The unassuming young man with the darkly tanned girlfriend looks like any other typical 17-year-old you might see at the mall. A backwards baseball cap covers his longish blond hair and his jeans are loose and baggy. He is wearing a dark sweatshirt with a band logo, ZMB, subtly printed on the front.
What makes this 17-year-old different is that ZMB stands for the Zach Myers Band, and he is Zach Myers.
Almost anyone familiar with the Memphis music scene has either heard or heard of the Zach Myers Band.
Although they have released only four tracks on one CD, they are getting airplay on local radio stations and perform in various venues around town. The namesake for the three-man band is being hailed as one of Memphis' latest music prodigies.
"The first time I heard him play I couldn't believe it,” said Kramer, a radio DJ for 94.1 the Buzz. Kramer describes Myers' music as a southern rock and blues mix in the same vein as Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Stevie Ray Vaughn. But he also sees Myers as having the potential to branch out and receive more mainstream airplay.
Myers has performed for the Buzz on their Saturday Showcase, Local Fourplay, which features local artists performing acoustically. He also performed last September at the High Point Pinch during Dingofest, a music festival sponsored by 94.1.
You would think that to receive this kind of attention at such a young age, Myers was probably playing the guitar before he could walk. But that's not quite true. Myers says that at age 11 his interest in guitars was piqued when he heard Led Zeppelin for the first time. He attended a Page and Plant concert at the Pyramid in 1994 and was amazed at what he saw and heard.
His mother, JoAnn Cloud, remembers the first time he actually played a guitar. Myers, who was 12 at the time, and a friend from Appling Middle School, Zach Sykes, decided to enter a talent contest. When JoAnn asked him what he was going to do, Myers said he was going to play the guitar.
"That ought to be a trick,” she said, since he had never played one before.
Undaunted, the two boys used Sykes' dad's guitar and made a tape. They won —and have the trophies to show for their efforts.
The next Christmas, Myers received his first guitar, and when he was 13 he began taking guitar lessons from Rick Forbis at Yarbrough's Music. After about two months, Myers started sitting in with bands at places like Neil's in midtown and BelAir in Cordova. Within six months, he was playing some sets on his own. Myers credits the owners of these venues with giving him his start.
"If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here,” he said.
It wasn't long after that when Myers and his family decided to let him finish school through the Gateway home school program. It allows him the flexibility to pursue his music and gives him the freedom to go on the road. Myers says he never really fit in at school anyway.
"Everybody wanted me to cut my hair,” he said. "I finally did when it didn't matter to anyone anymore.”
Currently, Myers owns about five guitars. He has taken apart his first guitar, a Series 10, and is planning to make his own from the parts. At one time, he owned a Les Paul, given to him by his dad, but now he plays a Paul Reed Smith.
In 1996 Myers played with Eric Gales at B.B. King’s and met Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The two keep in touch, and Myers considers him to be one of his mentors. In 1998, Shepherd invited Myers to play with him in a benefit for the victims of the Jonesboro school shootings. It was the largest crowd, over 10,000 people, Myers had ever performed in front of.
In 1997, when Myers was 14, he and two other boys started a band called Leisure Highway. They were a southern rock band playing covers of songs by groups such as Lynard Skynard.
They were one of the youngest bands around, and within a year and a half they were playing places like Elvis Presley's Memphis, B.B. King’s and at Memphis in May.
When Leisure Highway disbanded, Myers joined up with drummer Garrett Marshall and bass player Michael 'Mo' Morales to form ZMB. Myers defers to Morales as the real leader of the band and says it was 'Mo' who insisted on the name Zach Myers Band for the group. But Myers isn't really comfortable with the spotlight.
"Everybody brings something different to the table with this band,” he said. "If I was up there by myself, I couldn't do it.”
In fact, the band has become sort of a family affair with Myers' dad, Fred, managing, booking and promoting the group. They also have a co-manager, Vicki Wills, who books them on the East Coast. One of the highlights of their fledgling career was playing at B.B. King’s New York club in August 2000 about two weeks after it opened.
"Our name was in the middle of Times Square on a big billboard — it was real cool,” Myers said.
This past May, the band played to sold-out crowds at a music festival in Norway. A promoter picked up one of their CDs in Memphis, and they began receiving airplay in Europe. The festival was unlike anything they had ever experienced before with fans hanging out in the hotel lobby waiting for autographs.
"It was totally insane,” Myers said.
Locally, ZMB plays venues like Newby's, the New Daisy and Hard Rock Cafe. Although he is underage, Myers doesn't have a problem playing in clubs where the patrons have to be 21.
"I don't drink,” he said. "My parents trust me, and I try not to let them down. I know my boundaries.”
In March of 2002, ZMB hopes to release a new CD, Finish Line to the Ocean, which is being produced by John Hampton at Ardent Studios. Myers credits Hampton with a lot of the creativity that comes through on his recordings. "I don't know what I'm doing,” Myers said. "I'm only a guitar player.”
In fact, modesty and sincerity are two traits that stand out in Myers. Buzz DJ Kramer recalls hearing him play an acoustic version of "Sexual Healing.”
"All I could think was how could a kid like this play a song like that with such feeling,” Kramer said. "I wondered if he even knew what the song was about.”
Myers knows he has even more to learn and is currently trying to teach himself how to play the piano. He is also experimenting with photography, some of which can be seen on the ZMB web site www.zachmyers.com .
As for the guitar, Myers said, “There are only 12 notes on a guitar; it's all in how you use them.”
If you want to hear just how Myers plays those 12 notes, ZMB will perform in Memphis next on Dec. 10 at the Hard Rock Cafe with Michelle Branch.
