Zachariah and the Kings

Zachariah's Story:

Every great story begins with the question, “what do I want this to be about?” And a lot of times, we can forget why we started doing something in the first place. A little over ten years ago, Zach (the “Zachariah” in the name) decided to chase his dreams of being a guitarist that will go down in history. While he technically got his first guitar at 3-years-old, as all 3-year-olds typically do, he got distracted and did a million other things from piano, to jui jitsu, to archery, to judo, etc. and it wasn't until he was 11 that he wanted to pick up guitar again. After a couple of months of learning songs completely upside down on a right-handed guitar, his parents got him a left-handed guitar and after a few months of migraines and rewiring-of-the-brain (again, everything was backwards and upside down) he began to take lessons and took off.

Now 12-years-old, Zach (Zachariah) didn't know what he wanted to do and his mind was wild with ideas from being an astronaut, or a doctor, or the president, etc., but there was always that dream to be that rock star from the music videos he watched growing up. For Christmas that year, he got tickets to go see Carlos Santana, and for some reason, really really wanted him to sign the guitar that he got for his birthday earlier that year. Fast forward to the concert, this 12-year-old kid brings in his guitar and sits down in his seat;  the crowd is electric watching the legendary Santana play. Several times throughout the show, Zach and his dad would go up to the stage, get told by security to go back to their seats, someone scoffs and says “What does he think he's going to play with Santana?!”  we go up again, rinse and repeat. Eventually, a lady in the VIP section right next to the stage says, “Here, take my seat” right as the security guard was coming to tell them to go back to our seat for the 500th time. Almost as if on cue, Santana finishes the song and takes a break, and goes back stage and his keyboardist (David K. Matthews) sees Zach with his guitar and a sharpie and goes to tell Santana. Santana then comes out and signs the guitar, and it's an absolute dream come true. Then he asks “Do you play?” 

Completely shocked by the question, Zach assumes Santana means, “Do you play?” as in “Is this your guitar?” and so Zach responds “yeah, I play” and Santana says, “Come on then.”  COME ON THEN?!? Talk about being put on the spot. The legendary Carlos Santana just said “Come on then” to a twelve year old with maybe 6 months of lessons in front of a bajillion people. Naturally, it was all Zach could do from passing out or letting his legs buckle under so the performance wasn't all that great (sorry Santana, it was pretty bad), but that night sparked an unquenchable fire and all the thoughts of being an astronaut/doctor/president disappeared and got replaced with the dream of being a rock star. 

Why Kings?:

Zach continued playing and learning and practicing and writing all throughout high school and college after that, and after graduating college, he joined together with Sam Martinez (Drums)  to form Zachariah and the Kings. “Why kings?” you might ask, it's because Sam is an absolute king of the drums, and mixed with Zachariah's already biblical sounding name, it just seemed to fit. So, Zach and Sam started recruiting the best musicians they could find (other “kings”) with the goal that every musician that joins them onstage, whether bass, keyboard, whatever, is deserving of the title “king." Kind of a certificate to the fans that “this musician is going to be incredible." But that's not really enough; you have to be able to back up the claim of “King.” And that's exactly what Zachariah and the Kings strive to deliver every single performance, no matter what: an electric performance that was even better than the last one, every time.