- #1
- Posted: 05/31/2018 10:14
- Post subject: BAKED ZITI - The band that could have been
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If you were creating a fictional band, what would be the details of your band? This is just one example, you don't need to use the same template I do. I went way into detail, and I'm interested to hear what y'all come up with.
Band name: Baked Ziti
Genre: Alternative indie rock
Base city: Skokie, IL
Lead singer/average guitarist: Amir (Lincolnwood, IL, USA) - Founder of the band. Looks like he sleeps in a garbage can. Kurt Cobain's hair and charisma with thick-rimmed black glasses. Extremely outgoing personality, very political and controversial. Ran away from his extremely privileged home at age 15. At age 18, he officially changed his name to be just his first name, reason being that it sounds cool. Little-known fact - he only knows how to play 5 chords, but he's okay with that as long as no one finds out. Musical influences: Cobain, Noel Gallagher, Jeff Mangum, Dave Matthews
Guitarist/backup vocalist: Mo Symon (Rochester, NY, USA) - The most silent member of the band, wears the same Dark Side Of The Moon tank top every day, matched with jean shorts and socks with sandals. It kinda works with his short, lightly gelled black hair with barely noticeable blue highlights. Musical influences: Trey Anastasio, Eddie Hazel, Britt Daniel
Bassist: Evander Ellison (Liverpool, UK) - Co-writes most of the band's songs, but no one knows since Perry takes the credit. Is the official spokesperson for the band in the press since he's well-mannered and courteous. He has a more conservative look has a huge collection of patterned button-down shirts which he wears under his classy sweaters, paired with khakis and dressy-casual sneakers. Listens to mostly jazz and classical in his off time. Musical influences: Jaco Pastorius, Paul Chambers, Paul McCartney, sprinkled with a bit of John Entwistle
Drummer: Osborn Fischer (Berlin, Germany) - When the band was still just an afterthought of a few friends in art school, he was playing drums extremely loudly in the NYC subway when a very impressed Ellison approached him with an offer to join a band. Speaks English with a heavy accent. Wears a drummer shirt with no artwork and no words, performs barefoot and in his boxers, constantly has a goatee growing in (it never actually grows in), and gets by far the most girls out of any of the members. Has a tendency to yell when he performs a drum solo. Musical influences: Keith Moon, Dave Grohl, Carter Beauford
Backup vocalist/occasional multi-instrumentalist: Meital Jung (Toronto, CA) - Raised in a half-Jewish, half-Chinese home, she was exposed to musical instruments at a young age and it was discovered very early on that she is a musical genius. She made it a point to learn the strangest instruments, including but not limited to theremin, octobass, a variety of synthesizers, fluba, and cello. Dropped out of music conservatory to join the band at the request of her boyfriend, Evander Ellison. Has the voice of an angel, and dresses classy, like her boyfriend.
The members met at art school, with the exception of Jung, who met Ellison at Comic-Con.
The band name was created when Perry was extremely baked and was in the process of making ziti to munch on. He came up with the name as a double meaning and immediately pronounced himself a genius.
First album:Baked Ziti - A psychedelic explosion of sound modeled as a combination of Phish and Pink Floyd, complete with extended, beautiful, progressive jams...which barely sold. The band was not to be deterred, and they went on a long tour of bars and seedy clubs, during which they met the man who would be their future producer and manager: Stan Schwartzberg. The album is now appreciated in retrospect as a forgotten classic.
Second album: Frigid Moon, Scorching Sun - Built upon the shoulders of their first effort, this one sold relatively well among the hipster crowd due to better advertisement and a collaboration from the local record store in Skokie.
Third album: Plastic Cups - A change in musical style marked this album as the first mainstream success for Baked Ziti. After listening to Oasis' first two albums on repeat for a week, Perry developed a style of songwriting which would serve the band well. A combination of their earlier jamming methods with a Britpop influence, the songs were more poppy and compact without losing their artistic value. The hit single "Fork and Spoon" was written about famine in Africa after Ellison took a trip to Zimbabwe during the summer. It hit #4 on the charts in the US and #1 in the UK, and people started taking notice. The band went on a worldwide tour which would span two years, during which they wrote almost all the material for their next album. Everything was coming together.
Fourth album: Sweatervest - On New Year's Eve, the band's website dropped a teaser for their next album. The next day, Sweatervest shook the world to its core. The lyrics discussed a variety of topics, ranging from gun violence to gay rights to the Middle East conflict. Musically, the band incorporated more jamming into the non-single tracks while adding in splashes of different genres, including funk, R&B, and house. Critics finally paid the band complete attention and regarded the album as nothing short of a masterpiece in the vain of DSOTM and OK Computer. The album remained at #1 for most of the year, while the singles from the album took turns replacing each other at the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Then everything changed.
One morning before the first show of their upcoming world tour in Madison Square Garden, Earl Perry was found hanging from the ceiling of his trailer, with Fischer's lifeless corpse sprawled out on the couch. Both had taken obscene amounts of mind-altering psychedelics, and Fischer had overdosed. Not sure how to react, and tripping very badly, Perry committed suicide. Devastated, Ellison retired from music, changed his name, and made a quiet life for his family with his wife Meital. The world mourned for Baked Ziti, a band that very well could have become the greatest of all time.
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Hilarious.
