DANE “ZEALOT” NEWTON IS FREE 🎸
The amazingly soulful voice behind Territorial’s “America The Merciful” has finally been released after serving 18 years in prison. Our Co-Executive Director BL Shirelle had a chat with Zealot about his newfound freedom, recording with his prison band Territorial, and NEW MUSIC!!
BL Shirelle: So…WELCOME HOME DANE!! How does it feel being free?
Zealot: Good and bad to be honest. I’m embracing it all and loving every part of this journey! The good thing is you have autonomy. You’ve got power over your decisions, for the most part except parole. Over the years you collect all these desires and things you want to do. If you're smart, you'll write them down and look over them as you get closer to the fence and realize some of the stuff you thought you wanted to do, you actually don’t. But some of it you carry with you.
I came out and thought, okay. I started eating healthy in prison, started working out a lot. Ultra-high-quality living became a lifestyle for me, so I carried that over out here. Having access to things that help foster those decisions and keep me healthy — tools to regulate myself and my emotions — that’s been all good.
Reconnecting with my family has been good too. Seeing family I hadn’t seen in almost 20 years. They were babies when I left, and now they have kids of their own and families. That’s been super emotional. But there are good and bad things. The one person I wanted to be here the most—my mom. Losing her five years before I came home has been the toughest thing.
When you're inside, no matter where you are in the world, you always have that thought: I'm going home. And home is where mom is. I don’t have that anymore. She passed in 2020. I didn’t get closure because they buried her while I was inside. Now I wake up some mornings thinking, damn, I want to call mom — and I can’t...That’s been tough. I still have to travel back to California, stand next to her grave site, say what I need to say, and then try to live the life I’m supposed to live. That’s the hardest thing.
Zealot’s mom, Dorothy Ann Gibson
Zealot dedicated the “America The Merciful” video to his mom’s memory.
BL Shirelle: It’s so crazy how life keeps moving outside those walls and at times yours feel frozen in time. In newfound freedom, you're mourning a lot of what WAS, while loving and appreciating what IS. You come home and it’s a new world. The dynamics are different.
You lose friends… not because of anything bad, but just time and space. You come home and your friend may have three kids you don’t know. It’s not that you can’t still be friends—you’ll always have the connection of what you once were—but they’re different people now.
Zealot: That’s a powerful way to put it—mourning what could have been while embracing what is…
BL: Well, I don’t know if you know, but you have my favorite song ever on the label. “America the Merciful.” Out of all the incredible work that’s come out, that’s the one I always play when I want to show someone what we do. Your voice is AMAZING. It’s soulful. It makes people feel something. Some people have all the technical skill in the world but they don’t have that. Are you still writing music?
Zealot: Yeah. I’ve been writing a lot of music. My boy keeps telling me I need to get a guitar, but I hate playing guitar. That’s not my instrument. My instrument is singing.
Eventually I can put music together, but doing the chords, building the structure, writing the lyrics and arranging everything — I usually give that to a musician and let them make it pretty. Then we make it beautiful together. There were a few guys I worked with inside for five or six years. That was my band on the inside. A few of them are actually out here in this state now, so I want to find them and see if we can recapture some of that energy. But if not, I’ll make something happen regardless.
BL Shirelle: That song had a huge impact on the record. What do you remember about recording it?
Zealot: I haven’t followed the thread of how far it went. I’m only 9 days out, so I haven’t really dug into it. But while I was inside I had people reaching out from Norway, Sweden, Germany — places like that — about the music. So I knew it was getting out there.
Recording the project was crazy because there was a lot of resistance from prison officials. They didn’t want y’all in there. I almost didn't record with them. When I finally got in there, I had a bunch of songs ready to go though. We landed on one song and Fury said, “That’s almost the song right there.” He said it captured what the label and project were about.
So on the fly I started tweaking the words and rewriting the chorus right there in the room. That was stressful but interesting because I had never written music like that before. Usually I write alone. But being in that room with all those people, recording, and having wardens and administrators peeking through the door watching — it felt like something bigger than just music.
It felt like new ground was being broken. There was nothing like that happening anywhere. So watching it happen and being invited to be part of it was amazing. And hearing that the song became the biggest one on the album — that blows my mind!!
“America The Merciful” video directed by Shaina Nasrin. Zealot acted as creative consultant on the video from prison.
BL Shirelle: The song [“America The Merciful”] actually just got licensed for a documentary series. That’s how strong the song is, it will always be relevant. America is complex—beautiful and ugly at the same time. It will always apply to whatever moment we’re in. What are you focused on right now as you transition out?
Zealot: Financial stability. I’m in a temporary housing situation with about a six-month window to get things set up. So I’m focused on building structure. At the same time, I can walk and chew gum. I’m probably going to buy a guitar and start digging into some old memories and writing music again.
BL Shirelle: Did you develop any work skills inside?
Zealot: Yeah. For about 15 or 16 years I worked in food service and culinary programs. I got really good at pastries. About a year and a half ago I catered an event for Governor Polis — three to four hundred pieces of pastries. It took me two days. I also did catering for the Mayor of Buena Vista, some state legislators, business owners, and the state Attorney General Philip Weiser. So that’s something I want to pursue — maybe a pastry delivery service or a mobile coffee and pastry setup.
BL Shirelle: Did you build any lifelong friendships inside?
Zealot: Yeah, a couple. One is Christopher Daly—we call him “the Mayor.” He’s one of the smartest people I know. He has helped me a lot since I came home. We’re planning to build some business ideas together. Another friend is Marcus Watkins from Arkansas. The three of us became close. When you do that much time, people inside end up knowing you better than your own family sometimes. It’s tragic, but it’s also beautiful in a way because you develop deep bonds with people who shared that experience with you. When I sat down with my cousin recently for lunch, I could see how nervous he was. We hadn’t seen each other in almost two decades. There’s excitement, but also tension and unfamiliarity. It’s complicated. But it’s beautiful too.
BL Shirelle: If people want to support you or reach out, how can they contact you?
Zealot: I have a Gmail account, a Facebook account, and an Instagram account. Stay tuned. Right now the biggest thing I need is transportation. Getting around this city [Denver] is tough. I’m constantly asking people for rides. If you miss appointments it can jeopardize your freedom. Everything costs money, and transportation is the most pressing thing I need. Without it, it’s hard to work. So if anyone can help with transportation or point me toward resources that could help, that would make a huge difference.
Zealot’s release couldn’t have lined up better with the licensing deal we just closed for the documentary series Conbody vs. Everybody. We got to pay Zealot for the license of “America The Merciful” — soundtrack for a documentary about reentry — as well as an honorarium for this interview.
Listen to Tlaxihuiqui below, as well as the video for Zealot’s other song on the album, “Battlecry ‘14.”
Dane “Zealot” Newton graces the cover (right side) of 2021’s Tlaxihuiqui. His song “America The Merciful” is the most streamed song on the album.