Zeus Keep It In The Family

Toronto's Zeus could teach us all a thing or two about time management.

In 2009, in addition to releasing and touring for a debut EP (Sounds Like Zeus) and playing backup band to Jason Collett, founding members Carlin Nicholson and Mike O'Brien dove into recording and producing.

"It made for a very busy year: recording The Golden Dogs' latest album — Coat Of Arms, I think it's called — and Jason's record [Rat A Tat Tat], and then after that, Danielle Duval's," says Nicholson.

"In between all that, we recorded six more Zeus songs and did some touring with Cuff The Duke and Metric. It definitely made for a busy time but we're all family, working towards the same thing."

That year of non-stop work has led Zeus to their debut full-length, Say Us — a collection of 12 pop-rock tunes that sound straight out of the 1970s. The fact that they covered a Phil Collins song ("That's All") on their Sounds Like Zeus EP, last year, makes a little more sense now.

Their chosen aesthetic is both a product of their environment and a natural tendency that landed them in that environment in the first place.

After some minor tweaking, the full Zeus lineup is now acting as Collett's backing band. The quartet's penchant for '70s rock vibes helped to land them the gig with Collett, but over time, says Nicholson, Collett's inclinations have been seeping into his own band's sound as well.

"You can deliver songs in many ways," he says, in describing how the tracks on Say Us turned out. "We could have put a dance beat behind every one of them. We were delivering pop songs and that was the way we wanted to deliver them.

"Now that it's just Zeus and Jason, I think we'll be able to grow as Zeus a lot more live. We couldn't be more pleased about how Jason's new record came out."

Zeus — rounded out by Neil Quin and Rob Drake — and Collett recently came up with a novel way to deliver their new albums on stage. In March, they'll be embarking on a cross-country tour (dubbed the Bonfire Ball) with Toronto's Bahamas, which will display the three acts in a simultaneous, non-stop, rotating amalgamation of their music.

"It's going to be a three-hour onslaught of this incestuous thing, musically," says Nicholson. "It's going to be the kind of thing where Jason pops up for a tune and we join him, and then maybe Ace [Bahamas' Afie Jurvanen] comes up and joins us and then we leave him alone."

Say Us will be available on vinyl, starting Feb. 9, and its CD version will hit stores on Feb. 23.

You can see Zeus on Feb. 26 at Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Knitting Factory and at New York City's Mercury Lounge the next day.

Zeus will play the following Bonfire Ball dates with Collett and Bahamas:

March 10 Toronto, ON @ Lee's Palace (Canadian Music Week 2010)
March 11 Guelph, ON @ E-Bar
March 12 London, ON @ Call The Office
March 13 Hamilton, ON @ The Casbah
Mach 17-20 Austin, TX @ South By Southwest Music Festival
March 23 San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord
March 25 Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
March 26 Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret
March 27 Victoria, BC @ Sugar
March 29 Canmore, AB @ Communitea
March 31 Edmonton, AB @ The Pawn Shop
April 1 Calgary, AB @ The Legion
April 2 Regina, SK @ The Exchange
April 3 Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Centre
April 4 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
April 5 Madison, WI @ Majestic Theater
April 7 Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern
April 13 Waterloo, ON @ Starlite
April 14 Ottawa, ON @ Zaphod Beeblebrox
April 15 Montreal, QC @ Le Petit Campus
April 16 Peterborough, ON @ Red Dog Tavern
April 17 Kingston, ON @ The Grad Club at Queen's University
April 20 Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
April 21 Northampton, MA @ Iron Horse
April 24 Brooklyn, NY @ Union Hall