Frankie Muriel is reflecting on the end of St. Louis institutions. “I woke up this morning and Favazz is leaving KSHE, and Tony’s is closed,” he laments. “This is the end of an era.”
Muriel certainly knows his St. Louis institutions. After all, Dr. Zhivegas, the wildly popular party band Muriel has fronted for 30 years, is one. And like those other retiring legends Muriel mentions, Dr. Zhivegas is calling it a night. Muriel and his bandmates have announced that St. Louis’ kings of the dance floor are taking a final victory lap by playing their last shows as a regular outfit.
Since 2025 will be the last year for St. Louis to get down on it, shake their booties, and celebrate good times with Dr. Zhivegas, Muriel has been busy making sure that the last few shows are special, reuniting with old bandmates, and reflecting on what the past 30 years have meant for him and his band’s fans. “Ever since I decided to stop, I’ve been busier than ever!” he says, laughing about the irony of winding down and ramping up at the same time.
“It’s been overwhelming, man,” Muriel says. “Between the announcement and now, there’s not a day goes by that I don’t get a ton of comments and messages. There’s been a lot of disbelief, and a lot of people are sad.” But Muriel also says that a lot of longtime fans are embracing the band’s final run and have packed the shows—collectively dubbed The Last Dance—with extra spirit. “The first show [after announcing the band’s retirement] we did last fall at Sky Music Lounge, people dressed up, wearing afros and boas,” he says. “It was a flashback to ‘96.”
Muriel is talking about the beginnings of Dr. Zhivegas, back when Muriel, alongside drummer Paul Chickey and bassist Cubby Smith, both still members of the band today, launched a disco-rock revival in St. Louis. Dr. Zhivegas, playing horn-drunk, guitar-flanging, conga-charged covers of ‘70s funk classics, quickly became the soundtrack for countless Saturday nights in St. Louis and bachelorette parties at the Lake of the Ozarks.
For three decades, while making a home in St. Louis, Dr. Zhivegas has played for more than two million fans across 6000 shows from Vegas to Mexico and all points in between. And all along, Muriel has been the voice, face, hips, and hair of Dr. Zhivegas. In fact, it’s not uncommon for fans to mistakenly think that Muriel’s stage name is Dr. Zhivegas, referring to the band as “he,” or approaching Muriel in public and calling him by his band’s moniker.
Whatever you call him, Muriel has ridden the Zhivegas disco-funk train to the big time. With his extravagant song-and-dance-man charisma—equal parts Prince and David Lee Roth—Muriel is still at the top of his game, audiences are as enthusiastic as ever, and the band is still in premium-dollar demand. It’s enough to make a man content to lay down the boogie and play that funky music ’til he dies.
And yet Muriel insists that it’s time to wind Zhivegas down. “It just kind of happened in the fall,” he says of the decision to launch the farewell shows. “The guys and I were talking about things, and it just seems like the right time. Thirty years is a long time to do anything! So we will be freeing up some time for everyone to do other things they’d like to do. I came up with the idea of ‘The Last Dance’ and to take it to all the areas of the city and kind of do it like we used to do it.”
One way the band is paying tribute to the old ways is to return to the music they played when they first started. Anyone who has caught Zhivegas in recent years has heard plenty of contemporary pop and dance hits, but this year the band’s setlists will be dedicated to classic ‘70s disco and party-funk jams. Another callback is the return of legendary guitarist Dee Dee James to the Zhivegas fold. Together with versatile ace Ethan Jones, Zhivegas features two of the hottest guitar slingers in town, offering a twin-guitar attack that allows for some expansive jams. “It’s been ridiculous!” Muriel crows. “It’s fun having those tricks back again.”
In typical Muriel fashion, he plans to make the most of the final run, even while he admits that it comes with some bittersweet feelings. “It was emotional putting together that Last Dance [promotional] video,” he says. “I’m looking at 30 years of my life. And all of those good times and all of those memories. So it’s been emotional, but it’s also been pretty fun to honor it, to get back to the jams. That’s been a blast.”
Still, Muriel is far from retiring as a musician and performer. As the sun sets on Dr. Zhivegas, Muriel will turn his attention to a new chapter in his storied career: his first solo album. I’m Still Standing features 10 newly recorded Muriel tracks, a diverse set of soul bangers and power ballads, including some original compositions, like lead single and future wedding first-dance song “Sweet Surrender,” due in March. The album is set for an August release.
But if the Dr. Zhivegas demise has you blue, Muriel does mention that Zhivegas is sure to resurface from time to time, such as for the band’s annual Prince tribute show—but that the weekly grind of regular shows is indeed coming to an end. Therefore, folks wanting a Last Dance with Dr. Z have 15 opportunities left, including an outdoor blowout at Chesterfield Amphitheater in July, a Delmar Hall date in October (the band’s precise 30-year anniversary), a series of Christmas shows at Westport Playhouse, and the final Last Dance party on New Year’s Eve at Old Rock House.
“People are making plans,” he says of the band’s longtime fans. “They’re rocking up their old crews, all the girls, making plans to hit it with the Dr. one more time.”
