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It started in 2014 with a cheeky Craigslist ad that read, “Looking to start a band, become world famous.” University of Nebraska at Omaha student Connor Brandt was, as he freely admits, “bored,” and thought he’d found the cure to his dorm room blues—but it turns out finding like-minded musicians wasn’t as painless as he thought it would be.
“I got a lot of responses that were not what I was looking for,” Brandt said. “I had mentioned I was 18 and looking to play indie rock or pop with people my age, but I was getting responses from people who clearly didn’t fit the mold.”
From a 45-year-old man who claimed he could “play circles” around Brandt to people wanting to make sad country songs, the pickings seemed slim—until Jordan Gaul answered the proverbial call. A fellow UNO student, Gaul happened to live on campus, just 250 feet from Brandt.
“I spent so much time after graduating high school teaching myself guitar, and I became obsessed with trying to write songs.” Gaul explained. “I was very bad at it, but I tried my hardest and eventually had a bunch of songs I liked, but didn't know what to do with.”
So Gaul, too, resorted to Craigslist to try to find a bandmate and, like Brandt, had several conversations with people that led nowhere.
“We had nothing in common,” he said. “I hated the music that they liked, stuff like that. But everything down to the artists Connor named to his inspirations aligned with mine.”
Brandt and Gaul’s friendship developed over texts and soon, they were having recording sessions and feeling out each other’s musical styles. It wasn’t until 2018 that they were comfortable enough as The Real Zebos to play their first official show at the Down Under Lounge. It would be another year before they’d release their debut album, Strictly Platonic. Recorded at Make Believe Studios in midtown Omaha, the project birthed the singles “Rock Star Skinny” and “Your Ex Said You Can’t Dance,” which both have millions of Spotify streams. That may or may not be attributed to their innovative marketing strategy.
“It’s hard to explain how poorly recorded the demos on our Bandcamp are, but we still spent a lot of time trying to come up with schemes to promote them,” Gaul said. “I remember we had a group Tinder account where it was promotional, but we were being friendly with people and matched with both guys and girls. The girls didn’t care, but the boys loved us. That got us banned from Tinder. It was linked to my number, so I’m perma-banned. I’m lucky I have a wife now.”
Beginning with that first show at the Down Under Lounge, Brandt and Gaul quickly realized people were listening to their music, even if a large portion of the sold-out crowd included friends and family members eager to support their musical endeavors. Even though Gaul says he “couldn’t eat two days beforehand” due to his nerves, The Real Zebos stepped on stage with confidence and proceeded to impress even the most skeptical of their supporters.
“We heard a lot of ‘you guys are actually good’ and ‘oh my god, I can’t believe how many people showed up,” Gaul remembered.
Over the last eight years, The Real Zebos have graduated to larger venues like The Waiting Room, Slowdown, and Reverb Lounge. They’ve released multiple projects, including no style (2022), the cleverly titled follow-up EP, even less style (2023), and the best yet, an absolutely punishing lack of style (2024).
But their focus has also shifted a bit. Writing and recording a collection of songs isn’t enough—they have to be great.
“We’ve spent a lot of time over the past several years in our respective basement studios figuring out how to make a song,” Brandt said. “I think now we're at the point where we're pretty good at it. We’re good at it to where we have higher expectations for the songs.”
The Real Zebos have had other members before, but Brandt and Gaul are the nucleus of the group.
“We have a few members that will play shows with us, but they aren't too involved in the writing and recording process,” Brandt added. “We had a pretty consistent lineup up until last year. We had our guitarist and drummer both leave in the span of a few months. But as far as the songwriting, it's always just been the two of us doing 99% of it.”
Looking back, Brandt realizes he might have set the bar a bit too high when he initially started the band and has since lowered it—just a little.
“I had no idea about being in a band when I said I wanted to become ‘world famous,’” he admitted. “Now that we've been doing it for real, the more realistic goal is just to have a fanbase that can support us enough to go on a tour someday.”
As for The Real Zebos’ music, that’s evolving, too.
“We have a lot of stuff written and in the pipeline more in the vein of a more traditional rock-band style like the Strokes, Vampire Weekend, (The) Killers, Franz Ferdinand—a lot of the new stuff is kind of more in that ballpark of early aughts, rock revival stuff,” Brandt concluded. “We’re gonna be a little more rock ’n’ roll going forward.”
This article originally appeared in the May 2025 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
