Long before fighting fires grabbed his interest, 26-year-old Zachary Harris had a burning passion for the saxophone. Whether on the scene with a fire hose in his hand or at your favorite restaurant with an instrument planted in his grip, Zachary is working to improve the local atmosphere.
“I grew up in a musical family,” Zachary says. “My mom sang, my brother played the keyboard, and my dad played the trumpet. I started with the trumpet too, because my dad did, and then the drums, but I always loved the saxophone.”
He finally laid his hands on the instrument after joining Aberdeen Fire & Rescue and saving up enough money to buy a saxophone from an eBay auction. He taught himself to play and as his career as a fireman progressed, Zachary began using his music as a tool to help him recover from each emotional emergency call.
“We see overdoses, fatalities and wrecks almost daily. I just realized that I wanted to heal others with my music too, not just me,” Zachary says. He began performing locally, busking on sidewalks and taking center stage at an ever-growing list of venues including diVine Lounge, Neville’s and the Jefferson Inn.
Channeling the vision of a decades-old romance, Zachary wants to “bring good music, old school love music, back to Moore,” — reminiscent of candlelit dinners where the music was “so good that you couldn’t help but get up and dance. As you did, you could really just feel the enjoyment of life and could fall back in love [with the person across from you] all over again.”
But even when he’s spending his nights performing the soundtrack to your candlelit reservation, Zachary has been blown away by the community support for his music.
“It’s a long journey to get where I really want to be [musically], but I believe I’ll get there, and I’ll enjoy the journey in between. It’s been amazing. I’ve wanted this for so long and never thought I’d have it, and now I do.”
Read more about Zachary on his website, here.
