the people and places I missed and wasn’t able to see, and the relationships I had that I wondered whether or not would exist once the pandemic ended.
“I originally wrote ‘Reminiscing’ when I had just come out to LA, and was really missing the people I had left behind back in Ohio.
“Once the pandemic hit, though, the song took on a whole other meaning and really just became about the nostalgia I had for life before all of the terrible events of 2020. It became really hard for me not to reminisce about life pre-pandemic, and that really became the basis for coming back to the track and completing it.”
Zach’s journey towards LA and Lazy Daze began with reluctant childhood piano lessons, but his first real musical loves, Blink 182 and The Strokes, led him to the guitar. As the years passed he fell for the surf sounds of The Beach Boys and Dick Dale – although he did have a brief, fun dalliance with rap under the moniker Cadillac Zac, which he says helped expand his songwriting boundaries.
The pandemic and all its purdah privations temporarily scotched Lazy Daze plans, although he did manage to drop a first single, “Mezmerized” last July – and what a sweet little cherry bomb that is too, full of yearning and taking that Julian Casablancas guitar chime and lending it a more Joy Zipper kinda sweetness.
He spent the pandemic laying down more tracks while also working on the viral frontline as a first responder at a hospital downtown, witnessing the coronaviral devastation firsthand; all of which trauma led him to double down and bring us some music that’s cute and ace and makes us happy. Which is as noble a quest, in these times, as you’d hope for.
Lazy Daze’s “Reminiscing” is out today as part of his debut EP, Pitted, on digital streaming platforms.
Connect with Lazy Daze elsewhere on the internet on Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
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