Initially conceived as a bedroom recording project in Beijing, The Burgers are the fiercely independent creation of songwriter Zac Burger, whose music blends punk, folk punk, indie pop and power pop with a distinctly DIY spirit. Since 2019, Zac has built an eclectic catalogue of deeply personal songs, challenging conventions of what a punk band should sound like.
Inspired in part by Glasgow indie band Bubblegum Lemonade, Zac relocated to Scotland in late 2023, a move that helped shape his 2025 album Kick Fights to Lose. Released through his own Unsolicited Demos Records, the album marks his first collection of songs written entirely in English, combining raw punk energy and melodic sensibilities with influences drawn from his lifelong passion for the Chinese martial art Bajiquan. Beneath its confrontational humour, the record also questions cultural authority, artistic hierarchies and the conventions of acceptable rebellion.
For our latest Under the Influence feature, we’ve asked The Burgers to share three of the key musical influences behind Kick Fights to Lose.
The Cars – The Cars
The Cars was one of the very first rock bands I ever heard. I remember it very clearly. It was March 2017. I was fourteen years old when I heard ‘Just What I Needed’ in my favourite film, Boys Don’t Cry. (As a side note, I love every single song on that film’s soundtrack.) It was also my favourite scene in the whole movie. As the camera slowly tilted up into the night sky along with that distorted synthesiser, I completely fell in love with the band. They have so many great songs. Their music always make me think of nights on the American East Coast in the 1980s. That imagery connects with so many other things that I love. And of course, when you watch their live videos, who could possibly not fall in love with Benjamin Orr? After I became a musician myself and discovered how disgusting the subculture behind rock music could be, music stopped being something beautiful to me a lot of the time. Instead, it became something disgusting. But one day I clicked on a live video of The Cars again. Listening to those songs I had loved so much when I was younger, I couldn’t help thinking: The Cars taught me what music is. On stage, they did nothing. They simply played beautiful songs that moved people.
The Mamas and the Papas – If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
It was 2013, on a summer afternoon when I was in the fourth grade of elementary school. I had just finished my saxophone lesson at school, and my grandmother was taking me home. On the way back, we had some kind of small argument, but I don’t remember what it was about anymore. I stayed by the elevator on the ground floor and refused to leave, while my grandmother went upstairs and went home by herself.
Next to the elevator was an electronic advertising screen that kept playing a Chevrolet Malibu commercial on a loop. I just stood there, and while I was standing there, that commercial must have played at least fifty times. ‘California Dreamin’ was the song used in the advertisement. After that, the fresh melody stayed in my mind for many years, but I never knew what it was called. It wasn’t until 2016 that I found this song in a post introducing songs used in car commercials. Then naturally, I completely fell in love with The Mamas & The Papas. I searched obsessively for their story and performance videos. And of course, I couldn’t help but fall in love with Michelle Phillips, the most beautiful woman on Earth in my eyes.
This leads to another story connected to my friend who died, which happened during the winter break of 2018. That was the most passionate period of my life, and The Mamas & The Papas’ music became the soundtrack to every night during that time. But after that devastating summer, I rarely listened to The Mamas & The Papas’ songs again.
I have imagined countless ways I might die. One of the ways I have imagined most often is driving a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu – maybe white, maybe red – with the girl I will find someday and crashing to my death on California State Route 1 or Route 61. But unfortunately, ten years have passed. I still haven’t had the chance to go to America, and I still haven’t found that another girl.
Veronica Falls – Waiting for Something to Happen
During that dark summer of 2018, when I was being tormented by those two friends who had become the opposite of who they once were and had already rotted into corpses, during the last moments when she was still alive, I heard Veronica Falls in her playlist. I will never forget that night. I searched their videos on YouTube obsessively, and I fell in love with every song from their two albums. In just one night, Veronica Falls became one of my favourite bands. I think if angels had a voice, it would be Roxanne Clifford’s. When I found out that they had already broken up, and that their drummer Patrick Doyle had just passed away in March of that year, I was sad for a very long time. Their music made me feel something pure. It was something completely isolated from the world, current events, and crowds. I imagined Veronica Falls as a group of pure people. Every time I felt that I could not keep going, listening to their songs made me suffer even more. I questioned myself countless times: why could I not live with them until the day I died? But how could I live with them? Should I go to the place where they are? What if they never existed at all?
