Featured Artist

News flash… A.M. Radio Indy hasn’t always been a unified front. Their gregarious, engaging, and almost symbiotic stage presence belie a truth…

Early in their musical careers, Adam Zoibi and Mark Munz were mortal enemies in rival high school bands. Mortal enemies… that may be a little too strong (okay, a complete fabrication)...but they were both in different bands in high school.

In the halls of Hamilton Southeastern High School where they both attended, it probably wasn’t Jets and Sharks level rivalry…but Mark’s band Speed of Color and Adam’s band Iris did know of each other. As Adam noted, “we both played in bands, but just not in the same bands.” 

Today, the playful banter about whose band/playing was better still exists. Adam said candidly of Mark’s playing… “But he was just better. He was just better, period. He's still f*cking better. know what I mean? 

Honestly, when you hear…high school band…is there a little cringe? Like, one step up from screeching 7th grade violins? Maybe in some cases, but not for these guys. In particular, Adam’s band Iris–were legit good. 

In the day both had ideas that music, bands, guitars could be…a thing. As Adam already noted, Mark was good, “So, yeah it was definitely something I was gonna pursue.” 

For Adam, there was good reason to believe they were going to do something. Whatever the it factor is for a high school band Iris apparently had…it. They competed on Star Search.

“We did a star search competition that happened in downtown Indianapolis. We took 50 out of like 5000 or 500, whatever the number was. And then we got an opportunity to go talk with someone at Arista Records, and we never followed up with that. And then we had another guy locally named Bobby Summers, who kind of found out about us and he was like half promoting us.”

For a lot of reasons…a lot of complicated moving parts, moving band members…different life directions—eventually the band pretty much fell apart.

For there to be a band that falls apart, regardless of the circumstances, at some point there is a beginning–talented musicians who have put in hours in the woodshedded it to make it look easy, and oftentimes there is a musical inspiration. 

For Mark that was when he was a kid commuting back and forth from the suburbs of Chicago to Indianapolis. 

“So we were driving back and forth from Mount Prospect to Indy, 'cause my dad got a job transfer when I was about nine, nine and a half. Okay. And we were driving back and forth, and we were listening to these rock tapes. It had, like, ZZ Top on it, Aerosmith had, like, stuff from the big chill sound.”

“ZZ Top really caught my attention, 'cause the guitar was so cool. I mean, it's a 59 Les Paul, you know? I. Um, just listening back, and we got back, we finally moved, we got settled, and I went to my mom, and I'm like, Hey, can I get guitar lessons? I wanna play the guitar. From nine and a half till right now, 41. So, it's been, uh, it's been a love ever since.

So, the official cool card designation goes to Mark. He started with guitar. 

Adam…Adam took the path many a musician took, and a path that derailed many a musician’s journey–he started with Piano lessons. 

“My parents made me play the piano, and I was, like, young. I didn't like it, but I liked it. There was an electric guitar effect on the piano that she (piano teacher–Mrs. Pendant) had. And I was like... And she was like, Aah! And I was like, Isn't that cool?”

I was terrible. I was like, Listen, Mrs. Pendant…I still have a gold star that I got from her. Yes. in my room. 

So she got through, but piano was forced. Guitar was cool.” 

Piano was from, like, I don't know, probably, like, 10 to 10, maybe, like, 11 to 13. And then the guitars from, like, 13 forward. Umm, perhaps that might explain why Mark is so much better of player, he had a 4 year head start.

At some point they guys graduated from high school–took different paths–Adam to Ball State and Mark starting at Indiana State. 

For Mark, vocals came first. “Yeah, yeah, vocal was my, actually, my primary. Vocal performance was my concentration, but I was a Music Business major at Indiana State…okay, and then I moved to guitar to study that, and then I transferred to it. 

Adam’s journey at Ball State was a little more circuitous, in fact…kind of derailed. 

“I played some open mics. Yeah, but I lost a little bit of passion for playing. I don't play so much in college anymore. I kind of, like, play a little bit with Charlie, open mics. We played a couple things. I still played, but it wasn't like it is…at all.”

Quick sidenote…apparently Ball State is the unknown mecca and breeding ground for local Indianapolis bands…enter Billy Pilgrim and the Earthlings. Adam knew BP’s bass player Chris Lafave.

Except they weren’t Billy Pilgrim and the Earthlings, for some of them (at least Chris) there was a band called Stomping Ground. However as much as he may have wanted to, by Adam’s own admission…”I wasn't good enough to play with him yet.”

“Yeah, yeah. I kind of had a really bad audition in a dorm room with them. It was horrible, and I wasn't good, and I didn't know what to do. And it was like…they're a jam band and I was coming from playing pop music written for a girl. And it wasn't, it just didn't jive.”

But there was a glimmer…

“You know, like when I saw them play in the basements in Muncie for the first couple times, that was the first time I'd seen guitars played like that. And I was like, I want that too. And then it kind of, I got sparked a little bit more to playing in college, still not much. 

But I got really, really back into it when we started back up. Started doing the A.M. Radio stuff… started doing this. 

Now would be a great time to introduce the happy ever after idea that Mark came to visit Adam at Ball State for a weekend…Mark brings guitar, and the rest is history.

Pump the brakes…did not happen.

As with many bands, the destination started with a winding path of fits and spurt. 

To the point, the yet to be A.M. Radio Indy…was Adam, and his former Iris bandmate. “We got a call  to play this show at Four-Day Ray Brewing. Played it, it went okay. 

And then they asked again, and I was like, you want to play?” 

He bailed. 

“He just bailed. And so then I knew… you know what I mean? The champ here (Mark), 

Adam called…

“I was like, hey, It's Adam, what's up? Want to make some money playing some guitars?”

That was 2018. 

Channeling inner Beavis and Butthead vibes now…

And then we kept doing it. And then I was like, ‘I wrote a couple songs.

He's like, No sh*t.

And I was like, Yeah.

And he was like, Those songs don't suck.

And I was like, that's cool. You wanna, like, make a record? 

“And then that took four years. But we did that. And now we have gigs with the frequency that eclipses occur. Yeah. Pretty much. The speed of a sundial.”

And, it is so…they do have a record. A legitimate record. It’s a mix of songs from Adam’s formative experiences as a player in high school with their buddy Charlie and Charlie’s father whose story weaves its way in and out of several songs. 

More recently though, the songs come from Adam and his family traversing and crisscrossing a good portion of the United States and Canada.

On his most recent journey through the Northeast, he sent me a collection of photos capturing the unfettered beauty of shorelines and mountainscapes they encountered

I responded…I smell song brewing.

There is..in fact there is a new record brewing. 

Regardless,  the new song “River,” was born in the West...in Montana. But, true to Zoibi’s oft-found inspiration: “It was born at the foothills of Yellowstone. The song ‘Montana’ came out of it...that was the first, then I wrote this, sitting there watching the water...just watching the Yellowstone River flow.”

When you hear the song, though, there is a haunting, lilting musical flow...a visceral movement in the song...that is Mark (you know the better player).

Even though he hasn’t seen the same images, Mark is able to interpret them and put his unique stamp on the song.

“Yeah, Adam usually comes with the idea of the river (or whatever), with things flowing and movement and motion. I wanted to come up with a part that fit that. So I brought the slide out and used that because it’s got kind of a rivery, flowy thing.”

Rivery, flowy, eclipses, and sundials.

A.M. Radio 2026

The playful banter about whose high school band was best, who is the best player…is just that, playful banter. 

Whether it is on Adam’s back porch sipping an Eagle Rare 12 Year, or out at a local establishment playing an eclipse gig, Adam and Mark make it look effortless. To play at their level and to have it look and sound effortless…you know the work is there.

It is there. 

They are relentless in the pursuit of their craft. The camaraderie and playfulness that exudes from them at a live performance is only matched by the faithfulness to the artists whose songs they cover, and the originality and authenticness of their own.