For drummer Linwood Regensburg, the late Jessi Zazu had a unique way with words, whether it be to capture the raw emotion of a relationship in song or employ a wisecrack to break the seriousness of a situation. It’s something Regensburg immensely enjoyed about her during their days playing with popular alt-country Nashville act Those Darlins and afterwards as the duo he’d eventually name Mama Zu.
“Jessi’s lyrics have always blown me away,” says Regensburg. “Her lyrics to me always paint a picture in a very clear way, even if it’s something abstract. I was always just a big fan of that.”
He continued, “[Looking back], if we’re not making music, we’re like making jokes or coming up with a sketch comedy kind of situation, which usually I’m the butt of the joke typically.”
The long awaited release this week of their debut album Quilt Floor is bittersweet for Regensburg. Following the amicable breakup of Those Darlins in 2016, the longtime collaborators began working together and fleshing out song ideas they had. Zazu would send Regensburg a recording of lyrics she had written and he would build a demo around it. He found that she always had ideas, whether she was painting or writing, mentoring young musicians or ways to be an activist for various causes.
Sadly, shortly after they started working on songs for the album, Zazu learned she had cervical cancer. After a brief pause to process the news, they reconvened to continue working on music, working around doctor visits and whenever she had the energy to work. They worked out a schedule around her treatment schedule. Often Zazu would send Regensburg a voice memo on a Monday, do chemo on Tuesday and Regensburg would use the rest of the week to build a demo and send it back to get her feedback. By late summer, the pair had recorded and mixed an album to near-completion.
Working on music gave them a welcomed escape from the news that the cancer had continued to spread. After a courageous months’ long battle, she passed away in September of 2017 at the age of 28.
It was a devastating blow to Regensburg, who tried to figure out what was next. He ultimately shelved the tapes, too wrapped in grief to finish them. However, after a few years away from the project and regaining his passion for creating music, he got the urge to revisit the project and finish what he and Zazu had started. The process was therapeutic and challenging. He polished nearly-finished tracks and rebuilt songs out of various pieces. That could include pulling a drum track on an older, alternate recording or simple phone demo.
Regensburg’s favorite song on the album is “Safe Place to Stay” because it was the first song they started working on and it doesn’t have a traditional, normal song structure. Amid a rich, atmospheric pop melody propelled by synthesizers, Zazu’s emotive lyrics provide a matured and realist perspective on a breakup. He was left speechless upon hearing the finished version of the song.
“I was blown away when that happened because it’s nice when things don’t turn out exactly the way that you thought it would,” he says. “The beauty of collaborating with people too is creating something that you didn’t know was coming. I think it does sound a little different from what people might expect, but also it sounds like Jessi.”
The album showcases the dynamic nature of their collaboration, offering a mix of shoegaze, power pop, riot grrrl punk and psychedelic rock. Not ones to stay confined in one genre or put limits on themselves, Zazu and Regensburg enjoyed the freedom of letting each song dictate the direction they took. The album has a dynamic sound in the vein of the mix-tapes the pair grew up with. Zazu’s lyrics tackle subjects such as breakups (“Safe Place to Stay” and “Made of Dreams”), boys’ clubs (“Guitar World”) and grind culture (“Capital Kind”).
Scummy Water Tower recently caught up with Regensburg to talk about his emotional journey in revisiting Mama Zu, why collaborating with Zazu was appealing after the end of Those Darlins, and finding joy in the small moments.
It’s been quite an emotional road to release the band’s album in the years following Jessi’s passing from cancer in 2017. Can you talk a little bit about that roller coaster of emotions and how you reached the point recently where you felt ready to revisit the project?
Yeah, I mean, I don’t even know where to start with it in a way, I guess. Because I feel like with any creative project that you’re doing, you want to finish it and put it out. So, there’s always that kind of tugging at you. We never really finished everything in full. Some of the songs were pretty much done, and then some were maybe part of the way there and we were working on it at the time. And then after [Jessi] passed away [in September of 2017], I tried working on it a couple months later. I just wasn’t really having any fun while I was doing it, and just felt like, “you know what? Maybe I’ll wait a couple of days or a couple of weeks.” A couple of days turns into a couple of weeks, and then a couple years later you’re like, “oh my God, I need to get back to it, even if it’s going to be painful.”
But I feel like it’s good for you, obviously, if there is something that you’re afraid of doing, essentially to just kind of dive in. I started working on it again in late 2020 and then I kind of made a goal like, “oh, I’m just going to work on it kind of bit by bit and not rush anything.” No timeline, there’s no anything really. And then right when I got settled in is when I started playing shows again and just getting busier. So, then that ended up slowing me down.
And then there’s always, when you finish an album, it takes about a year and change for it to come out. So that’s always painful, especially for something like this where I put off doing it for a while and then you have to wait for the label scheduling and wait for the manufacturing. But it was just, wow, it was something that I was kind of scared of. But then once you get into it, it kind of turns out to be a good way to spend time with someone that’s gone. It’s one of the only capacities, I guess, in which you can in a sensory way because there is the sound of her voice and you’re working on the thing that you were collaborating on.
I can relate a bit to that with having lost my dad. We were very close and into music and I still feel a connection with him through listening to music.
What’s crazy is if you share certain bands or certain songs with somebody, it never goes away. And no matter how many times the song comes on, it’s like you’re transported into that space of when you’re in your car with your dad or your friend, and that song comes on. And unfortunately, if it’s going to make you cry or going to make you feel a certain way, it’s going to happen. But it’s crazy how powerful that is.
You mentioned that it was creatively challenging finishing the tracks. How do you think you were able to find a balance that you were happy with?
I feel like when I was younger, I used to try to work in a way where, this is when I was in bands that weren’t very good, but when I wanted to work on songs, I feel like I would always wait for inspiration. But that doesn’t really work. I feel like ultimately you just have to sit down and get started. So, I would look for days where I had time where it’s like, “oh, I can sit and focus on this for six or seven hours or something,” and I would just kind of plug away. And then if I didn’t get anything done, it was frustrating. But then when you do get it done, you’re like, “those days I felt like I didn’t get anything done.” That was just the pathway. It’s frustrating working on something by yourself that you were doing with someone else, I feel like, because the other person is there to bounce things off of and give you whatever the critiquing is. And I feel like it saves a lot of time because if an idea is bad and another person will tell you, but if it’s just you by yourself, it takes you longer to figure that out.
The origins for this project started during Those Darlins’ final tour, and it sounds like you and Jessi were kind of at a crossroads in your careers. How did the idea for this project come together and why did it feel like the right time to do something different?
It’s kind of unfortunate. With Darlins, we had actually recorded an album, I guess this was in 2016. We had an album that was more or less done, but kind of in the middle of working on it things just kind of felt off. And then by the end of doing it just between Nikki [Kvarnes], Jessi and I, everybody just thought maybe this is it. It just felt like kind of a struggle. And the band had been around for 10 years, so it wasn’t like we were only together for a short time and split. I feel like it was more of their choice, but I guess the band had kind of taken its course, but we still had some touring that we had to do that was on the books. We were going out with Shakey Graves, and once we decided this will just be what the final tour is, we realized that all the shows were sold out basically. So, we’d be playing first and we’re like, “well, we might as well wait and do a proper tour.”
But it was awkward during that time. We decided this in September, and this tour was in November. So then for two or three months, you’re basically just not telling anybody that your band is going to split up and playing shows as if everything’s completely cool. And then we announced our final tour, which was 2015 going into 2016. So, then we have our final tour, and then there’s a blizzard that happens in the middle of it. So, we ended up having to postpone some of the shows, and then maybe two months later, the other shows were booked. And then we played in New York and Philadelphia. And I feel like it was during those shows where Jessi and I knew that the band was going to break up, and that we wanted to continue on, whether that meant taking some of the songs that she and I had put together that would’ve been on the Darlins’ album or putting together something completely new. And we didn’t even know what it was going to be necessarily or what, but we wanted to get started on it. And then it was one speed bump after the next, in a way.
And then literally the day after our final tour was over, we basically were like, “all right, let’s wait a month. Let’s just take some time off and then we’ll get together and we’ll see what we got in terms of going forwards and we’ll make a plan.” And that was kind of the day that the journey of [Jessi] dealing with cancer started, which is kind of crazy to think about. We were supposed to have lunch that day, and then Jessi had gone to the doctor. She basically called me, she was like, “I need you to come pick me up. I got to go see a different doctor and get some testing done.” And that started that.
How was it helpful for both of you to have the outlet of music to get through that?
What’s funny is I didn’t press her at all. I was totally cool when she was like, “I want to wait until I’m done with the first round of stuff, before we even focus on it. I kind of just want to go get the radiation, go get chemo, just kind of chill out basically while this is going on.” And I was like, “oh yeah, of course.” So, we didn’t actually start working on anything until later in the year. But of course, during that whole time, Jessi’s painting and drawing and doing all kinds of stuff, and I think she was putting some songs together, but we weren’t really doing anything.
We actually started working on music I guess it would’ve been late ‘16 into the spring of ‘17. But it was great. When somebody’s going through cancer, they have good days and bad days. It is hard to tell what the future is because you don’t know if the treatment is working for a certain period. Everything seems like it’s up in the air. And I mean, I can’t speak for her, but for me as a friend, when you’re working on stuff, it would kind of create a bubble from everything else and kind of make it feel like everything that’s happening on the outside is taking a pause. And in a way, it’s the feeling I get when I listen to the songs. I think about that as opposed to everything else that was going on.
What was the inspiration for the band’s name?
It’s kind of a pun on her middle name Zazu. While we were working on stuff, we never came up with a name. I just remember asking her later what she wanted to call the band, and that’s just what she kept saying.
The band’s sound has some elements that longtime fans of Those Darlins will recognize as well as some new wrinkles. How would you describe the project’s sound and songwriting style and what you were hoping to achieve?
Well, I guess to preface, we didn’t completely finish all the stuff that we had started on…We didn’t know exactly what the style would be. I had just proposed like, “well, what if we just go in the direction where the song feels good in?” So, if it’s a punkier song, let’s just take it to 10, and if it feels like something else, let’s just go there and see what happens. Because there’s really no parameters on anything. I felt like if we were able to record 16 to 20 songs that 12 of them would fit together and we’d find that thread. We didn’t finish everything. So, sonically some of the songs exist in a little different space than some of the others. It was just trying to be free, and just trying to find what sounds good.
But I was a little worried though, in a way, because if you were a fan of Those Darlins, you might hear some of the songs that maybe have more synths and might not like it. But I feel like if you’re trying to create something that’s authentic, you can’t focus on that.
What are some of your favorite moments working on the project with Jessi?
Tough, I mean, so much of it. I just loved to spend time with her in that capacity. So, I feel like most of the time I was having fun. It’s funny when you work on music, when you’re doing takes and trying to focus and play, everything is super focused and serious. But we would make fun of each other a lot in between. So, I feel like there was plenty of me trying to play a solo or something and bombing it and then her talking all kinds of shit after the fact…The things that stick out to me a lot of times are really goofy moments. I think that that’s what I enjoy about being alive.
It’s amazing how small moments like that can become big.
Yeah. I can’t remember if this happened if we were working on music or not but I think I was at her house and we were working on something, maybe we were prepping to go into the studio or something, and she wanted a smoothie. And I was like, “oh, I’ll make a big batch for us.” It was an avocado smoothie. I don’t remember exactly what was in it, but I was just using whatever she had in her fridge and freezer, and then I made it. And then the machine that she had, which was like a Nutribullet, I think is the brand, I couldn’t screw the top off. Literally. I think maybe it had gotten so cold, the thing would not come off and I was just fighting to get this thing off and it would not come off. And then I had to be somewhere and I’m kind of stressing out.
I wanted some of the smoothie too. I was hungry, but then I felt bad. I volunteered to do this thing and then we can’t have any of the smoothie, the damn thing won’t open, and then eventually I just give up and then somehow I got the top off and I’m like, “oh, I got to go. Sorry.” And so, I sprint out and she just sends me a text five minutes later and she said “That smoothie was terrible. What did you put in it?” I was like, “what?” This is the stuff that I think of, because I feel like the majority of the time that we would spend together, it was stuff like that happening.
Jessi sounds like a really fun person to be around.
Oh yeah, for sure. If we’re not making music, we’re like making jokes or coming up with a sketch comedy kind of situation, which usually I’m the butt of the joke typically. Lots of laughs. I feel like that’s one thing many people don’t know about Jessi though, or maybe you wouldn’t think is how funny she was just on a constant basis. Going back to what you said about your dad earlier, when you lose somebody, it’s odd how because you have all these feelings about them and just about them not being there, right? There’s this big kind of blank space essentially, and there’s all this pain from that. But then it’s almost like the thing that hurts the most is when you start thinking about something funny, perhaps like an inside joke. And that person is the only person in which you could tell this thing to if you sent a text. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll think about something that happened on tour, and maybe I’ll see somebody that will make me think of a thing and then she would be the person that I can text that would get the joke.
It looks like you’ve been pretty busy with other projects of late too.
Yeah, I play bass with Low Cut Connie, who put out a record in September [2023]. I’ve been busy working with [frontman] Adam Weiner and the crew and going out and playing shows and stuff, really having a lot of fun with that. I was in the band in 2018 and 2019, and then I quit. I wasn’t having fun and just still kind of getting over the loss of my friend, and part of me was like, maybe this isn’t for me anymore, just going on tour and being in the middle of all this stuff.
And then I was like, I need to figure out what the situation is. And then I quit and everyone was fine with it. They were like, “yeah, we get it.” And then Adam had called me in February, 2020 and was just asking me if I was interested in playing again, and I was like, “sure, let’s try it.” And then we were supposed to go to South by Southwest, and that’s when the pandemic had started oddly enough, and then all being in that band was put on hold for a year, basically. I’ve also been recording with Tristen who is based in Nashville. She’s got a record coming out later this year.
Thanks for taking time to talk to me. I really enjoyed getting to hear the album.
It’s funny, I actually started fucking around with one of the songs that we didn’t finish right before Christmas. It was right before I left for some shows I had before Christmas, and so there might be another song that gets put on later, but we’ll see. The strange thing about working on music that you did with somebody else is just knowing if whatever you’re doing is in bounds with what they thought was cool, but it’s hard to say.
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
