Shine Eternally: Zulu guitarist Braxton Marcellous’s ska roots

The past few years have felt like something of a modern renaissance for hardcore music. There's Soul Glo, Scowl, Sunami, and other bands whose names presumably start with the letter "S." On this episode of In Defense of Ska, the crew swaps out that "S" for a "Z" to chat with Braxton Marcellous, guitarist of Zulu. Listen now.

Marcellous chats about everything from his work with Zulu to the Southern California scene to, of course, ska music. As it turns out, the guitarist was in a ska band in high school and has attended his fair share of ska shows. From skanking to two-stepping!

The crew also dives into Braxton’s love for glam metal, his Van Halen and Sublime tattoos, and his initial reaction to hearing the band Choking Victim. Then, they touch on Zulu’s excellent recent album, A New Tomorrow, which has plenty of non-hardcore interludes.

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.

Sign up for the Patreon to support the podcast and get access to our extended conversation with Rob Harvilla.

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