ABOUT

Culver City-based trio and member of L.A. County Arts & Culture Musicians Roster Double Batch Daddy serve up a unique blend of folk-pop filtered through a smoky 1920s birth-of-jazz prism. During their dynamic live shows, members Timothy “Mack” Gibbs-Zehnder, Tom “Johnny” Zehnder and Mike “Bax” Boggio exhibit an intuitive, easy-going rapport that only comes from decades of playing together; identical twin brothers Tim and Tom’s shared musical history goes back even further.

The Zehnder brothers’ earliest musical influence arguably came before they were even born, as their pregnant mother learned to play the banjo. At age 4, the brothers first took the stage at Santa Monica’s legendary McCabe’s Guitar Shop. By age 10, they were rushing home from school each day to write songs together in their shared bedroom.

Two aspiring young musicians couldn’t have asked for a better environment to be raised in. The Zehnder home was a haven for members of Los Angeles’ vibrant folk music scene in the 1970s. Mack and Johnny’s parents, John and Elizabeth, were folk singers, and “always just a few years older than most hippies,” Mack says. They naturally assumed a kind of parental role to the revolving cast of musicians who were constantly passing through. “There was always a big pot of chili on the stove, everyone was welcome, and the door was always wide open to one and all.” 

Mack and Johnny fondly describe a childhood spent playing music in the living room, working out five-part harmonies by ear with their parents and older sister, Laura. Such was their communal music-making bubble that the boys didn’t listen to a lot of recorded music, but rather count these family jam sessions as chief among their influences. It helped that there was always an instrument within arm’s reach. The walls in the Zehnder home were lined with them, and John was the kind of music teacher who would just hand them a guitar and let them mess around until they got it (trusting, rightfully, that they would).

The late John Zehnder’s influence on his sons, and particularly Double Batch Daddy’s latest release, “Local Lemonade,” is powerful and ever-present. A Presbyterian minister and music teacher who headed up both the music school and repair shop at McCabe’s from 1970 until his death in 2006, John instilled his musical prowess and spiritual compass in his sons. 

The brother’s religious upbringing and the values it helped shape are as much a part of their artistic point of view as the musical home they grew up in. As youth group song leaders, the twins reveled in the act of bringing entire congregations together in song. They’d go on to put those skills to use in a different venue when, as music students at UCLA in 1989, they participated in and won the Spring Sing competition (despite having little in common with the flamboyant hair metal that dominated the airwaves at the time). “I had my acoustic bass, Johnny had his acoustic guitar and it was us just singing—nothing else,” Mack reflects. The song that delivered their victory, “Let Justice,” was inspired by a mission trip to the Philippines. “And we brought down the house with this little song!” 

Since their earliest days performing together, Mack and Johnny have reinvented themselves more than once. That stripped-down duo eventually evolved into Zehnder, an indie-leaning power trio (with Bax joining on drums) that released three albums between 2002 and 2012. As the 2020s approached, so did another pivot. “Almost offhandedly as a joke, we were like, what if we pretended to be jazz musicians?,” Mack recalls. “What if we, musically, just put on a fedora?” (The fedoras are literal too; Double Batch Daddy is known for their dapper sartorial style.) 

Bax traded his sticks for brushes, but it wasn’t such a big leap musically from Zehnder’s eclectic and often experimental rock to Double Batch Daddy’s jazzy folk-pop. This current iteration embodies the brothers’ love for 1920s speakeasy culture, both aesthetically and for what it represents: being drawn to something that’s inaccessible or even forbidden, and going underground to get it, permission be damned. 

Throwback vibes aside, there’s no question Double Batch Daddy is living in the moment. Most of the songs on “Local Lemonade” (with the exception of “Climb That Mountain,” written in 2012) were penned just before and during the COVID-19 pandemic—a collective trauma that the Zehnders, like many artists, are still unpacking. “COVID was such an assault on music-making and musicians,” Johnny recalls emotionally. “We said, we’re going to keep going, keep chipping away at this thing and honor the inspiration for each song.”

The sun-baked rootsiness that characterizes “Local Lemonade” sometimes belies its depth. Mack says he and Johnny debated whether it was even possible to strike the right balance between “vintage love-song folksy charm” and “[raising] a prophetic voice” on a single album. “But I think we had a breakthrough,” he adds. The album is a response to what Mack recognized as a post-pandemic desire for “less compartmentalization, more celebration of the whole person.”

A choice example is “Double That Good,” which the brothers co-wrote together after attending the 2017 Women’s March in Los Angeles with their families. The song grooves through lyrics like “What the hell now/is going on/could it get any worse/is that a question or a curse?” with an optimistic brightness; Mack recalls feeling moved by the march’s tremendous turnout and spirit of unity. “We put it in a charming way, but it’s also talking about a lot of pain and frustration that were on display,” he says.

In many ways, “Local Lemonade” is Mack and Johnny’s homage to the father who shaped them as musicians and men. The album was recorded (in Johnny’s home studio, Vapor Trail Productions) using several of John’s most cherished instruments—among them a 1962 Martin D28, a century-old Gibson 4-string banjo, a 120-year-old mandolin, a 1970’s Earthwood Bass Guitar, and a towering stand-up bass banjo John built himself. The band opted to record all vocal parts simultaneously, a way of capturing some of the magic of Double Batch Daddy’s energetic live performances. 

Attend one of those shows and you’ll see Double Batch Daddy’s mission in action: bringing folks from different walks of life together to recognize and celebrate their shared humanity. “A big job of this moment and even for this record is cohesion and reaching out,” says Mack of “Local Lemonade.” You can see it in the diverse crowds they draw, discern it in their thoughtful lyrics, and hear it in their mash-up of genres—from acoustic pop and traditional folk to psych-rock, early jazz and world beat.

Fans of the Avett Brothers or Mumford & Sons may recognize something in the rollicking anthem “Climb that Mountain,” while the swaying “Move Untried” and bouncy “101 Way” marry Dispatch’s rootsy acoustics with Jason Mraz’s jazz-tinged pop. As the chorus swells on “Feel That Hum,” listeners might notice the Zehnder brothers’ admiration of Dave Matthews Band, and in Mack’s notably Sting-esque vocal delivery, the early Police records their sister introduced them to.

Ultimately, Double Batch Daddy makes music that is shaped by a lifetime of experience and influence. Their heartfelt songwriting is bolstered by the unabashed joy they bring to their craft as musicians and performers, and always underpinned by their values of tolerance, acceptance and love. Listening to their songs is a little like being ushered into a warm kitchen, where there’s always a pot of chili on the stove, a place set for you at the table, and perhaps even a guitar for you to pick up and strum.