From their underground sessions in the subways of New York City to their rise to stardom playing alongside the likes of Lizzo, Big Frida, Beyoncé and more, Too Many Zooz has come a long way, thanks to a Reddit thread.
On Nov. 1, Too Many Zooz will be performing at Xavier University as a part of the Xavier Music Series.
CityBeat recently connected with Leo Pellegrino, known as Leo P, over the phone about his musical journey and what Too Many Zooz really means. Spoiler: it’s not that deep — it’s fun, just like their music.
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CityBeat: Thanks for taking the time to chat. You’re originally from Pittsburgh, but now you’re based in New York, correct?
Leo P: Yeah, I love Pittsburgh. I had a really great childhood where everyone was very supportive of me being a musician. I went to the Creative and Performing Arts High School, it’s called CAPA. Then I went to Manhattan School of Music for college, where I lived in Harlem at first, so that’s when I met Matt, the trumpet player of Too Many Zooz, because he was in college with me.
I started playing in the subways with a different band called the Drumadics, and the drummer for Too Many Zooz; he goes by “The King of Sludge.” He was in that band. Then he kind of just announced to everybody that he was going to start playing the subway more often, and I was the only person who showed up. At first, it was me, him, and then his son also played … he would be with his mother, who lived in Portland, in the school year, and then he would be with his dad over the summer. That was the original band, I guess. Then, eventually, one day, Matt was hanging out at my place, and I was like, “Hey, you want to come play your trumpet?” And then we all started playing. The King of Sludge’s son had already gone back to Portland, so it was just the three of us. And that first day, we made a pretty decent amount of money, so I was like, “Let’s do this again tomorrow,” and we kind of just kept doing it until so many people were like, “[You] need a name!” And we just threw out a bunch of stupid names.
It’s really hard to come up with a name at this point because so many good ones are taken. None of us came up with “Too Many Zooz” — our friends came up with the name, and they were like, “Oh, we don’t want to use this name; it’s a cool name, but we’re not going to use it.” I was like, “Can I use it?” And that’s how the name came, and we kept playing the subway, and that was really just the plan. We weren’t necessarily considering traveling all over the world or anything. It was Reddit that really actually helped us, which is kind of random. People posted about us on Reddit, and that [subway] YouTube video blew up, and then we started gaining fans all over the world. Then we started touring, which wasn’t necessarily perfectly smooth at first, but we started getting more and more fans. We collaborated with Beyoncé on her Lemonade album and the performance with her at the Country Music Awards.
CB: That’s awesome! Was there a specific way that you were able to make that jump from the viral video to collaborating with these artists?
LP: I think when we first started getting opportunities, we really grinded as much as we could. It kind of just worked out for where we all were in our lives. Right now, I would not want to do that. (laughs) It’s nice to have a touring schedule and a tour manager and a manager; just being able to be a smooth machine. Never stop, never disappear. We were always playing stuff when we had the chance, taking opportunities here and there, and just traveling a bunch, covering a lot of area. We would just prioritize taking as many opportunities, and, as a unit, staying consistent — not letting people forget about us.
We were trying a bunch of different ways of recording, whether it be us all recording in a room or doing a live recording at a show or us multi-tracking on different instruments; just coming to the table with different styles and genres that we like. and imitate some of our favorite artists; I think that all plays a part in it. Just having creative videos — I know that our YouTube video for “Bedford,” that was a big thing for us that led to us having a Google Pixel commercial. Just trying to keep creative videos going and never stopping.
CB: You said that you look to artists that you like — are there any specific artists that are a big influence for you? You can hear within your music a big ska influence. I heard that you may or may not have been in a ska band, maybe even a metal band — I was curious how those genres lend to the current sound with your sax.
LP: When I was 12 or 13, I was really into jazz music. Part of that is that it’s really one of the only musical forms with featured saxophone players, where it’s their band — John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, or on the smooth side, Kenny G. For me, just to name a few [influences]: Gerry Mulligan, Harry Carney, Pepper Adams. I was kind of into jazz because it was a way of making myself feel a little bit more unique. Not many people were listening to jazz; I felt like I was kind of cool and maybe a little more interesting. I absolutely loved jazz, and then, slowly, I started getting into a little bit of ska. I had gone to jazz clubs, but it’s not really that many people, and it’s more like a seated vibe. As I got older, I was kind of more into wanting to throw a party, have a social scene and have a social life. My friend had tickets to see Reel Big Fish, the ska band, it was totally a crazy party vibe. I was like, “But there’s saxophone; this is crazy!” I don’t even know if they had a sax at that time, but at least there was trumpet and trombone. I remember that being inspiring, like more of a party vibe, and not like everyone just sitting there ordering hors d’oeuvres. I was into that.
I was in a ska band called the Kamikaze Hamsters, and I was in a metal band. It’s not like I was completely in love with music, I was more completely in love with throwing an event that young people were at, that felt like a party, and it felt like I was cool … or whatever. That stuff became more important to me as I got older in comparison to the little bit shy 12-year-old that always had his headphones on, listening to jazz. I think that made me, in general, want to get into other genres of music. My dad was a musician too. I started off by playing clarinet, and he’d play the accordion. We’d play traditional Italian music. I was into classical music. Basically, I was into any genre of music that had clarinet or saxophone, or anything like that. I went to jazz school because I was still into jazz, and it was something to go to school for. I feel like jazz is the best study of the improvisers, so anyone who improvises should study jazz; that’s my personal opinion. Jazz school kind of was closed-minded. It felt like everyone was living in this bubble of “this is jazz … jazz is better than everything else because it’s more complicated. It’s not as popular as everything else because people don’t get it, so that makes it better. We’re better than everyone.” I kind of got a little dark on that over the course of jazz school, even though I did have a great time.
Too Many Zooz’s style, for me, was kind of a rebellion. I don’t want it to be all complicated, with all these different chords, and, actually, we’re just going to only have two melodic instruments that can’t play chords at all. When we perform, it’s very sax and trumpet — it’s just two instruments — kind of like a punk-rock version of jazz. Some of my teachers told me that I couldn’t move around too much because it would mess up my embouchure, which is how you make your face whenever you’re playing saxophone. It was also a rebellion for me to move around and everything just kind of felt like a musical rebellion.
At that time, I started listening to more hip-hop and electronic music. I remember Skrillex was really important to me, and Diplo, and then their project together, Jack Ü. I remember that stuff was coming out, and it was all important to me, and definitely us in general. Anytime I hear something I really like, I just try to make something like it without copying.
CB: This show is a part of the Xavier Music Series. Do you have any advice for up-and-coming musicians or jazz-influenced/classically-trained musicians specifically?
LP: Try to be as open-minded as possible when it comes to music. Even though I think having genres defined can be helpful for categorizing things … I think people sometimes get too locked into genres, and it can actually stunt some creativity because they feel like they have to adhere to a specific style. At the end of the day, music is just music. It doesn’t really matter if it’s combining a ton of different genres or if it’s a very strange combination of instruments or just something unique. Ultimately, I think finding your own voice is the most important part of artistry. Being really honest with yourself, even though it feels impossible. Follow your passion; it’s your life and not anybody else’s.
CB: Great words of wisdom. In general, what made you want to get into music?
LP: My dad played accordion, like I said. That was pretty influential. [Music] also gave me a lot of confidence when I was kind of a self-conscious kid, and I felt maybe awkward or not cool. It gave me a lot of confidence. There’s just so few things in life that give you so much back. I would play baseball or something and put so much time into it and still not be that good. And maybe it’s because I’m just naturally not good at baseball. But with the saxophone, I would put some time into it, and I would perform and maybe not even be that good yet, but just put so many smiles on people’s faces. It was just so much given back to me so immediately that it just felt like it was one of these things in life — this endless happiness.
Too Many Zooz performs as part of the Xavier Music Series at the Xavier University Gallagher Student Center Theater on Nov. 1 at 8 p.m. More info:xavier-university-music-series.ticketleap.com.
This article appears in Oct 2, 2024 – Oct 15, 2043.