The title of the Zac Brown Band’s latest album, “Jekyll + Hyde,” doesn’t quite cover it. It’s evident where Brown was going with the moniker but perhaps something like ‘Eight Faces of the Moon” would have been more apt.
Brown’s eclectic act is arguably the most adventurous in the business. Sure, ZBB is classified under country but that’s almost a misnomer. Three years after Brown and Co. won the Grammy for Best Country Album with “Uncaged,” the act is cutting a creative swath through a terribly conservative industry by veering in a number of different directions.
The initial single,” Homegrown,” a spirited country tune, could fit on any of the prior Zac Brown Band albums. And then there are the rest of the “Jekyll + Hyde” tracks. The band’s wide sonic palette includes folk, pop, metal, gospel, Celtic and even electronic dance music.
“I really want to comment on the EDM,” multi-instrumentalist Clay Cook said while calling from Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H. “Zac was listening to some EDM and it moved him. He wasn’t analytical about it. He just felt like making an EDM song. I don’t want this to seem like some sort of cash grab because it’s not. We’re not looking at it like, ‘well, these EDM artists are making a lot of money and they have all of these young fans.’ That’s not what it’s about with us. It came about organically.”
Believe Cook since ZBB was headed in this direction. The band is a ’70s band that is somehow residing in another era, much like the Foo Fighters, who are not surprisingly good pals with the Zac Brown Band. Lead Foo Dave Grohl produced a ZBB EP, “The Grohl Sessions: Vol. 1,” which dropped in 2014.
“Zac ran into Dave Grohl at a store in Hollywood and went up to him and talked about what he wanted to do,” Cook said. “Dave signed on to produce us even though he never heard our music before. The sessions with Dave were awesome. He just completely gets it. When I was 14, I completely embraced what came out of Seattle.”
The latest grunge alum to impact the Zac Brown Band is Chris Cornell. The Soundgarden vocalist lent his massive pipes to the potent rave-up duet “Heavy is the Head,” the finest rave-up from “Jekyll + Hyde.”
“Someone said, ‘wouldn’t it be cool if Chris Cornell sings on this track,” Cook said. “And when he heard about the idea, he said he would love to do it. So Zac sent his vocal to Chris but without all the screaming (which Cornell is known for). It was so cool.”
Cook laughed when asked to compare the ’90s icons. “Dave Grohl is like a 17-year-old and I mean that in the best possible way,” Cook said. “We played the Hangout fest last year (in Alabama). The Foos-played Friday and we played Saturday but I showed up a day early and jammed with them. Dave handed me a beer and I was never so drunk. He’s so much fun. Chris Cornell reminds me of when I was 14 and he was the guy singing up on the mountain. Any project with him is surreal to me.”
Cook doesn’t realize it but the Zac Brown Band is jumping from one echelon to the next with each album release and tour, just like the bands he admired during his youth. ZBB, which also includes fiddler Jimmy De Martini, multi-instrumentalist John Driskell Hopkins, guitarist-keyboardist Coy Bowles, bassist Matt Mangano, drummer Chris Fryar, and percussionist Daniel de los Reyes, is a commercial monster. The band is headlining baseball stadiums during the summer but it’s obviously not all about sales for the ZBB. If it were, the octet wouldn’t be pushing the envelope by recording such disparate tracks. It’s handlers have chimed in about playing it safe but the band doesn’t listen.
“Everyone wants to hold on to that piece of the market and people we work with, management, people from our record label (Big Machine Records/Republic) have said at times, ‘this is not a good idea guys. You need to stick with doing things a certain way.’ But Zac doesn’t operate like that. He won’t do it. Maybe we stretch out due to boredom but I think it’s more so us trying to make the best music we can make.”
Cook name checks one of his favorite bands from his teen years when talking about acts taking risks, much like the Zac Brown Band. “Take Smashing Pumpkins,” Cook said. “They never made the same record twice in a row. It didn’t matter if people bought their albums or not. Their first couple of albums were big but when”Adore” hit the market (in 1998), their fans were taken aback by it. They took such a left turn. I’m not saying we’ve done exactly that but like the Smashing Pumpkins, we’re making the best, most challenging music we can. We’re not going to repeat ourselves. And if we want to make music in a number of genres, we’ll do it. It’s only going to get more interesting from this point.”
ZAC BROWN BAND appears Saturday, June 6 at the Xfinity Theatre, 61 Savitt Way, Hartford. Tickets are $40.50, $52.50, $78. Show time is 7 p.m. Information: 860-548-7370, livenation.com
