Ocho

Zachary Brown was raised on a Black Angus cattle ranch outside of Oklahoma City where he learned to ride motorcycles and Arabians with equal acumen. Educated privately, tragedy struck Zachary at the age of 13 when a level five tornado razed the property and took his family with it. Following in the footsteps of the Native Americans who once inhabited the Oklahoma Plains that were his home, Zachary took to the trail of tears to the Pacific Northwest. He spent the next 13 years of his focusing on Russian Literature and the visual arts. He published the collection of short stories "Tales from the Big Stupid" as well as poems in text vs. text among other publications. Zachary then traveled to the subcontinent of India for seven months, learning Hindi, and the importance of selflessness and charras from the Saddhus of Varanasi. It was also during this period that he taught himself to play electric guitar in 3 days and 3 nights. After returning to Portland he spent several debauched years playing lead guitar for the pre-psych band Spacebreath, recording at (K) records and Jackpot Studios. After SB drummer Jeff "Killer" Miller was brutally beaten to death for outstanding gambling debts, Zachary made one fast move to Los Angeles where he worked as an extra in the film industry while playing every Wednesday in the upstairs lounge of The Rainbow on the Sunset Strip. Ms. Azoff, while appreciative of his songwriting declined to offer a contract. Un-daunted, Zachary returned to Portland to record the classic folk-americana solo album OCHO (on which he plays all the instruments) and returned to LA where he watched a development deal with New West Records materialize and de-materialize like the Santa Anna winds. Forced to New York City by best man duties in a loved one's nuptuals, Zachary began busking in Union Square, and quickly formed the intoxicatingly loud OCHO with Jim Woodbury and "Filthy" Phil Cuykendall (now of Lincoln Center) Rehearsing in Brooklyn and playing mostly LES shitholes the band was developing an energetic brand of post grunge as it replaced "Filthy" with Alex Posilkin. This line-up is still intact to this day for East Coast performances. Zac played SXSW on 2009 for a very questionable promoter not necessarily officially involved in the event.... Toured Europe in 2008 backed by OCHO E.U. Made a bunch of videos and moved to San Francisco were OCHO West was formed. O.W. turned into a larger folkier collective involving band members that were sleeping together. This line-up, suffice it to say, is no longer intact. Currently, when you go to a Zachary Brown or OCHO show you get between one and 5 musicians depending on what side of what continent you are on. Zachary Brown and OCHO have more than a dozen full length releases and tons of fun low-fi free downloads. While "Ride the Sick Horse" remains the low fi best seller, 2011 saw the release of OCHO's "HOOCH" and Zac Brown - "Red Jesus" Rad