We asked for five, but Zachary Gray couldn't resisting naming nine
The Zolas' career can be split into two halves: before 2016's Swooner, and after.
"Swooner was the album that changed our lives," frontman Zachary Gray tells Exclaim! "Previous to that, we were playing half-full bars across the country, sharing hotel beds, and then suddenly we had a couple hits and were playing real venues and meeting so many new people after every show. It was like a movie."
Having been fairly quiet for the past couple years following the pandemic-era touring cycle of 2021's Come Back to Life, the Zolas are reuniting this fall for a tour to mark the 10-year anniversary of Swooner — and they also have "a new project recorded together. We'll never stop."
To mark the Swooner-versary, Exclaim! asked Gray to rank his five favourite songs from across the band's catalogue. He took a different approach to the assignment than anyone else in High 5 history, grouping songs together into thematic categories (meaning that he actually ranked a total of nine songs).
One notable track didn't quite make the cut: "Honourable mention to 'You're Too Cool,' which was the first time I remember writing a lyric that felt like it came to me from a future version of myself where I was a better writer," Gray says. "All the songs on this list were just me chasing that feeling for years and years."
"Swooner" won Best Pun at the 2017 JUNOS, which is the only award we've ever won, so that song was huge for us.
4. "Violence on this Planet" and "Wreck Beach/Totem Park"Come Back to Life (2021)
We wrote our album Come Back to Life in 2019 and 2020, and much of the it talks about how those years felt in the moment. I don't know if "Violence" is the best of them, but it's one of the most fun songs to play live. Some songs on that album are like a movie where you find out in the third act who the killer is, and it turns out the killer is you.
3. "Why Do I Wait (When I Know You've Got a Lover)" and "Escape Artist" Swooner (2016) and Ancient Mars (2012)
Our band is known outside of Vancouver because of heavy pop songs (which I love), but the songs that will outlast us are the sadboi ones that our day-ones fell in love with. "Why Do I Wait" and "Escape Artist" are the shining examples. "Ancient Mars" counts too, for sure.
2. "This Changes Everything," "Bombs Away" and "Male Gaze"Swooner (2016), Come Back to Life (2022) and Swooner (2016)
These are songs about "issues": climate change and the affordability crisis and incels, respectively, which are cringe subjects for a three-minute pop song. They were not hits and maybe they didn't work, but three-minute pop songs are the only way I know how to express myself, so these were my attempts. I was always proud of how intimate they turned out.
Most of the songs I've ever written are about meet-cutes and the apocalypse, and this is the one that started it all. "The Great Collapse" was an early beta, but "Ancient Mars" was the first that really resonated with people.
