Today we’d like to introduce you to Sebastian Vazquez.
Sebastian, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Tzimani emerged when brothers Sebastian and Eddie Vazquez both left their previous musical project named Malison and decided to form another one. The band wanted to have a less linear musical direction, and use other heavy music styles and inspiration in the songwriting process. While starting up the project took almost six months after leaving their old band, Tzimani hit the ground running, capping off a debut show in front of an audience of more than 100 people and kicking off a three-week tour with their second show a few months later.
Today, the band is about to embark on a lengthy, five-week tour, performing 27 shows across the USA and hitting select dates in Canada. We aim to promote the reissue of our self-titled release, first released in 2018, and getting rereleased by Diabolic Might Records (Germany) for European distribution, to markets we have yet to perform in front of, and parts of the USA and Canada we have missed on our first few go around tours.
It has taken considerable time and effort to where we have gotten today and has been three years of touring to make due of where we are. We have gone on five national and regional tours to promote our first studio release, and have also performed at the emerging Legions of Metal festival in Chicago. We were also very fortunate to be able to jump on the No Legacy Vol. 1 Compilation, put out by Erik Kluiber’s record label, No Legacy Records, for our very first single release, and were also invited to take part in Metal Assault Records Mixtape Compilation Vol. 1 as well and it instantly sold out.
Over the last three years, we have performed over 100 shows and have played anywhere from garages to premier mega stages in 1000 capacity venues, and along the way, you learn there that there is no perfect venue or build in a crowd to support you. It requires a killer stage show and lives performance these days that is unmatched.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Like with anything in life, it hasn’t been so easy in many ways. We confronted a lot of start-up costs and barriers, and having the lack of live bass player in the band compelled me (Sebastian) to be able to learn how to perform with metronome simultaneous feeding another sample for bass guitar since we didn’t have one haha!
One of the biggest obstacles we confronted was way back during our very first tour in 2017, and our vehicle broken down literally in the middle of nowhere West Texas, and not a mechanic in sight for miles. As a first time touring band getting out there for the first time and getting feet wet only to lose all the gains made with a $2000 cash repair, broke everyone’s spirits, and second-guessed the remainder of that tour!
We’d love to hear more about your band.
We are Tzimani, an old school heavy metal band based in San Diego proper. We are primarily specializing in that heavy metal sounding, chord and riff-based song structures to deliver a feel-good live performance for all those seeking to check us out. We are proud of being a touring band and being able to access all of our fans on a national and international level.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If we had to start all over as a band, I am sure I would have done a lot of things differently. I probably would have focused on setting up a proper PR campaign for our very first release and using some of our starter money on marketing and PR rather than setting up music videos for our demo.
We would have been able to properly secure an online presence with a proper campaign and been happy with how we used our money as an initial investment for sure. I also would have released a few singles first and build the hype around the release but I suppose hindsight is always 20/20 right?
Pricing:
- EP Vinyl Record $15
- EP CD $10
- EP Cassette $8
Contact Info:
- Website: tzimani.com
- Email: tzimaniband@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/tzimani_official
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tzimaniofficial/
Image Credit:
Chris Mcfly Photography
Robert Martin Wilkes
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