In the center of a hazy room, sparsely lit by red and green spot lights, a boy is bent over with his forehead to the linoleum, screaming at the top of his lungs. A crowd of people surround him, clad in ripped jeans and leather jackets, nodding along with his cries. Moved by his words, the audience thrashes against one another, flailing their arms while the music pounds in the background.
This hardcore concert isn’t the scene one would expect to find hiding out in the backroom of the quaint Connections on High cafe in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Yet, as the blare of the music dies down and the ringing of the final chord fades away, the boy clambers to his feet while the crowd is cheering, catching his breath as he turns back to his fellow band members.
The boy, draped in a loose white t-shirt from some obscure underground band and rocking impossibly tight black skinny jeans, is William “Billy” Zee, lead vocalist for AM( )RA.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Doylestown, this small-town teen has made a big name for himself in the local community. His bedroom offered up a drastic contrast to the rest of his parents’ elegantly decorated and sophisticated home. Boxes of AM( )RA merchandise and CDs, laminates, and concert posters plastering the walls, ceilings, and even the inside of closets, all tell the story of a boy who rose from general obscurity to small-town fame.
For other aspiring musicians who are struggling to get a foot hold in the music industry, Zee’s story serves as an example of just what can be achieved through enough hard work, diligence, and commitment.
Before he became the front man of AM( )RA, Zee was a sheltered kid in a “really good family,” with a twin brother and twin sister and who, at one point, wanted to become a CIA agent.
He was also was a bassist, jamming out to an eclectic assortment of music. “I was into a lot of hip-hop, which I still am,” said Zee. “I was all over the place with music, dude.”
His interest in the hardcore type of music that his band plays now began back in the classic era of MTV2 when he witnessed a music video by the band Underoath, and thought it was “one of the most coolest f*cking things I’d ever seen,” he said.
With favorite bands and musicians including, but not at all limited to, The Devil Wears Prada, Bring Me the Horizon, Dance Gavin Dance, Tupac, Stargazer, Drake, Thrice, Krooked Youth , and Biggie, it’s easy to see why the music Zee co-writes for AM( )RA is so stylistically unique and labeled as genre-less.
Zee’s first taste of the stage came rather unexpectedly at the show of a friend’s band, Capture the Crown, at a community center in Yardley. At the time, Zee was only “like 13, 14 years old.”
He was asked to stand in for a missing musician and play bass. He responded enthusiastically, “I was like ‘yo, definitely!’ and I was so about that. It was the weirdest show ever, but from there I was pretty much hooked on music.” Eventually, he turned his attention to vocals, saying he, “got sick of playing bass because deep down I wanted to scream my heart out.” But to do that, he knew he had to join a band.
Despite being the current front man of AM( )RA, Zee wasn’t one of the founding members. In fact, guitarist Tyler Ditlow and drummer Brian Rodriguez didn’t even want him in the band to begin with.
Ditlow and Rodriguez found Zee through Facebook, and their initial reactions were less than enthusiastic. They looked at Zee, a tan, lanky kid with a ragged undercut and pierced ears, and thought “Eh, he looks like a douchebag. I don’t like the look of this kid.” Zee told this part of the story with a good-natured laugh.
Eventually, after trying and failing with a few other musicians, they finally had no choice but to contact Billy.
Their meet up at a Wendy’s was fueled by the free food Zee was able to score due to his employment there at the time. Zee said that things went well that day. “They hit us up and we actually hit it off like right off the bat. We had the same influences, same everything, which was really cool.”
By the end of their conversation, they had made up their minds. They would play three shows by the end of the summer.
Problems arose almost immediately for the band. “We had our first practice and we didn’t think it was gonna work out, actually,” said Zee.
Eventually they were able to work through the issues they were having by replacing their bass player, and forming the current lineup of the band. And just like that, AM( )RA was born, and Zee found himself the lead vocalist of a legitimate band.
Since their very first show together on August 9, 2014, in a “crappy dive bar called The Rusty Nail,” the group has racked up an impressive amount of experience, having played what Zee estimates as 50 to 60 shows. For a touring musician and college student, it can be hard to keep track of an exact number of shows. Zee said, “We just played so many, dude. I lost count. It’s pretty high up there.”
Along with live shows, Zee has provided vocals for the band’s two CDs, including their six track EP “In Lieu Of,” which was released in March of 2015. Their second CD, “Wrong From Right/Colors and Lights,” was a shared project with AM( )RA and another band, Above The Mendoza.
However, Zee’s success hasn’t come without struggle and sacrifice. Zee described the difficulty of being in a band as “like dating four of your best friends. You go through a lot of drama here and there, you work with a lot of personalities, sometimes there are fights and arguments, but that is with any relationship. It builds you,” he said.
Along with the internal issues that are inevitable within a group of five different guys, Zee and the others also face external challenges. Namely, critics. And has Zee faced critics? “All the time, man!” He emphasized, “All. The. Time.”
He speaks of his critics with a wisdom and maturity beyond what one might expect from a 19-year-old, putting a lot of emphasize on the importance of being able to recognize his own faults and flaws. When people critique his music, Zee said, “In a sense they’re right. They’re honest. When you get hated on, it sucks. But you learn to just grow with it and accept it.”
In the end, what really matters are the fans. “Maybe for every person who criticizes you, there might be two or three people who really like what you did,” said Zee. For him, this makes all of the hard work worth it.
Zee offered one simple piece of advice in regards to dealing with negative people: “The biggest thing you gotta learn is just to prove them wrong.” And with this motto, Zee and the rest of AM( )RA, have found an impressive level of success for a local band, and have plenty of stories to chronicle their rise. Most notably is “the trashcan show.”
Mention the name Billy Zee among local music fans and you’re almost certain to hear an amused comment about trash cans. The legacy of Zee all began from a lackluster show, desperation, and creativity.
On the day of their fourth show ever, with a guitarist stuck at work, no practice, and a car accident earlier in the day, the band was not in a good place. To make matters worse, the crowd they were playing for “was a little more judgmental. They’re just weren’t having it,” Zee said.
“How can I win these people over?” was the main thought on Zee’s mind as the crowd continued to stare apathetically. In a stroke of either genius or madness, Zee spotted a trashcan, and for some reason, felt the sudden need to do something with it.
“There were like a bunch of beer cans in there, but I put myself in the trash can, and had it crowd surfed. And that’s how that trashcan story happened.”
The crowd loved it and it quickly went viral, with people posting pictures and videos all over Facebook. “Now everyone’s been asking me to do it. I don’t do it at every show, I do it at select shows, but that’s just my main thing. It’s funny,” he said. Thus, his local reputation was solidified.
Another, more infamous moment of Zee’s involved a shattered glass door and a fair amount of blood loss. Zee told the story with both regret and amusement in his voice. “If you hit the door in the right spot, with the right amount of intensity, it’s gonna shatter. And I did that,” he said with a shrug and a laugh.
“I was bleeding like crazy. I was playing with bandages all around my arm, and they were falling off. I thought I was gonna faint,” said Zee. These are only a few of the many oddball stories in Zee’s musical history.
One only has to attend one of his shows to understand exactly how all of these things come about. On stage and off, Zee has an incredible amount of energy, and he puts his all into every performance. Some have even said that he gets a bit too intense during shows, but it definitely makes for an entertaining time.
Along with all the crowd surfing, door breaking, and crazy mayhem in general, there have been plenty of touching moments in Zee’s musical experience.
During a performance of their song “7417,” an intensely personal piece written about Zee’s late grandfather, emotion overtook him.
“I just broke out crying during that song, just because that song really means a lot to me. There was something about the whole atmosphere that just made me break down, start crying, and just go into this whole dissociation,” he said. Zee’s shows are often extremely emotionally charged, which is part of what sets him apart as a musician.
When he isn’t focusing his energy on the band, Zee enjoys drawing, photography, skateboarding, attending other local shows, and playing PlayStation. He also screen prints most of his band’s merchandise.
His main focus is, and has always been, the music. Being a musician is about more than just putting on great shows.
“I don’t want to say I make music for myself, but being able to play it is a catharsis, an emotional release. It allows me to connect with people I never met, allows me to spill my heart out for something, gives me a reason to wake up, gives me something to express myself and a reason to better myself. It allows me to be a voice for the people who don’t have a voice or the words to express how they feel,” Zee explained.
Clearly, music runs deeps in the veins of the boy who has worked for years to pursue his dream of hitting the big time.
To those with similar aspirations, Zee has simple advice: “Do things yourself. Do things yourself. Do things yourself. There’s so much more in growth, rather than just jumping in and playing to a thousand people who don’t really care for you. I think there’s just so much more in starting from the bottom and growing from there. You prosper from it. You take in a lot from that.”
“I think that’s the biggest piece of advice I can give people. Start from the bottom. The more you grow, and the more you see that growth, the more rewarding, and the more you’re gonna grow.” Zee added, “And it’s going to be one of the most special things ever, and it’s going to make you really cherish what you have. Put your all into it, dude. Put your emotion in it,” he said.
Today, Zee has played shows in many states, even performing on the beaches of Florida. He started small, with nothing but a voice and a surplus of ambition, and through DIY albums, booking his own shows, practice, and refusal to quit, Zee has gathered himself a real, loving, supportive fanbase.
As his popularity only continues to grow, Zee proves that it doesn’t take a record label or expensive equipment to follow a dream. Only a true love for music and drive to succeed.