WHO IS ZOO?
ZOO is an indie shoegaze/noise-rock band located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded by lead member Jett Elliott in winter 2025. That winter, Jett decided to start writing a few songs, and as things became more and more real, he began looking to expand the band. Eventually, he got his friend Houston Ruffner on as a second vocalist and guitarist and found their current drummer, Henry Webb, who was originally intended to be their audio engineer. Jett, Houston, and Henry all knew each other from school, but were having issues finding a bass player. Around the University of Oklahoma, Jett set up flyers and recruited their bassist, Derek Striztke.
Soon enough, they were ready to perform, and we got two back-to-back performances from them. One at Second Wind Coffehouse, located on Campus Corner at OU. The other was at The Resonator in downtown Norman, OK.
Currently, they have not released any music and do not know when they will.
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LINKS:
INTERVIEW
After their first performance at Second Wind back on April 30th, I got the opportunity to interview the entire band outside the venue; this is that interview:
Photo Credit – Caleb Hysell
Caleb: I hope you guys are doing well after the gig! Would you like to introduce yourselves?
Jett: I’m Jett. I play guitar and sing.
Houston: My name’s Houston. I also play guitar and sing.
Henry: My name is Henry. I play the drums.
Derek: I’m Derek, and I play bass.
Caleb: What are some artists that are inspiring you guys currently?
Houston: I’m a huge fan of post-hardcore stuff. Jett is more of a-
Jett: -really early alt-rock fan, stuff like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine.
Houston: Dinosaur Junior.
Jett: Dinosaur Junior as well.
Derek: Yeah, I’m kind of more into the heavier 90’s stuff, but I like the old stuff too.
Henry: I don’t know, I’d say my listening differs a lot from the kind of stuff we played. Pine Grove is my favorite of all time, so that’s similar. But then Jane Remover has probably been my most listened to for the last few months, so that’s about where I sit.
Caleb: What got y’all to come together as a band?
Jett: Necessity?
Houston: By necessity, he means that the three of us started, or we were in high school together. I’m the youngest, he’s [Henry] the middle, and he’s [Jett] the oldest. But we were always kind of into music; Henry was always into drums. Jett was really good at trombone. I was really good at trumpet, and then my lung popped. That’s a whole other story. And Derek, he’s just one of… Tell the Derek story.
Jett: So early this year, I needed to find someone who could play bass, so I made some flyers and posted them around OU’s campus, and Derek found one and DM’d me. At the time, I had already found a bass player, but then some things changed, and I needed Derek, so I hit him up, and he was very willing.
Derek: Yep, I’m a hired gun, essentially.
Henry and Houston: Marauder. Mercenary, whatever.
Henry: I was actually going to run sound for this show, but then our friend who had been drumming with them had to drop. Shout out, Gavin, shout out, Letting Everything Go. LEG, out in Stillwater. They’re doing cool stuff. But now I’m playing drums, so.
Caleb: Can we expect music coming later this year?
Houston: Oh, yeah. On platforms? On SoundCloud, most likely.
Jett: Henry is studying music production and has access to studios, so possibly.
Henry: Well, possibly.
Derek: Our main songwriter is also going to be on a little expedition this summer, so.
Jett: I’ll probably write a lot, though.
Derek: Well, we’ll have stuff written, but recording later in the year, probably. But the summer’s going to be a little- yeah, everyone’s going to kind of go their separate ways, and then we’re going to come back together and come strong. I mean, well, we have six originals already, something like that, so.
Houston: And within, what, like four or five practices?
Jett: Well, within a month.
Houston: Yeah, within a month. I think we’ll get some stuff out on SoundCloud for sure. Spotify, maybe not. Bandcamp? I would do Bandcamp. I like that.
Houston: Band Camp? I don’t even know what that is.
Derek: Everything.
Henry: This guy doesn’t listen to music. And I’d like to attempt to make some solo stuff at some point, so we’ll see how that goes, but-
Houston: Me as well.
Henry: So would he, so. We’ll see. TBD.
Caleb: Is songwriting hard?
Writing good songs is hard. It’s, I don’t know. I feel like, personally for me, I feel like it’s easy to write a song. It’s hard to write a song that doesn’t sound similar to something else you’ve heard before. Like, especially now, with just, I feel like music’s starting to rise in popularity and, like, music production, just people being more musical. And for me, at least, it’s challenging to try to find something truly original, but maybe Jett has something else to say.
Jett: To the original question. Songwriting can be hard. Sometimes you, like, get a little gift from heaven, and a song just appears in like five minutes. But most of the time it takes, like, way longer, and you’re never happy with it. But to Houston’s point, yeah, I think, especially with like AI and people getting tired of digital, seeing the world just digitally, people are getting much more into music and live music. So I think it will be important for songwriters to try and make original music, and I think songwriters in general will be pushed to make things original because of that.
Caleb: How do y’all feel about tonight’s show, and are y’all excited for tomorrow’s show?
Houston: I am very- can I cuss? I’m very fucking excited.
Jett: I’m also very excited.
Derek: I think we killed it tonight. I think we’re going to do even better tomorrow. There’s going to be more people, more bands, and, you know, it’s going to be a great time.
Henry: I had a lot of fun. I’m very excited for tomorrow, but I am trying to get over the hump of not being overly critical of myself and just having fun doing what I’m doing, and I’m looking to get better at that. But I am excited.
Houston: We’re all excited here. Zoo.
Caleb: Any plans for shows coming this fall? I know y’all don’t have anything planned.
Jett: That is a direct question. We will try to have as many as we can. We don’t have any scheduled yet.
Derek: And we wanna be in Stillwater, Tulsa, OKC, everywhere.
Caleb: Well, I just want to say thank y’all; you played a good show tonight, y’all have done great!
ZOO: Thank you!
I wanted to do something special just for our readers and for fans of the band, so here are some recordings of their first gig that I took, with the shittiest audio quality ever because I used a mic with tons of compression.
Here are those few songs:
CONCLUSION
Hey members, friends, and family of ZOO, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry that it’s coming out so late! That is completely on me- no excuses. Originally, I planned to have it out the same weekend as the gig, but stuff came up, and then I kept pushing it off. Something to work on in the future as I get more ingrained in my work, but I wanted to make sure this got out there in some form. Thank you again to all of the members; it was a fantastic time with them, and I’m excited for their future as a band, especially to see what that brings. I’m glad to still be working with them too!
Video coming out at some point; still pretty unimpressed with myself, and I feel pretty awkward in it. This transcript needed to get out of my drafts, though.
CREDITS
Interviewee: ZOO (aka: Jett Elliott, Houston Ruffner, Derek Stritzke, and Henry Webb)
Interviewer: Caleb Hysell
Writer: Caleb Hysell
Editor: Caleb Hysell
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