1994 found singer/songwriter Zank Bennett traveling through central Europe playing acoustic gigs in smoky nightclubs and bars. Bouncing from one city to the next with a guitar on his back and spare change in his pocket, he developed a small following which soon turned into a deal with Polygram Records.
Zank’s music intrigued Grammy-award winning producer Mack (Queen, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin) enough for him to take on the band and make their first record. The result was released in 1995, followed by several tours and support from radio, VIVA, and MTV.
Bennett is one of the few singer-songwriters who can claim to have paid the bills while working as a scientist. While still honing his style, and recently finding time to travel the world, Bennett found time to tackle a couple of engineering degrees and work as a scientist.
Not that his music career always runs with scientific accuracy“At one gig,” recalls Bennett, “I was standing just behind our main speaker at the Tiki in PB, leaning against the map that is on the wall there. A little later I was playing a big solo in a song called “Saturday Night” and I went to lean back on the map/wall. It wasn’t there. Unfortunately, I had spun another 45 degrees during my solo and hadn’t realized it. I was directly behind our front-of-the-house speaker; the one that sat atop an empty keg of beer. Still with my eyes closed, I leaned back and the three of us, the keg, the speaker on top and I, went tumbling the foot-and-a-half drop to the floor below. We were about three beats from the end of the song. The band never lost a beat and we finished the syncopated last few bars perfectly, more or less. And without a scratch.”