ZEBYAH

Zebyah was formed in 1993 by twins Todd and Benn Saunders who were at the tender age of eleven.
Zebyah have entertained audiences of 8,000 people and participated in numerous community functions with booking sometimes up to 3 years in advance.
Lead Vocalist Allan Saunders or ’The Voice’ as he is known, took on the vocals in a big way. With his combination of great warmth and diversity his polished vocal abilities are described as breathtaking and dynamically versatile from a gut wrenching ballad to explosive pumpin‘ rock that is demonstrated by our diverse repertoire.
Todd Saunders (Lead Guitar/backing Vocals) and Benn Saunders (Bass Guitar) are an inseparable team, being twins. They have dominated many competitions such as ‘The Hasting Battle of the Bands‘, SCU band comps and Best Instrumentalist Awards. They have also played support for ‘Super Heist‘, ‘Picco’ , headlined Rip Curl Session Search, JJJ’s ‘Sick Puppies‘,in their band Shade.
Zebyah have been on the same bill as acts such as Troy Cassar-Daley, Shakaya, Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter as well as having had lead singers/friends to jam with such as Aussie Idol's Dan England and Jo Anderson from Rush on the channel 10.
Due to their advanced skills upon their instruments Todd and Benn aged 27, have completed and graduated in bachelors of Contemporary Music and Secondary Education at Southern Cross University Lismore (Graduating 21 April 2006). These muso’s will leave you gasping and screaming for more…..
Lead Female Vocalist Deborah who is the Rock Queen of the Coast.. and female legend vocalist who was for ten years the driving force drummer (until she accidently was found to have power pumping vocals), belts out absolute power leaving audiences are captivated with her dynamic articulation and energy whilst performing. Deborah’s ability does not end here, with her versatility to perform a vast array of contrasting styles, she can leave almost anyone in ore with just one note with songs from Melissa Etheridge, The Baby Animals, Pat Benetar to Pink and many more......
Zebyah now have Addam Gathercole as master drummer ...Adam's talent on the drums started at the tender age of 1.5years of age and there are photos to prove it lol - as time went by it was then when Adam's early career started which was mainly localised in the regions of Sydney with Adam learning the ropes within the industry by working along side many famous faces by lugging as a roadie then moving to the Mid North Coast Adam began his own business ADDRUMS teaching to play drums.
Adam is excited to be drumming our rock style & is pleased to have recently joined Zebyah and 'Zebyah' is extatic to have Adam " in the hot seat" where he was meant to be ... playing those awsome heavy beats that Adam's name is synonomous with and 'that has to be seen to be believed'.
We are looking forward to expanding our fan base and are prepared, equipped and enthusiastic.
Our life is Music, Music, Music! We eat sleep and breathe music. Bookings are up to12 months in advance with New Years Eve sometimes booked up to 3 years in advance.
We are ‘The Family That Rocks’! A quality rock cover band that are willing to captivate and hope to stretch our wings to further our fan base.
THE ZEBYAH STORY.... HOW IT ALL BEGAN......
Zebyah originated in June of 1990. when we purchased a Newfoundland Dog from some people in Goulburn nsw and he was just beautiful, ten weeks old and with paws the size of a bear. Well the breeders, they arrived in a Toyota landcruiser and the puppy got out of the otherside of the passenger rear door and all we could see under the car was the size of his feet, they were huge - about the size of an orange round.
My friend Carolyn halliday and her daughter Rebecca were both with me at the time. the breeders had named the puppy Sampson which obviously means very large, but i didn't want a dog that id paid a small fortune for to be called Sam, it just didn't seem fitting - so i began to think of majestic names for this huge and powerful animal. i loved Greek gods names like thor and Zeus and i had always loved names starting with z. so i took my name Deb changed it to Zeb, took the y from my maiden name and ah the end of deborah which came from biblical times which added the power and some glory to the name i felt. so from then on Sampson was now Known and called 'Zebyah' and he lived and died peacefully at home with all of us around, he was 13 and 1/2 he died december 21 2003 and the boys todd and benn took six hours in the blazing summer sun digging his grave in tears. we loved his so much. he weighed 68kgs the size of a full grown human being.
When Todd and Benn my Twinns turned ten, i said to them that all kids should play a musical instrument, and pick one. i played a bit of piano and folk music with numerous friends when i was young so i had taught the basic chords to the boys at this time on an acoustic guitar. so they had decided to play electric guitar. my husband Al said no electrics, only accoustic, so i rang bob berrigans music store up and sneaked two guitars into the house before he could say no way.
I had the boys taught by numerous teachers including matt boys, Scott Sweeney, Dean Snook and numerous others. Scott Sweeney once gave me the best advise to produce better muso's out of the boys, and that was to up grade their instruments regularly, if the boys come to a plateau and loose faith in their instrument then get a new one, and every time we upgraded their instruments they found instant interest and kept getting better and better.
One day the boys formed their first band that consisted of Chase Perry drummer, Dillon Champion bass player, Benn Saunders guitarist, Todd Saunders guitarist and Nicki Buckshiram as the vocalist. they played Purple Haze by Jimmy Hendrix, heaps of Silverchair, Angel is a Centrefold mainly cause Nicky looked like a model she had previously came second in an Aussie wide Model Quest and had one mountains of trophies for singing country can you believe. any way, Benn flew in the back door of our house back in 1993 and said mum can we call the band after the dog? i said are you sure, yes he said and the rest is history.
There have been about six versions of the band Zebyah as members are hard to keep and also determination is rare in kids at that age. it wasnt until the boys turned 15 and they couldnt find a drummer that i had decided to buy a drum kit to tap along with them. for two months that drumkit sat in the corner of our lounge room like an artists canvas, no-one was allowed to touch it, not at all. then i hired a drum teacher to give me about 5 lessons and within six weeks we performed at our first Gleam which is great lakes entertainment and music. we had my husband al on vocals, benn on bass, todd on lead and we played gliserine by bush, nothing else matters by metallica, in the early hours by cat fish and animal by pearl jam. we got a standing ovation, i dont know if we were good, i just think it was a bit of a shock because no one would have ever guessed that we did it.
Gleam was an inspirational guide in todd and benns career path, venues that encourage young people to have confidence and that burning desire to better themselves and express themselves rather than hang around the streets and cause havok which leads to crime, these venues should be commended unfortunately gleam doesnt have a venue at the moment to encourage a basis for young up and coming musos to develop and mature its a real and honest shame. our first gig was at the old bar tavern in 1998. cool eh we wilL be back there just check on our gig guide.
As for trying times working as a family, we have a code where the presures of every day life can get you down, so we understand that you have to sometimes get it out , so you can say what you want, and even go off yelling to get any frustrations out but one thing is that we are a family - formost and most importantly nothing else matters. The family always comes first. always. We are very very close, we are a unit. we only have to look at each other to know what each other is thinking. and with the boys being twinns there is even a closer more special bond than just siblings could ever imagine. we all have fun making up any way. And when we play sometimes we get into a zone, where its just like a dream, so unreal and we are actually living our dream.
We love to play at The Wingham Hotel, Sue and Dean Lynch are like family and its just like going home. The Old Bar Tavern is Like a watering hole, we love the people at oldbar, they are like an extended family and when we dont see them for a while its just like missing a family member. At The 'Tuncurry Bowling Club' we always have a blast as I grew up at Tuncurry and we are playing at The Laurieton Hotel and The Great Northern Hotel who both have new management with a really great atmosphere.. check out our venues and tell them that we sent you... expect an awsome night and be prepared to party at the next Zebyah performance .. i know we will certainly be ready to rock, we expecti huge crowds at most performances as we love all of our fans and suporters and try to include them and have a chat at each show. We love performing it is second nature to us and is like air to us - we play we breath. its like an out of body experience ... it doesnt feel real.
We are mainly a cover band because thats what people want to hear, we do have origionals that Todd and Benn wrote, Benn majored at uni for composition or composure of song writing and also education so both of the boys are qualified high school music teachers graduating 21.6.06 or last year, i am so proud of them and they are such a dynamic duo when it comes to song writing, we have benn and todds origional materials with singers such as Dan England from australian idol singing them as he was in a band with the boys at uni Benn has a couple of origionals that i would kill to perform but he is rather precious with them and i am still working on him letting his old mum have a go at them.
We are very rock orientated, love music that is drivey but al also loves regae and power ballads, funk and pop so i would say that we are eclectic. but put our feel to all of our songs, people have said to us on many an occassion that all you have to do is close your eyes at one of our gigs and its like your at the real concert, thats cool to get complements like that we think they are just being biased but lap it up anyway. ha ha. even though we are a cover band, we spend many many hours finding songs to suit al's and my voice because you just cant get up and sing any thing it has to suit your voice and that is the main basis that we use when making song choices.
Al has a melodic, quality crooning voice , no one has ever heard the stuff that he sings the best, eg electric light orchestra, talking heads etc and he sings all the time, so much so that i am constantly telling him to shut up it drives you mad, but i love it, he sings so many different songs that i wonder where they come from. as for my songs, i love the old stuff like Neil Young, Bob Segar, Carol King, Pat Benitar, Kate Bush, David Bowie, i always loved the slightly off bear stuff. mmm i suppose its whatever you grow up listening to eh. we havent tried any duos yet, not ready for that quite yet al has a very powerful voice and i think he would drown me out full stop. we have got heaps of new material that we are working on and some origional material in the wings so watch out for that. Todd and Benn's band Shade have also supported JJJs Sick Puppies, Superheist, Picco, RipCurl Session Search, came second to The Butterfly Effect in MMM's competition, second in a Aussie wide battle of the bands and one other numerous best instrumentalist awards and more.
Our most memorable performance would have had to have been new years eve 1997/98 cant quite remember the year, in Forster oposite the Lakes and Oceans Hotel, there would have to have been about 5 - 8,000 people there and the boys were about 14. at that time there was the kids band and our band, i have the kids band with Nicky singing on video they were so cool then. we played Shine by Collective Soul and Push by Matchbox 20, they were new hits and out doors felt so good. al had just had his apendix out, got out of hospital the day before and had to hold himself up by a pole on the back of a truck of course i made him do it. oh but what a night , absolutely awsome. thanx to gleam once again.
To improve the local industry people have to support live entertainment or there wont be any bands to go to, so check out the paper, gig guide, radio and leading edge music (Ph: 65512155), Coastal Music (Ph: 0265813016) often know whats going down in the local music industry. we have a new myspace page that tells people where we are playing at www.myspace.com/zebyah this has our dates, venues, pictures, and what to expect at our gigs. we welcome all coments good or bad. The good points is that these venues that i have previously named support live thats live entertainment and with those who love live entertainment supporting these venues the industry can only get better and you never know may produce some huge rock star of the future.
We have real plans for the future, a family that plays together, stays together, we look forward to new levels of playing and the unexpected zones that can be produced at our gigs when the crowd is truely into the music is one of the best feelings, i would say that most muso's would also say that this is the ultimate high. we do however look forware to new and exciting challenges that lie ahead for Zebyah, we hope Zebyah lives a very long life making people have a blast and enjoy what we do for them. it takes aproximately 30 man hours to set up, pack, perform, repack, unload to bring one of zebyah's shows to a venue. the boys work so hard and hope that people realise what it actually takes to kick some serious rock tunes at each gig.
We are truly greatful to all the fans that undyingly support Zebyah, they also are a part of our family. thankyou.
Dont forget check out our myspace page to see where we are playing, we are also available for private functions but only at a venue with security.
(COPYWRITE 2007 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)