‘It’s music’ Zach Goggins believes hip-hop can change the world

Zach Goggins missed his last day of high school. It was his 2014, and while his Skyview seniors were celebrating, he was playing drums in Righteous Vendetta, the metalcore band he joined a year earlier. Some children went to a party that night. Goggins performed his show in front of 5,000 people.

“When I was 17, I was on tour 300 days a year,” recalled Goggins. “He taught me how to work. There were many sacrifices, but it was a good day.”

He is now 26 and Righteous Vendetta is on hiatus. He is currently designing a home and working with his marketing group, Rose Thorn Real Estate, known for his highly creative commercials.

But Goggins still applies lessons learned on tour and in the recording studio. On Saturday, he’ll drop “Nachos for the Table,” his mixtape as a solo artist. He celebrates with a show on Thirsty Street on the same day. And in contrast to Righteous Vendetta’s melodic metal, Goggins’ new release is hip-hop.

Rapping wasn’t always easy for Goggins, but music always was. He was born into royalty in eastern Montana. Goggins’ father John is the publisher of the Western Ag Reporter, his one of the most widely read agricultural newspapers in the West. Zack’s grandfather, Pat Goggins, was the longtime owner of Billings’ Public Auction Yards (PAYs). Pat passed away in 2016, but his family owns and raises cattle on Vermilion Ranch, a large Angus-certified ranch near Huntly.

But cows aren’t always Zach’s. music. He started playing drums when he was 11 years old, shortly after his maternal grandmother died.

“It was a very painful loss for me and I was trying to find all these little hobbies to deal with it,” he explained.

He tried building a model car, but it didn’t work. So Goggins’ mother suggested he try music, and he asked what instrument he wanted to play. His answer was quick, clear, and drums.

“It was game over,” Goggins said. “For the first few years, I was just playing drums eight, ten, twelve hours a day. That’s where it all started for me.”

All he cared about was music. And when he joined Righteous Vendetta, it became a full-time gig.The band’s touring schedule was tight and he had to be homeschooled during his last year of high school.

But it was worth it. Goggins has performed well over 1,000 shows in all 48 states of the continental United States. They he played with Trapt, Thousand Foot Krutch, Taproot and others.

Righteous Vendetta’s last show was in Atlanta in February 2020. That’s just when cases of COVID-19 began to rise in the United States. Goggins nearly found himself stuck at home, leaving the band that had been his main creative endeavor for a decade.

“I just started experimenting,” he said. “I was making pop music.

That summer he moved in with his family in California.

“I shut myself up in this little guest house and made a lot of music,” Goggins said. “At this point in my life, I needed to figure myself out. And I’m just starting to find my voice.”

The voice was metaphorical at first. Goggins had developed the discipline necessary to ponder and try new things, read many books, and create consistently.

But his real voice was another matter.

“I’m not a traditional singer,” admitted Giggbs. He didn’t know if his voice was good enough to convey the messages and words he knew he could write. “I was so concerned with the way I spoke that I lost my intention and my credibility.”

That’s where hip-hop comes in.

“In hip-hop, you can just talk,” Goggins explained. “Other than that, don’t worry about anything else. I’ve found more of my inner voice.”

He attempted to rap on a whim, playing with beats sent by the producer he was working with at the time.

“It was a far cry from what I was used to,” he said. “And I just started talking about it.”

Suddenly, he was 11 years old again, banging the drums and trying to express emotions he barely knew.

“It was like two wires that had been separated for a long time were finally reconnected,” says Goggins. “I lost my love for music with things like Righteous Vendetta because it got clouded by a lot of things.”

Goggins released his first single “Lightworker” as a hip-hop artist in June. He produced it himself and with Jasper James of Excalibur Productions filmed a video of himself and his dog Toot Toot clowning in his Billings Goodwill.

Goggins’ flow is quirky, energetic and chipper, like Chance the Rapper if you grew up on a farm in Montana instead of Chicago.

Video popped up. It has about 50,000 views on YouTube. This success ignited his Goggins and he always started recording at his Iconoclast Home Studio. This is the recording space in Jesse Vanoy’s basement, frequented by Billings favorites like Mopsketo and Stranded By Choice. Vanoy is his Goggins sound engineer, and the two of them throw ideas at each other and see what sticks.

“The first thing that comes to mind is usually the coolest, most realistic one,” Goggins said. “I try to be as honest and clear as possible in everything I say.”

Goggins, at least co-produced everything on this song, likes to do his own vocal production. But he works online with other producers to find and refine beats. His drumming background gives him some insight, but he writes and produces beats on his own.

“If I had to produce my own beats and everything, I wouldn’t have put the music out,” admitted Goggins. “[Beatmaking]is a completely different art than writing poetry or understanding what your voice does.”

He would like to learn more about beat making, but for now it’s all collaborative. Goggins and Vanoy have recorded nearly 100 of his songs, with Goggins promising to include “wild stuff” among them.

But for now, he’s limited the number of songs on “Nachos for the Table” to 13. Ten of these songs will be available on all streaming his platforms, but there will be a special limited edition physical CD containing three bonus his tracks.

The CD will be available at the mixtape release show on Thirsty Street on Saturday. Goggins played drums, put together a full band for the special occasion, and even prepared a full guest list for the opener.

Already a hit in Billings, Goggins is working to spread the brand across the country, starting with TikTok accounts created for dogs everywhere. Toot His Toot is an irresistibly cute English Setter with unkempt hair on the crown, usually dyed purple or pink. She is deaf and near-blind, and Goggins refers to herself as “a soulmate.” 540,000 people follow her Toot Toot on her TikTok @die4toot. Goggins also frequently shares his music on this page.

“The Took Toot craze is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life,” he said. “The amount of joy shared through it is beautiful. But the way it translates into music is cool.”

Creating followers is a lot of work. Goggins knows that, but he’s not without confidence.

“It only takes one song to hit 20 or 30 million streams on one platform,” he said. He thinks he has the song inside him. Maybe it’s in “nachos on the table”.

“It’s only a matter of time,” said Goggins. “We work hard. We make a lot of music. You can feel it.”

Although he is confident, he does not intend to exaggerate himself. Goggins is a firm believer in the power of art.

“Music has a lot of potential for greater good. There’s a lot of abstraction in the songs, and everything has a higher purpose, even if it sounds shocking,” he says. said. “And that’s the music. Connecting with other artists, and the emotions I know behind those songs, can change the world. I’ve seen it change the world.” rice field.”