Rock the Holidays with two Louisiana Music Hall of Famers! Zebra, Lillian Axe, and special guests Post Profit will perform LIVE at Rapides Parish Coliseum on Friday, December 20th!
Zebra is a hard rock band that formed in 1975 in New Orleans, LA. It features Randy Jackson (guitar and vocals), Felix Hanemann (bass, keyboards and vocals) and Guy Gelso (drums and vocals). Their mainstream debut on Atlantic Records in 1983 featured the singles “Tell Me What You Want” and “Who’s Behind The Door”. Like Twisted Sister, Zebra cut their teeth on the East Coast club circuit, frequently playing at clubs on Long Island, NY.
Zebra started their career by playing covers of Led Zeppelin, Moody Blues and Rush songs: it was their early fans’ reaction to their Led Zeppelin renditions that helped convince the band to bring their act to New York. They had introduced their original material into their cover sets years before they were signed to Atlantic Records, including “The La La Song”, “Free” and “Bears” (originally entitled “The Bears are Hibernating”).
Zebra had been noticed as an original act to contend with by local colleges and even had some of their early original performances recorded by Long Island FM radio station WBAB, culminating in the inclusion of one of their songs on a release of “WBAB’s Homegrown Album”, which commemorated some of the station’s best local acts and performances culled from their on-air “Homegrown Hour” program.
The band continued to tour throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and in 2003 released Zebra IV, their first album of all-new material since 1986. A DVD of recent live performances, mostly from a show at the House of Blues in New Orleans, was released in the summer of 2007. Zebra is a band of legendary status in two “hometown” areas, Louisiana and Long Island. They were inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2010.
Through big shot producers, major label record deals, MTV videos and quarter of a million record sales in the United States alone, New Orleans hard rock survivors Lillian Axe have persevered through the years and still to this day, record new music and tour.
From humble beginnings in 1983, the New Orleans-based hard rock act rose above the cream of the bands touring the southern U.S. club circuit. Within three years, the band’s live show had built a reputation that was becoming legendary throughout the south. While opening with Ratt, Poison, and Queensryche, the guys caught the eye of MCA Records executive Irving Azoff and also Marshall Berle (nephew of Milton Berle). Irving Azoff immediately signed Lillian Axe to MCA Records. Fueled by their hit single, “True Believer”, followed by their cover of the Badfinger classic, “No Matter What”, and VH1 Classic favorite video for “Show A Little Love”, Lillian Axe reached the upper 100 of the Billboard album charts.
Lillian Axe was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame on May 16, 2010, the first hard rock band inducted into the LMHOF.
Post Profit is an alternative rock band from Longview Texas, featuring Matt Jackson (Guitar/Vocals), Nick Hawner (Guitar/Vocals) Jordan Conley (Bass/Vocals), and Zach Hicks (Drums/Vocals). Hear their single, “Some Sad Song” here: https://youtu.be/8ciIpskKur4
