I am excited to share this conversation with Zia Grossman-Vendrillo, who I love as a person and as a musician. She is at large on earth with contagious gladness, a real knack for beauty (of all five senses), devotion to friendship, and a steady curiosity. We met in the throws of 2020 and I liked her immediately.
Her band, Sally Mango, has three albums out. I'm talking bangers galore, lyrics with koan-like instructions for living, and a solid repertoire of songs to be sad to. Some call it range. Personal favorites are Pressure Slide, Cheeks in the Sun, and Sidewalk. Zia graciously agreed to be my interview guinea pig.
This interview was conducted on July 20, 2026 and has been lightly edited for clarity.
Kendall: I wonder how you'd like to introduce yourself to the masses.
Zia: I’m Zia, friend of Kendall. Soon to be new mom. I'm a singer and lyric writer, part of the songwriting team for Sally Mango, a jazz pop band in San Francisco. And I'm an untrained quilt maker. I’ve been making a lot of pancakes lately. And ice cream.
Kendall: Amazing. Part of why I wanted to talk to you is I love your music so much. And I feel like it, it cuts right to the source or the heart or something. And it makes me feel so good. And so on. As in, it’s –
Zia: Wow I didn't know that Kendall and that makes me so happy to hear thank you so much.
Kendall: I’m sorry, I haven't told you until now. But it's so good. So the etymology of enthusiasm is in / god / earthquake. And it's a Greek word.
Zia: whoa
Kendall: I learned about it through this writer, Valeria Luiselli, who talked about these Greek goddesses who would let themselves be possessed kind of. And yeah, I'm curious when you're making stuff or making music or in general, does that definition resonate? Or yeah, what do you think about that?
Zia: That's so cool. I mean, I've been in a lot of bands in my life. And Sally Mango is the band that has lasted by far the longest, we've been a band for eight years together. So the definition is, what is it about God?
Kendall: in God earthquake - In Theo seismo
Zia: I think when we're making music together, it feels it can feel kind of godly. There are times when we've been on band retreats. And it's really late at night or something. And it's like, you know, it's kind of like, the world kind of falls away, that's the only thing that's happening. We’re all just playing our instruments together. And it's this way of communicating with people that's really special, you can't communicate like that with anybody else. You know? We're all in the same outcome, or trying to find the same feeling or tap into the same vibe. And that hasn't happened in music for me too many times before. I mean, sometimes with people, you can kind of like, harmonize together or something. And you're like, oh, that sounds good. But it's really nice to have that. Music, especially, there's not that much else, maybe like sports sometimes, but maybe I'm just like a World Cup bandwagoner. But like, when you're doing something that's not words that involves other people. And it's like a whole different language of communicating. And you can only really do it with those people. And it's very moment specific, you know?
Kendall: But there's an established trust that helps it come forward or something.
Zia: Yeah. Yeah. I think yes. One thing about the trust is I think it took us a while to get to a point where we kind of knew what we were trying to make. And that relational trust built after a while. There's definitely a satisfying feeling of like, I know what we're all supposed to be doing. It's a very safe, but also flexible container for exploring and being creative, but you can be experimenting at the same time. But you also just kind of know what you're asking for making sounds.
Kendall: And the container is like your relationships with the people ? or what would you say the container is?
Zia: Like the rules of the game. It's like, I'm the singer, Rohan's the guitarist, like Austin plays bass. We each know what each person is, what ingredient they're bringing. In my life, there are times when it's been really nice to get to just play music, the main thing for me is it's wordless. Even though I write the words. But when we're exploring, it's just me being like, do do do da da da, you know. The thing that's cool about music is you can get into like different grooves, you can find different frequencies when we're just jamming and trying to write songs. It's just a very exploratory process. And I think I would feel nervous to sing and like, just be like, waaoh if I didn't trust the guys.
Kendall: Thank you. Okay, I'm gonna, is it okay if I read two paragraphs of June Jordan's thingy?
Zia: I would be shocked if you didn't. And I would love that.
Kendall: Then you're just gonna riff. Okay, she says:
“My life seems to be an increasing revelation of the intimate face of universal struggle. You begin with your family and the kids on the block and next you open your eyes to what you call your people and that leads you into land reform into black English into Angola, leads you back to your own bed where you lie by yourself, wondering if you deserve to be peaceful or trusted or desired or left to the freedom of your own unfaltering heart.
And the scale shrinks to the size of a skull, your own interior cage. And then if you're lucky, and I have been lucky, everything comes back to you. And then you know why one of the freedom fighters in the 60s, a young black woman interviewed shortly after she was beaten up for riding near the front of an interstate bus.
You know why she said, We are also very happy. It's because it's on all of us and me by myself. We're on.”
Zia: That’s where the title comes from.
Kendall: Right! So music is something that makes you feel like it's on. And does quilt making make you feel like it's on or what is making you curious about sewing and quilting?
Zia: I mean, I give them away as gifts to people who I love. It's a collage that I'm making that will keep them warm. You know, and be part of their family. For me, it feels like the nicest gift I could possibly give someone, you know. I think music is very special, because the thing that I wrote about, or the melody that we made years ago, could be listened to by someone and mean something to them or catch them in a moment. Yeah, I guess it's about the future connecting.
Maybe that's what's the same about quilt making and music. I'm making something for someone to appreciate or to be meaningful to them, in the future. It's trippy to me that people would listen to these songs and be like, that sounds good now, that’s what I want to listen to now. They're very of a time for me. I listen to them and it's like looking at old journal entries or something. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, that's what I was feeling, but they exist now for people.
Maybe similarly, when I made Julia her quilt, I started it when she got married. I gave it to her when she just had a baby. So it took two years to make this quilt. So much of her life, and all that, is wrapped up in the huge changes that are occurring for her in this moment. And now when I go over there, I see them using the quilt. And that's so sick, you know? I was just incorporated into her day to day. Something about the June Jordan thing is making me think about how sometimes I'm aware of my daughter might listen to Sally Mango. And what would I want her to feel when she's listening to it, or to think about me in my life, you know? Music has a different audience, there's an implied audience that kind of keeps me on my toes. People will listen to it and be like, what's this about? Or like, why is this important? And it's a pressure that is good, because it keeps me trying, basically. It's like a helpful, a helpful imagined audience in the future.
Kendall: It’s interesting, the music and quilt time thing, because I feel like to make them, you have to go into this timeless zone, but then it makes time very like bendy and flexible, almost.
Zia: It does, but it also feels like music in particular, it's a way of freezing moments, in a way I really appreciate. For me, at least. But also, don't you feel that way when you listen to music, like, from your youth, and you're like, this song is like, so caught up in my freshman year of high school, you know, it's so cool and unique, how it can bring you back to something like that. Or listening to something multiple times in your life can make you think about your own life passing in an interesting way.
Kendall: It’s so visceral. Mm hmm.
Zia: Yeah, I think it sometimes makes me wonder how people who don't play music experience music, because for me so much of it is interpreted through my experiences, playing music with people and having it be like a community project. And then, when I'm listening to music, I'm always thinking about what I could steal and learn from other people. And I wonder, I wonder what that's like for others.
Kendall: Have you made music your whole life? And what drew you to it?
Zia: I’ve sung for my whole life. I only really started making it in like, late high school. It seemed cool. *laughs* I think I was like, I knew I was good at singing. And you know how people like to do things that they're good at. *laughs* And then yeah, it's cool, because it's a way of being artistic that's not lonely. I mean, it can be. But the group of it all is really implied to me, the collaborative experience of it. I wouldn't, and I couldn't make it by myself.
Kendall: Yeah. Another thing, which is kind of like the World Cup thing is that enthusiasm is so contagious. Like, it really, it travels.
Zia: Is enthusiasm in this way, like, just like something new, like something new and people are catching on, or people are all paying attention to it. I'm thinking about, like tiktok dances, you know? Those just like come out of nowhere, and suddenly sweep the nation.
Kendall: Right. And they go viral. I don't think it has to be new.
Zia: People have so much fun doing that, it makes them feel connected across space and time.
Kendall: Yeah, I think it's more like people can feel the fun, or people can sense when other people are having fun, and they like want that. So it could be fad, but it could be very old thing.
Zia: How is fun connected to what June Jordan was saying? Because I feel like that, I don't feel like fun is necessarily a fad, but fun is such a huge part of it for me.
Kendall: *laughs* What’s your answer, Zia?
Zia: Sometimes I worry that being able to have fun is like, because of my rich whiteness.
Kendall: I think it's connected because she's talking about freedom and joy, and freedom and joy are fun.
Zia: They really are.
Kendall: It’s fun to do stuff with other people, whether it's being in a band. Or like, getting on those buses, you know? Also, I think there's a lot of rich white people who cannot have fun, like don't know how to.
Zia: So true. I don't want to be in a position where I feel like fun is like only for a few. But sometimes I feel self conscious.
Kendall: I relate.
Zia: Do you? Yeah, but I think it's very important.
Kendall: I think so, too.
Zia: What would life be? And I don't think anybody wants that for us, you know? Like, I don't think ultimately anyone's like, don't.
Kendall: Right. And I feel like people who aren't having fun, they're like taking out their misery on other people.
Zia: For real. And maybe they don't have something creative that makes them feel safe and have that safe container for exploration in the world, you know? If you don't have that, then you automatically go towards the options of tyranny and other bad thoughts because that’s what’s available. That's where you put your creative energy. I mean, I do think every person has creative instincts and energy, but maybe didn't get it nourished in them as a child or, you know, didn't have the buffet table of whatever you want to do out in front of them, you know?
Kendall: Well, I made it through all my questions. Is there anything else that you want to say about enthusiasm or freedom or love? *laughs*
Zia: I hate phoned in enthusiasm. Enthusiasm always has to be like, look like a cheerleader or have that vibe, you know? You can be kind of quietly or even somberly enthusiastic about something. It's just about being like interested and like where you place your attention, care. Sometimes I feel like people misunderstand my cheeriness and optimism and it's like can get written off as like silly.
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