Zac Brown is a Sacramento guitarist and bassist who has been a fixture of the local music scene since at least the late 2000s, performing and recording across a string of interlinked Sacramento bands and as the touring/recording instrumentalist for the electronic act Tycho.[1][2][3] He is distinct from the country musician of the same name.
At a glance
- Sacramento-based guitarist/bassist and multi-instrumentalist.[3]
- Member of Dusty Brown, in which he is the cousin of frontman Dusty Brown; he plays affected guitar.[1][4]
- Co-founder (2009) of the two-piece I'm Dirty Too with drummer Jess Gowrie.[2]
- Plays guitar/bass in Tycho, writing with and touring the globe alongside Scott Hansen; joined as a full band member after the Dive tour and has contributed to five Tycho studio albums through Infinite Health (2024).[5][3][6][7]
- Also a member of Doombird and the local supergroup Contra.[2][8]
Local status
Zac Brown is treated throughout the corpus as a Sacramento scene musician. In a 2017 Submerge piece he is described explicitly as "local Sacramento guitarist/bassist Zac Brown, who writes music with and tours the globe with Hansen."[3] He is identified as a "performing member of Doom Bird, Dusty Brown and Tycho" and one of "two-piece" Sacramento band I'm Dirty Too,[2] and as one of "six excellent local players" in Contra.[8] Confidence: high.
Bands and roles
Dusty Brown
Brown plays guitar in Dusty Brown, the long-running Sacramento electronica project fronted by his cousin Dusty Brown; a 2009 review describes "Zac Brown, who patiently places his affected guitar riffs in all the right cracks and crevices that the song might allow."[1] The band's core was Dusty, his sister Jessica, and cousin Zac.[4] Brown later recalled that the project's music was so full that, when he joined, the songs were already written and he would "just try to do something over the top of it," with little room for a "visceral release."[2] He and Dusty are referred to collectively as "the Browns" / "the Brown brothers," though the articles separately specify Zac is Dusty's cousin.[4][8]
I'm Dirty Too
After being acquainted through the local scene for seven years, Zac Brown and drummer Jess Gowrie formed the Sacramento two-piece I'm Dirty Too in 2009 to explore a rawer, stoner-rock and grunge sound they could not express in their other bands.[2] Brown became co-lead singer—his first time fronting a band—and described the band as a chance to "finally get to rock out" and channel "visceral and raw emotion."[2] Live, he ran his guitar signal through both a bass amp and a guitar amp to fill out the two-piece sound.[2] The band funded its debut full-length, The Downhill Dive, via a Kickstarter campaign that met its goal with 39 backers and ran $215 over (the largest backer was Matthew Woods Wilhoit of Prieta and Nine of Swords); they recorded 12 songs in April, splitting time between The Hangar and Dusty Brown's home studio, with Kris Anaya of Doom Bird producing and Robert Cheek engineering.[2] One track features a Moog played by his cousin Dusty Brown.[2] The CD release show was at the Townhouse Lounge on Aug. 3, 2012.[2]
Tycho
Brown is the guitarist/bassist of Tycho, the project of Sacramento-born electronic musician Scott "Tycho" Hansen.[5][3] As early as May 2010 — before the Dive album — Brown was already contributing electric guitar parts to Tycho recording sessions, described at the time as "coming in and contributing parts to some songs."[9][6] After the Dive tour, Hansen expanded Tycho to a full band by adding Brown on bass guitar and guitar, and Rory O'Connor on drums.[6] He played on a couple of songs on Dive before becoming central to Awake (2014).[5] To make Awake, Hansen and Brown relocated the studio to a cabin in Lake Tahoe for several weeks of writing, then met drummer Rory O'Connor in Santa Cruz to integrate drums.[5] Hansen credited the move to a three-person room—working off each other—with producing more focused, dynamic arrangements, calling Awake the first "true Tycho album."[5] Brown has described his guitar philosophy in the band as making the instrument function percussively: "I tried to make the guitar more of a percussive instrument using different techniques and FX," according to ExploreMidtown.[10] By 2017 Brown was described as writing music with and touring the globe with Hansen, with Tycho's Epoch (2016) earning a Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronic Album.[3] Brown's involvement spans five Tycho studio albums: Dive (2011), Awake (2014), Epoch (2016), Weather (2019), and Infinite Health (2024).[6][7]
For Infinite Health — Tycho's sixth studio album, released August 30, 2024 through Mom + Pop and Ninja Tune[11] — Brown served as co-producer alongside Scott Hansen and Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear, co-wrote three tracks ("Consciousness Felt," "Phantom," and "Totem"), and contributed guitar to four of the album's nine tracks.[11][7]
Doombird, Contra and Little Foxes
Brown is a member of Doombird (Doom Bird), the band of Kris Anaya.[2][8] He is also part of Contra, a local Sacramento supergroup that includes Kris Anaya, both Dusty and Zac Brown, Dan Block, Joel Daniel, and Brian Gogineni; Contra's first proper EP (seven songs compiled over roughly three years) was given away free at a Harlow's release show on Feb. 12, 2016 and was recorded and produced almost entirely by Anaya and the Brown brothers, with drums engineered by Robert Cheek.[8] Anaya joked that "the Browns... pressured me into" finally releasing it.[8] Brown was additionally cited (alongside Dusty Brown) in connection with the group Little Foxes.[8]
Scene relationships
Brown's career threads together a tight cluster of Sacramento musicians: his cousin Dusty Brown and Dusty's sister Jessica Brown (Dusty Brown);[1][4] Jess Gowrie, his I'm Dirty Too partner, formerly of The Drama and Red Host;[2] Kris Anaya of Doombird and An Angle (collaborator in Doombird and Contra);[8] Scott Hansen / Tycho;[5][3] and engineer/producer Robert Cheek.[2][8] Recording frequently routed through Dusty Brown's home studio.[4][2]