By ERIC SCHELKOPF
On the song "Lotta Love," the opening track of his latest album, "Bringing It Back," Chicago area musician Joe Di Zillo aims to spread love and joy to everyone.
He is doing just that as the song – and the album – continues to gain listeners. "Lotta Love" has been included on a Spotify list of best power pop songs of 2024 and the album is at number 21 at Chicago-based CHIRP Radio for the week of Aug. 5.
Di Zillo has a couple of shows coming up, including at 6 p.m. Aug. 17 at Kelsey Road House, 352 Kelsey Road, Lake Barrington and at 6 p.m. Sept. 13 at Sketchbook Brewing Co., 4901 Main St., Skokie.
I had the chance to talk to the Glen Ellyn native and fellow Glenbard West High School grad about the album.
Q – It's good to talk to a fellow Glenbard West grad. Of course, you recently performed in your hometown.
You played at Two Hound Red, which had been Schmid Pharmacy when I lived in Glen Ellyn. Was that a weird experience?
It's strange when you really think about it. I used to walk there and buy baseball cards and go there for all of our prescriptions.
So yeah, it was different.
Q – Of course, "Bringing It Back" was released in June on vinyl. The album is at number 21 at Chicago-based CHIRP Radio for the week of Aug. 5.
Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
Q – Did you think that it would be embraced in that manner, that it would be so popular?
I didn't know what to think. The stuff that I write is just kind of very much based off of everything that I love when it comes to music or just people in my life.
The lyrics are pretty heartfelt. You really want people to just feel it and hopefully like it.
Q – I see that "Lotta Love" has also been included on a Spotify list of best power pop songs of 2024. What was your inspiration for the song?
I wrote that song during the pandemic. You would go on Facebook and see all these people just hating and bashing each other.
And I was inspired by Stevie Wonder's song, "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)."
Q – Like other musicians, you weren't able to perform live during the height of the pandemic. Has it been good playing live again?
I would think that playing live you would feel more of a connection to your audience than if you were doing a Facebook Live concert.
Yes, 100%. It was great that we were able to do that as musicians. But yeah, there's nothing like playing a show and people getting into it and coming up to you afterwards.
Q – Speaking of power pop, one of the well-known Chicago power pop bands was Material Issue. Were they an influence on you?
I would say yes, because almost anything that I listen to and that I really dig into and like, it influences me.
Everything has been influencing me. And I think that comes out especially fairly well on the album because there's so many different genres that I touch upon.
Q – I know that you're a self-taught musician and you fell in love with rock 'n roll as a freshman at Glenbard West. Speaking of Glenbard West, do you remember any of your high school music teachers?
Dr. Richard Whitecotton. He was such a jovial man.
He just always seemed like he was in a good mood. I signed up for a music theory class for a year.
It really helped out with my songwriting because I learned about all the keys. Even today, when I write a song, I think, this is going to be in the key of A, what else can I throw in there?
Dr. Whitecotton was a great guy. He made everything fun.
He got as much joy out of it as we did.
Q – I was listening to a few of your other albums and it seems like with this album in particular, you wanted to convey a lot of energy.
That's very true. There's more of a flow on this album than the other two albums, that's for sure.
One of the reasons I call it "Bringing It Back" is because some of the songs happen to be a little bit older. The song "Copper," I started writing that in 2002 and this was finally the right time to record it.
"Copper" is the only song on the album that's really that old. Most of the songs I wrote between the pandemic and when the album came out.
The title refers to bringing back some older songs that I had never recorded and bringing back musicians that I hadn't played with in years.
Q – Do you have any short-term or long-term goals?
Short-term for me right now is just continuing to get people to listen to my music and just get different audiences to come out to shows and enjoy what we're doing.
And the other thing is to continue to have consistency in our band. A long-term goal is to release new music.
Right now, I have about 15 to 20 songs/song ideas written and I would definitely like to start recording again sometime next year.
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