Zookeeper: An Introduction
by Father Swiss
Chris Simpson writes songs and sings them, and he calls himself Zookeeper when he does this. He used to be in some other bands a long time ago. One was called Mineral. The one after that was called The Gloria Record. When the latter stopped playing together, Chris had no home for his songs. But he kept writing them of course.
When he had so many songs he couldn't keep them straight he called a bunch of his friends, and everyone got together in a studio in Austin (where we all live) and recorded them (you can hear how the first attempt at this turned out on the song "Delivery Room" from Belle City Pop's 'Zookeeper' BCP-001 release).
Then we traded instruments, invited more friends, learned more songs, recorded more songs, played a few shows, recorded again, and played some more. Drove to Los Angeles and back. Drove to New Mexico and back. Flew to New York and back. Chris went to Europe on his lonesome and toured and recorded and wrote some more. He came back. We recorded, played. Recorded, played. Went out on a couple tours. Chris got married. We recorded and played some more.
That's pretty much how it's been going ever since. Chris writes really wonderful songs. His friends love them, and love getting to play them for other people, or in the studio, or sometimes just the living room. He keeps writing them, and keeps singing them, and we keep playing them. And that is Zookeeper.
