Skrizzly Adams

Hailing from New Jersey, singer-songwriter Skrizzly Adams wove blue-collar pop rock with touches of refined hip-hop production, yielding a sound distinctly tied to American roots. Born Daniel Zavaro, he mastered multiple instruments during his New Jersey upbringing. In 2009, while enrolled in college, he started composing tracks from his dorm and took a position at a Jersey City studio. There he handled production duties on rapper Chris Webby’s 2011 EP There Goes the Neighborhood and contributed a guest vocal to one of its cuts.

Four years later he issued his debut project under the Skrizzly Adams name, the five-song EP Stains, which he released independently. Streaming audiences embraced Stains, generating enough momentum for Adams to land a contract with Atlantic. After a prolonged stretch under that agreement yielded no fresh output, he severed ties with the label and resumed putting out music on his own.

On the 2017 EP Atlantic City he paired songwriting reminiscent of roots icons Springsteen and Petty with expansive beats, prominent bass lines, and radio-ready polish. Adams maintained a steady touring schedule and collaborated with a food producer to launch his own brand of beef jerky, which he peddled at shows alongside T-shirts and CDs. Over the ensuing years he dropped frequent singles and appeared as a guest on tracks by longtime associate Chris Webby and Heck Off Supreme. The 2018 release “Take a Sip” joined his growing catalog of songs that surpassed millions of streams. In November 2019 he assembled both earlier material and new recordings for his first full-length effort, Young Man. The album earned favorable notices, prompting the 2020 follow-up single “Too Close to Fire.”