In the mid-’90s Orange County-based rock bands Lit and Zebrahead were playing backyard parties together, tearing it up in front of intimate, yet rowdy crowds at Club 396 in Fullerton and trusting each other enough to give one another haircuts while maybe not in the straightest frame of mind as they were hanging out at friends’ houses in Los Angeles.
“I have all of these old photos of us when we were like traveling in vans and RVs and we’re just hanging outside of the RVs or these tiny clubs,” Zebrahead vocalist Ali Tabatabaee said during a recent phone interview. “I also found these photos of us hanging out in Hollywood back in the day at a friend’s house and Ajay (Popoff of Lit) is giving me a mohawk and we’re all hammered. He has the buzzers and he’s trying to focus to make my mohawk straight. We were young.”
As both bands found success in the late ’90s with hit songs that took them from backyard parties and RV traveling to more luxurious flight accommodations and slots on big-name music festivals, they hadn’t had the opportunity to play together much since. They’ll reunite for a couple of Southern California shows on Wednesday, Oct. 18 at House of Blues in San Diego and Thursday, Oct. 19 at House of Blues in Anaheim.
“We played so many Orange County clubs with Zebrahead as we were both coming up,” Ajay Popoff said during a separate phone interview. “Then we both got our record deals and we went off to do big boy stuff, but I want to say the last time we played together was like 2001 at House of Blues Anaheim. Maybe we’ve done a festival here or there, but these shows coming up, they’re going to feel like real old school hometown shows because it’s those guys and us. And we have Fenix TX with us, too, so it’s really going to be a soundtrack of our coming up days.”
The Southern California gigs come ahead of Lit, Zebrahead and Fenix TX heading to Las Vegas to be a part of the second annual When We Were Young Festival,…
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