Bold New Stripe

The band Zebrahead has brought a sound of a different stripe to the Orange County music scene, combining catchy melodic-rock choruses with trenchant rap verses.

The ranks of punk- and ska-influenced acts and wrathful Korn-sound-alike hard-rock bands have swelled locally during the O.C. scene’s commercial boom of the past 4 1/2 years, to the point where a “ho-hum, here’s another one” factor has set in.

Zebrahead was born in mid-1996 out of boredom with the old punk-pop routine. Four musicians from La Habra and Fullerton who had been playing that style in three low-profile bands united with a hometown rapper buddy to form a band in which anything goes--and everything comes out sounding persuasively organic and cohesive rather than patched-together and jumbled.

Zebrahead’s “Waste of Mind” album comes out today on Columbia Records, and the band will celebrate with a free show tonight at its home venue, Club 369 in Fullerton. First single “Get Back” (an original, not a remake of the Beatles classic) is spreading like a chain letter onto modern-rock radio playlists, helped by a push from influential Los Angeles station KROQ-FM (106.7).

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Zebrahead’s hallmarks are the intense, rapid-fire bark of rapper Ali Tabatabaee, coupled with the catchy chirping of Justin Mauriello, a rangy and reedy-voiced singer who sounds like the Offspring’s Dexter Holland and has a similar knack for writing hooky refrains.

A week from today, Warner Bros. will issue “Never Enough Time,” the first full-length album from Dial-7, a Laguna Beach band plying a parallel course. Acknowledged as a kindred peer by Zebrahead’s members, Dial-7 is much more steeped in reggae than punk, but they share an ambition to link the linear rhythmic thrust and verbal torrent of rap with the ear-pleasing arc of a good melody.

Should these two releases succeed, another prominent Orange County subgenre--to go with the local punk-fueled, ska-spiked and wrath-driven modern-rock variants--will have been decisively launched. Successful rap strains from O.C. might even help the outside world update its antiquated perception of the sprawling, ethnically diverse suburb as an unvariegated mass of white.

Zebrahead’s album opens with a glowering bass rumble and ominous, bird-of-prey shriek from the lead guitar; an uninitiated listener would assume that this is yet another kernel off Korn’s gloomy cob. But it’s only the start of a surprising trip that, for all its edgy modern-rock vistas, takes byways into a sun-dappled guitar solo reminiscent of Jerry Garcia on “Someday,” Santana-style guitar shredding on “Feel This Way” and a colorful digression to the Caribbean during the title track.

Down the home stretch, Zebrahead decides to try its hand at funky disco music, and, on “Fly Daze,” comes up with a lustrous, sentimentally romantic piece that pines for ‘70s pop culture and sounds like a potential hit.

Zebrahead’s members recently sat around a table in a conference room in the Cal State Fullerton Student Union building--their makeshift hospitality room for a noon performance on campus--and mirrored in conversation the blend of easygoing, fast-quipping fun and earnest intensity that went into their album.

“I can’t wait to see what the reaction is,” Mauriello, the youngest member at 23, said of the prospect of listeners finding that Zebrahead’s alterna-rock platter features a big helping of disco for dessert. “I hope kids have open minds and they can think that even though it’s disco, it’s fun.”

Ben Osmundson, the dreadlock-sporting bassist, said it’s all in keeping with Zebrahead’s guiding principle: “Dare to have fun.”

That was the theme of the band’s performance for a student audience. Mauriello, whose goofy streak and friendly manner could have made him both class clown and the class president, bounced around in hip-hop baggy pants wide enough to fit a baby elephant, mugging as shamelessly as David Lee Roth. Osmundson and guitarist Greg Bergdorf also had airborne pogo-dance tendencies while keeping the musicianship sharp, with elder statesman Ed Udhus, 30, as the solid anchor on drums. Tabatabaee, a disciple of Ice Cube, went for straightforward intensity and concentration, taking a firm stance behind his microphone, grabbing it with both hands and barking out rhymes in a tongue-twisting, staccato rush.

Though essentially a lighthearted band, Zebrahead puts substance into its lyrics. The album portrays young people bumping up against obstacles, facing the temptation of hopping on trends to fit in (like the comfortably upper-class gangsta wannabes Tabatabaee mocks in “Check”), giving themselves pep talks to boost their determination and hewing to a central virtue of to-thine-own-self-be-true.

The band is also willing to be openhearted on songs such as “The Real Me,” an ode to a supportive girlfriend, and “Move On,” a pledge of empathy and support for a friend whose life has run aground.

Here and there Tabatabaee gets in some traditional hip-hop boasts about the band’s performing prowess, and Mauriello has fun playing the role of a leech-like ex-boyfriend in one number.

By coincidence, Zebrahead’s “Someday” updates Chuck Berry’s brilliant “School Day” for the hip-hop era, tracing the events of a disillusioning day at high school and holding onto hopes for deliverance through romance or, perhaps, a rock ‘n’ roll dream come true.

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Some of the shine evidently had gone off the rock dreams of Udhus, Bergdorf, Osmundson and Mauriello in 1996. Tired of the punk-pop routine they had with the bands they were in, and familiar with one another from sharing bills on the local scene, they started jamming informally.

Tabatabaee, who was 6 when his family fled to Orange County from Iran to escape the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini, was a fan of 3-Ply, 409 and Once There, the bands that the other future Zebrahead members played in.

Between sets at Koo’s Cafe in Santa Ana one night, the five got onstage--well, the corner of floor that passes for a stage at Koo’s--and played “Check.” It was Tabatabaee’s first musical performance; he previously had acted in theater productions at UC Irvine, where he earned a degree in biology (Tabatabaee was on track to enter medical school before Zebrahead’s rising fortunes kept him at the microphone).

“For me it was electric,” Udhus recalled of that one-song experiment. “We’d played so many shows for the same people, and there was a different reaction from the crowd.”

Sensing they were on to something with the rap-punk blend, they explored further possibilities and eventually left their previous bands.

Punk-pop “is fun, but when you’re in that genre there’s not a lot of diversity you can play with,” Bergdorf said. “We wanted to do something else.”

Zebrahead’s members cite several precursors for their fusion of rap and alterna-rock. Bergdorf points to Rage Against the Machine, whose guitarist, Tom Morello, pioneered some techniques he employs in Zebrahead. Band 311, one of the first to score hits employing rap and catchy punk-pop elements, is another important forebear.

“311 paved the way for a lot of this music coming out now,” Tabatabaee said. “Without them, I don’t think we’d have gotten signed.”

Taking its name from the 1992 film “Zebrahead,” about a white teenager attending a mostly black inner-city school, the band began to play with the members’ various influences.

Mauriello had acquired his sweet tooth for tunes listening to his father’s collection of ‘60s records, including the Beatles, the Kinks and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

“I loved the way they sang. The choruses were always so catchy,” he said.

As a budding guitar player, he tried to emulate hot hard-rockers such as Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen. And he eventually became immersed in melodic punk, with Green Day the biggest influence among an extensive list of favorites that includes the Offspring, the Descendents and Big Drill Car.

Randy Cash, the booker at Club 369, was taken by the band’s melodic knack and effective merger of rap and punk. Cash had seen lots of bands trying to blend rap and rock at the club, but without much success. He made getting a deal for Zebrahead a personal project.

‘A Naturally Appealing Sound’

“There are too many bands trying to do this [blend], but Zebrahead has a naturally appealing sound. They’re not trying to be hard or heavy; they’re being themselves--happy-go-lucky, funny, nice guys. And the thing they’re doing that other bands aren’t is they’re delivering a great melody. A lot of punkers don’t like hip-hop, but they still like Zebrahead. They’ve kind of filled that gap.”

Cash helped the band build its draw at Club 369 with favorable slots and free shows, hooked it up with a manager he trusted and during the fall of 1997 helped usher in a parade of record company scouts to check out the band.

“They’re not know-it-alls,” said Cash, a musician who helped write “The Real Me.” “They’re always open to suggestions. They’re not one of those bands that has a ‘been there, done that’ attitude. Having an open mind created a lot of success for them.”

Zebrahead’s debut release, a 10-song EP recorded in one day and intended only as a demo, came out early this year on Doctor Dream, the venerable O.C. alterna-rock label. Zebrahead had already signed with Columbia, but the big label agreed the independent release would be helpful in getting attention before the big push for “Waste of Mind,” which includes new versions of five songs from the EP.

Zebrahead has had a taste of touring, including dates last summer on the national Warped Tour and a brief trip to Europe for a major festival in the Netherlands and a club gig in London.

“We wanted to make [the album] on the upbeat and make it something that lifts your spirits,” Mauriello said. “We have nothing to be angry and hard about.”

If Zebrahead’s positive spirit and varied sound hit home with a big audience, the affable Osmundson, who holds a degree in marketing and finance from Cal State Fullerton, has some merchandising ideas in black and white:

“We’re talking about the potential of fur.”

* Zebrahead plays a free show tonight at Club 369, 1641 N. Placentia Ave., Fullerton. 10 p.m. (714) 572-1816. Also Thursday with Goldfinger, the Flys and Betty Blowtorch at the Barn, 900 University Drive, UC Riverside. 8 p.m. Free. (909) 715-2252 or (714) 991-2055. Also Saturday with Far and Hot Sauce Johnson at the Roxy, 9009 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 8 p.m. $12. (310) 276-2222.