Album Notes

With the release of "LIVING WATER (The Surfer's Mass)" John Zambetti and Walter Egan are celebrating over thirty years of making music together as The Malibooz. Even before its release, songs from the CD appeared in the Joe Eszterhas feature "An Alan Smithee Film, "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" starring Sylvester Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg, Jackie Chan, and Eric Idle.

Over the years Walter and John have also worked on each other's solo projects, including Egan's "NOT SHY" album that was produced by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The album spawned the million selling single "Magnet & Steel" which recently appeared in the Golden Globe and Academy Award winning movie, "Boogie Nights". Currently "Magnet & Steel" is featured in the film "Deuce Bigelow" produced by Adam Sandler.

Zambetti has also worked with film producer Michael Manheim on the film "Leap of Faith" and with producer Rick Berman on "Star Trek, First Contact".

As The Malibooz, Walter and John also have songs in New Line Cinema's "Theodore Rex" and the Rhino Films release "Plump Fiction".

"LIVING WATER (The Surfer's Mass)" is an experiment in taking surf music into a new realm. The Malibooz see surf music as a form of American music as fundamental as the blues. It's rhythms recall the pulsations of the ocean, while the heavily reverbed guitar sounds mimic the crashing surf. Surf music then adds to this, ethnic influences, mainly from Spanish and Middle Eastern cultures, and reinterprets them with electric instruments to portray the California experience as purely as the blues reflects the experience of the Mississippi delta.

In putting this project together, Zambetti has taken the discipline of writing within the format of a Mass and used the vehicle of traditional surf music. By using Old Testament references of the ocean and sea life, he elicits our response to the ocean's natural spirituality which is especially powerful when you are one with the ocean, surfing. Originally written just as an exercise, the project soon took on a life of it's own when demos of the original 4 songs began to circulate. The enthusiastic response to the music encouraged Zambetti to finish the 12 songs of the project and Cello/Sire Records took The Malibooz to the studio to record it for a release by The Pier Group.

"LIVING WATER" was chosen one of the Top 5 Albums of 1999 by D.J.Johnson of C.D. Magazine. One of the songs from the CD, "Bitter Water", ended 1999 as the #1 MP3 download at Indiespace.com.