Zebrahead’s Ali Tabatabaee guides us through the making of the band’s ambitious, years-long EP series, which recently concluded with the release of ‘O’.

It really started when Adrian [Estrella, Vocalist] joined the band, which was right around the pandemic. None of us knew when we’d be able to get together again, let alone tour, so writing became a way to keep ourselves sane. We started working on batches of five or six songs and thought, why sit on them? Let’s record them and get them out.

It gave us something to be excited about and hopefully gave everyone stuck at home something new to listen to as well. We liked that an EP let us write faster, release music faster and hear what people thought without waiting two years to put out a full album.

We learned a lot working this way. In the past we’d write 40 or 50 songs, narrow it down to 14 and then really start digging into those. With the EPs, we might start with eight songs, pick the best six, and really focus on making those as good as we can.

You get a little more attached to the songs because there aren’t as many of them. I think that’s one of the things we really enjoyed about it. We could come up with an idea, really focus on it, finish it and get it out into the world a lot quicker.

‘III‘ (2021)

The first song we ever worked on with Adrian was ‘Lay Me to Rest’, and that ended up being the first single we released, so I’ll always remember that one. We were learning how to write with Adrian and he was learning how to write with us. The biggest thing I remember was just how easy it was. Adrian had so many ideas right off the top of his head and everything clicked pretty quickly.

Looking back, I think a big theme on ‘III’ was new beginnings coming from old endings. Matty leaving was the end of one chapter for the band and Adrian joining was the beginning of another. Even ‘Lay Me to Rest’ being the first song we wrote together had a little bit of that in the lyrics. I don’t think we necessarily planned it that way, but it fit where we were as a band at the time.

Making ‘III’ also showed us how much we liked working on smaller batches of songs. Instead of getting a ton of songs halfway done and coming back to them months later, we could take an idea and keep working on it until we felt it was finished. Then we could record it, release it and actually hear what people thought while it was still fresh to us. That whole process felt a lot more immediate and gratifying.

‘II’ (2023)

By the time we got to ‘II’, I think we were all a lot more comfortable writing together. Adrian knew us better and we knew him better, so everything felt a little more natural.

One of my favourite memories from that EP was ‘No Tomorrow’. We shot the video at a skate ramp in Orange County with pro skater Erik Dressen and a bunch of other skaters. Getting to hang out with everyone and shoot that video was just a really fun day and definitely one of the things that sticks out to me from that EP.

‘I’ – (2024)

By the time we got to ‘I’, I think we had really started to hit our groove with Adrian, and everything was coming together a little easier.

‘Sink Like a Stone’ is probably one of my favourite songs from all of these EPs. I love the lyrics, the chorus is super catchy and we got a really great response to it. It’s also become one of the songs from this whole batch that we play the most live. ‘Pulling Teeth’ was another one that had a ton of energy and was really fun for us.

‘O’ – (2026)

I think ‘O’ is probably the most musically diverse of all the EPs. ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ is more mellow and rap-heavy, then you have ‘Smoke Signals From My Couch’, which is a ska pop-punk song. We had our friends from the horn section of Reel Big Fish play on that one, and they honestly made the song so much cooler. I liked it before the horns, but I loved it after.

Then you have something like ‘Happy Endings at the Movies’, which is just a really catchy, melodic pop-punk song. I think this EP shows a lot of the different sides of the band, which is probably my favourite thing about it.

It’s interesting looking back at the whole thing now. We really learned to appreciate how quickly we could write a song, record it, release it and actually hear what people thought. We’d never really worked that way before.

People consume music so differently now, too. A lot of people are listening to playlists and singles instead of sitting down and listening to an entire album from beginning to end. So now we have to figure out what we want to do next. Do we keep making EPs or go back to making albums? There’s still something really cool about finishing an album and having this complete thought where all the songs somehow work together.

Right now though, we’re just excited to get out and play these songs. We’re in Japan for Summer Sonic right now, and then we have a long European tour coming up in November and December. After spending all this time writing and releasing these EPs, getting to play the songs live and see how people react is probably the best part.

And obviously none of this happens without the people who have supported us all these years. The fact that we still get to make new music, travel around the world and play it for people is something we’ll never take for granted.