Formed by members of the Venus Band, Walias backed up many prominent singers with a hard polyrhythmic funk sound influenced by western artists like King Curtis, Junior Walker and Maceo Parker.
Rather than returning to Ethiopia under its dictatorship, four members of Walias—Girma Bèyènè, Mogès Habté, Mèlakè Gèbrè and Hailu Mergia—stayed in the U.S. and formed a new group called Zula Band.
[7] In the late 1990s Walias Band found a wider audience in the west when the French label Buda Records reissued much of the group's music on the Ethiopiques series of compact discs.
After hearing it, Shimkovitz found keyboardist Hailu Mergia's phone number on the Internet, called him up, and arranged an official re-release of Walias Band's music.
Vocalists that Walias worked with included Getachew Kassa, Mahmoud Ahmed, Woubishet Fisseha, Alemayehu Borobor, Seyoum Gebreyes, Netsanet Mellessè and Tilahun Gessesse.