What, you’re asking, is a Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad? Depends on whom you ask:

“This is the sort of great, unheralded, out of no-where release that re-energizes a rock 'n roll fan's faith,” wrote Curtis Ross of the Tampa Tribune. “If that sounds like hyperbole, it's not. With Rolling Stone proclaiming "Rock Is Back" (as if it would know), the Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad should be hailed as rock 'n roll gods.” The Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad is raw, fast and smart, a Tampa-based quartet playing its own guitar-fueled songs with an alt.modern sound. Influences are plentiful but so well absorbed and varied as to render the sound original. Guitarist Zoom's lyrics concern sex, isolation, um, sex – “Hell,” wrote Ross, “who cares what he's singing about when he sings this well?”

This summer, the Squad is touring the Southeast in support of its new CD, 22 CIGARETTE NIGHT.

Is 22 any good?

“It’s bad enough Johnny Zoom makes music this good,” wrote Ross, “but does he have to make it sound so effortless? Like Zen masters of the big beat, Zoom and Co. roar through seven numbers about sex, rock ’n’ roll and nicotine. Come to think of it, the many cancer-stick references are a little disturbing. Order the CD and leave smoking cessation tips at johnnyzoomcheerleadsquad.com.”

So who else thinks this is a drop-what-you’re-doing, go-see-this-band kind of band?

“The Squad plays tight, quick tunes with no shortage of cleverness,” wrote Gina Vivinetto of the St. Petersburg Times in a review of JZCS’s last release, HoneyBabySweetie. “Hear the sonic mayhem of ‘Joanie Loves Chachi,’ with its shout-outs to ‘Mrs. C.’ ‘Another Doomsday’ is deliciously morbid. Want something sexy? ‘HoneyBabySweetie’ rivals Love and Rockets' So Alive in hypnotic eroticism, with Zoom coaxing, ‘You're so cute in your business suit/I wish you'd put on the leather boots.”

22 CIGARETTE NIGHT was WMNF’s “CD of the Week” in early August, and the station gave away copies live on the air. (http://www.wmnf.org)

The Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad is based out of Tampa, Florida. It plays catchy songs with a certain reckless quality that both children and adults crave and respect. Almost all of its songs are about girls. Except for the ones that aren’t.


Meet the band:

JOHNNY ZOOM: Has been called a vocal stylist a la Lou Reed. He says he'll “take that.” Former member of Tampa bands no one's ever heard of The Pancake Farmers and The Twinkybeats and played rockabilly guitar backing an Elvis impersonator in The Elvis Explosion. He is a matinee idol in Japan.

MARK TOZIAN: Consummate backbeat drummer, Tampa hipsters say “Ringo and Charlie can kiss Toz's ass sideways.” A tireless, driving musician with years of experience, he could do this stuff in his sleep and sound great. He also knows lots of jokes and stories.

JASYN WILDER: In a band full of secret weapons, Jasyn is the bass player with the kung-fu grip. He is a graduate of Full Sail RECORDING STUDIO in Orlando, spent several years working in Nashville studios and is responsible for engineering 22 Cigarette Night. He is the serious member of the Squad.

DEAN HENDRIX: While pretending to go to college by day and playing in various bands by night, Dean did more damage with his heartfelt but tough play as lead guitarist to the Carolinas in the latter part of the 20th century than any hurricanes or tropical storms. He knows how to surf.

Still not convinced? What was it that Scott Harrell of the Weekly Planet said? Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad is… “… fuzzed out, yet laid-back. It's way loose, yet aptly so. It sounds like late Morphine frontman Mark Sandman fronting a hotel-lounge band that got so sick of playing the standards "the right way" that they snapped. Amid a bipolar army of rockabilly-ish outfits that either play it clean n' dated or punker than thou, The Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad is a welcome iconoclast. New Wave touches ("Another Doomsday"), blurrily chiming ballads ("Number One Fan")... and the coolest lo-fi sound this side of The Strokes come together to oddly engaging effect. I wouldn't be surprised to find this CD making college-radio dents in, say Athens or Austin...”

It’s the Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad. It’s coming to your town. You can either be there when the time comes or hear about it later. Your choice.

These industry squares say you've got to sum up your band's sound in one solid, succinct sentence.
"It's like falling in love!". "It's like consuming dope off the body of a Vegas cocktail waitress!" "Hot rockin'!"
Well, the band said no to those one liners, but yes to recording almost all live, leaving inspired mistakes in, using profanity when necessary, and going for excitement and feel over accuracy or precision.
I'm not going to go on and on about how fucking great this band and this album is, because I'm trying to retain some class in my old age. But these guys and these songs are TOPS in my world, and now they get to be TOPS in yours too. Be kind to them, or smack 'em around a little bit, that's what they're here for...

Give it back to the kids-
Your pal, CHET