VISIONS OF THE FUTURE (AND PAST ) WITH SHALLOW PLANET’S ZACH JONES

BY DANA ARMSTRONG

“Walking out there and seeing all those people—I think it was around 20,000 people—it doesn’t even really register that it’s that many. You’re nervous until it’s time to go, and then I guess your brain switches into another mode. It’s just game time after that.”

That is how Zach Jones, then a Tuscarora High School senior, described his experience opening for Bon Jovi at DC’s Capital One Arena in 2018.

Jones was the lead singer and guitarist of the five-piece rock band Never Born to Follow. The band of high school friends formed in 2015 for Ashburn’s YouthFest, won Loudoun Battle of the Bands in 2017, and recorded two EPs of original music.

In 2018, the band won a contest hosted by Live Nation and DC radio station Big 100.3 to open for an arena date of Bon Jovi’s This House is Not for Sale tour.

NBTF’s 20-minute set and the sheer volume of the crowd as the band led them in a singalong imprinted in Jones’s mind. This surreal opportunity would become just the beginning of Jones’s journey in music.

Now, the Lucketts-based musician is 23 and onto being the frontman of his third band.

Jones’s musical experience started in sixth grade playing the trumpet. But it wasn’t until the following year when he started taking guitar lessons, performing with a small school jazz band, and singing in his seventh-grade talent show that he’d discover his passion for music.

After NBTF and graduating high school in 2018, he started another band, Rose Hollow, with two of his best friends. Though the band fizzled out two years later, it allowed Jones to continue building up experience.

By early 2021, Jones was ready for another venture. Reuniting with former NBTF member Allan Fogelson and bass player Diles Morst, they started writing songs together and created the band Shallow Planet.

After months of songwriting and recording sessions with local musician, songwriter and producer Todd Wright, Shallow Planet released their debut EP—"Visions of the Future”—in October.

The five-track EP is an alternative rock time capsule exploring the emotions and existentialism of navigating a pandemic, frustrating political landscape, human-caused climate change crisis, and more in your early twenties.

“Most of the songs on the EP are about a time in my life when I was very confused, scared, and apprehensive of things to come because there was a lot of weird stuff going on in the world on a whole bunch of different fronts,” Jones said.

“Every time I thought about where the world would go and where the future would go, it was always a very grim or doom and gloom outlook.”

“Visions of the Future” opens with a mellow instrumental track titled “2:03 am, 5/2/20” before jolting awake into the intense and accusatory “Anti.” Moments of bright pop guitar contrast the brooding lyrics of “Expect the Worst,” and a staccato, bass-driven metal bridge stands out from the EP’s title track.

Jones wrote all of the songs, apart from “Vapid”—a hard rock, pointed critique of modern materialism—which was written by Morst.

“A lot of songs really hit hard, and then there are a lot of songs that are very subdued and melodic, quiet. That’s something that’s always been somewhat important to me, but in this band, it’s paramount to have that kind of variety and dynamic,” Jones said.

“It helps make listening to an EP or an album less of song [after song] and more about an actual experience. It brings you up in certain places and down in certain places, and it tells a story as well.”

The EP’s resolution is “Beautiful Fall,” a more acoustic ballad featuring Jones’ falsetto. This was the final song he wrote for the EP, and the lyrics show his transitional headspace.

“The theme of that one is more accepting that things are how they are, but it doesn’t have to be that way forever. It was symbolizing the whole change in my mindset of instead of being scared that things aren’t going to change, go out and be that change that you want to see,” Jones said.

“The way I look at that EP now, it was almost like expressing all of that pent-up anxiety and frustration and expelling it in the process. Not too long after the writing and recording of those songs, I underwent a pretty significant worldview shift.”

Jones hints that Shallow Planet is finishing up writing songs for another EP they hope to release next year. He said the next work will explore completely different messages than their debut. And that’s not the only change for the band.

Their original drummer, Fogelson, will relocate to San Antonio, TX, to continue his four-year commission as a guitarist in the United States Air Force Band of the West. Alex Vasquez will take over drums, with the hope Fogelson will later return to the band in some capacity.

Another change: bass player Morst is returning to Loudoun following his December graduation from Grove City College in Pennsylvania. With this new phase of the band, Jones hopes that 2023 will be the year to grow their presence and book more shows.

In the meantime, Jones will continue acoustic solo gigs around Loudoun. In the past couple of years, he has been a regular performer at Spanky’s Shenanigans in Leesburg, Social House Kitchen & Tap in South Riding, Barn House Brewery in Lucketts, and Flying Ace Brewery in Lovettsville.

Jones performs acoustic covers of ’80/’90s rock artists including Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, and Jimmy Eat World.

But Jones’s greatest aspirations are to move on from covers, make it back to main concert stages, and perform more original material with Shallow Planet.

“Even before I knew how to play a single instrument or play a single note, I was writing all the time. I definitely view myself even more as a writer. And now that I do it with music, there’s nothing that feels better than when you have written a new song that you’re super excited about,” he said.

“You know that you’ve pushed yourself. You know it’s how it should sound and how you wanted it to sound, and it conveys the messages and feelings you wanted it to convey.”

“Those are the things that make [music] feel just the best. And that’s why I want to take this as far as I can go.”

Listen to Shallow Planet’s EP Visions of the Future on Spotify, and follow the band for more updates on their Instagram @ shallowplanet.