Martin Zellar: Who He Is and What He Loves

Minnesota’s own alternative country/rock musician Martin Zellar, who also happens to carry the unfortunate title of being one of the most underrated songwriters of the past decade, is appearing Friday, January 29, at the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre. Former lead vocalist and guitarist of the well-known Minneapolis band, the Gear Daddies, Zellar now lives in central Mexico with his wife and three children.

Originally from Austin, Minnesota, Zellar moved to Minneapolis, ostensibly to go to the University of Minnesota in the early 1980s. “I lasted there almost a year,” Zellar said. “Bottom line is I knew that this [music] was what I wanted to do so I was screwing around more than anything. In Austin, if you knew you wanted to get out of there it was like ‘college’…”

“The band [the Gear Daddies] was formed in Austin. At that point it wasn’t officially the Gear Daddies but three of us were playing together down there and then everybody moved up to the Cities.”

“A lot of what I became and what the Gear Daddies wrote was a combination of growing up in Austin and listening to either a top 40 radio station or a classic country radio station. Back then we weren’t even buying albums. You were listening to the radio and those were the two stations. I always thought that was what we were – kind of the bastard sons of top 40 radio and classic country.”

Zellar said that in a lot of ways his music hasn’t changed from what he wrote in the Gear Daddies to what he writes now. “I’ve always written about what’s going on in my life at any given point,” he said, “although that’s obviously changed with every CD. That’s the only way it’s changed other than as a song writer you hope you get better as you go along as far as the craft of songwriting. You’re able to pull more stuff off later on as you learn more.”

But Zellar’s life has definitely evolved. “In the last year it’s changed dramatically. I had basically semi-retired. I was going to continue to play but only when there were shows that I really wanted to do and make albums when I wanted to make albums. We’re living in Central Mexico now, my wife and I and our 14- and 17-year-old sons, and earlier this year we had a little surprise baby. We have a 14 and a 17 year old and a six-month-old…so everything has changed…a lot. Obviously it’s been a great, great year that way but everything we thought we had planned out is now completely rewritten! We were thinking we’ll buy a condo back in the Twin Cities near the new Twins stadium and go back for summers and go to the games everyday and that’s sort of fallen by the wayside…so yeah, we’re living in Mexico with a brand new baby daughter who’s a Mexican citizen. I think at this point we’re committed to staying here and I’m going to be working again.”

However, Zellar points out that the shows that are coming up are the kind of shows that he would take anyway. “I had wanted to put the bar shows behind me.” He said. “It made sense because my fans are my age and they aren’t going out to bars anymore, especially until 2:00 a.m. I had already wanted to switch to more theatres and venues. I’ve got seven shows coming up and they are all in theatres. Those are the kinds of shows I had planned to do before and now I’m going to be expanding on that a bit. Doing more summer festivals and things like that, staying busier.”

Zellar also spent time in a Neil Diamond tribute band. He explained it this way: “It started out as a joke and took on a life of its own. Not as a joke, like Neil Diamond is hilarious, but we had some friends, a band called Soul Asylum, and back then they were really a harder, faster, edgier side of music. We decided we were going to put together this Neil Diamond cover band to open for them at a New Years Eve show and we thought it would be really funny. We thought we’d be the objects of scorn and have stuff thrown at us (laughs). But no, they even liked it!”

“We found out that even if people think they don’t know any Neil Diamond songs, they do. Just through growing up, in the background or whatever, people were like ‘Oh my God, I know that one and I know that one!’ It worked on a lot of different levels. Seriously, it was a lot of fun and it became something we were making a lot of money doing – we were drawing crowds of 1000 people. But for me, it was taking over and people were forgetting that I’d spent 25 years writing and recording my own stuff and this whole new group of people just thought of me as the Neil Diamond cover band guy. That was the main reason I had to let go of it. At this point I can’t imagine resurrecting it but then again, I don’t rule anything out.”

Zellar has experienced a lot of changes during his time in the music business. “I’m not unique,” he said, “but there are very few people who started out on the smallest indie label in Minneapolis and then went to Polygram, which was the biggest label in the world at the time, then went to Rykodisk, which, depending on how you look at it, is either a really small major label or a really big independent label, and then putting CDs out on my own. I’ve been all over the place and you know, in a lot of ways they all suck. Every single one of those things has had a lot of things that sucked about them and then some positive things.”

“The business end of doing what I do, I have to swallow that because you’re a musician and you love playing and you love writing and that’s what it’s about. Unfortunately you have to deal with the business shit to make a living doing it. Obviously, it’s changing constantly. The Gear Daddies’ first release was only on vinyl, there were no CDs. There was vinyl, then cassettes, then CDs. Now CDs are on their way out and it’s digital downloads, so this is my fourth format that I’m on in my career. That’s how long I’ve been around and the changes that have occurred. It goes back to what I said; the one thing that remains the same is it’s still about writing songs and performing. I think that’s a lot of the reason why the business part sucks, is because the business people know we do this whether we get paid or not, because it’s what we love and it’s who we are.”

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If You Go

What: Martin Zellar, Michael Pink, Cowboys in Sneakers
Where: F-M Community Theatre
When: Fri, Jan 29, 8 pm
How Much: $20, all ages