There is a moment in every young person’s life when a door opens revealing a glimpse of the future. For Zirbel, it occurred when he first heard the Beatles. “They woke me up,” he says. “I don’t know how to say it, but what they were doing changed my life. They altered the direction of a Wisconsin Catholic boy. I immediately felt life there and decided to learn how to play the guitar, which I started studying right away.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Admittedly, thousands of other youths shared that Wisconsin boy’s experience–and his aspirations. Unlike so many others, however, Zirbel followed through on his vision. “Lately,” he says, “I’ve been reading The Beatles Recording Sessions, where they go over all the band’s tracks. There’s a little McCartney interview at the beginning. He’s asked, “What was your goal?’ And McCartney says, “To make records. We really liked the idea of making records.’ That’s the way I feel. I like working in the studio. I like making records.”
“I love working with found objects,” he explains. “They already have a life of their own. I get an energy from these pieces. It’s like a conversation with them. . . . In a lot of ways, art stresses the manipulation of what already exists. As Picasso said, ‘When I paint, my goal is to show what I’ve found, not what I’m looking for.’ Like I’ll start off heading in one direction and it will shift along the way and become something totally different. But I go with that, because that’s the journey of the piece.”
