Peter Twomey
Every year Dublin produces a new set of likely hopefuls with bright dreams of making it big. The Shoos are no different, except where other pretenders have fallen The Shoos have ascended the local homely dives and made waves towards the mainstream. I caught up with the band a few days before the release of their debut album Rescue Room and chatted about wide ranging topics, from supporting Taylor Hawkins to sneaking in to Trinity Ball.
You guys would be considered a fresh band, recently signed to Universal, was it always your intention to make the band into a career?
Barry: Not really no, it just happened.
Steve: I guess you always think ‘well let’s get this music to as many people as possible’, whether that means getting signed or having somebody get your music there. That’s not really what we’re about, it’s not our thing. Our thing is the music and trying to connect to people with our music and hopefully they can like it because we like it and we can bring it to people. Even the stuff we write about, we don’t want it to be something that you don’t think about, we want it to be lyrically ‘how’s your life?’, and then make a song that can be relevant to you, that can identify to you. It’s bourn out of a love for music. You know when you hear a song and you think ‘I love that…I fucking love that!’, we want to have that effect to somebody listening to us.
From left to right: Scott, Barry, Steve and Tex
When did The Shoos first get together?
Barry: About three years ago but our first release was September 2009. The band itself was completely unintended, we never thought ‘okay, let’s get a band together’, it just happened really organically. I guess in the public eye we’re a brand new band, which is great because we have somewhat of a clean slate.
Steve: Every new songs makes it feel like a new band, because with every different song the approach changes, so it’s new all the time really.
Where would you draw greatest inspiration from in your music and lyrics?
Steve: Musically I’m not sure, we’d get a lot of inspiration from people I suppose. We wrote a song a few weeks ago about turning into your dad.
Tex: Leaving the lights on in your gaff and walking around going ‘who left the fucking lights on?!’, then just stopping and going ‘Jesus Christ, I’m turning into my dad’. Writing a song about the relationship between you and your dad and the different relationships we’d have as a band with our dads, y’know just talking about it on stage at the Olympia because everyone has a dad or a mom or whatever and everyone is different and everyone can relate to that.
Steve: Every song is a relationship of some description; be it with your dad, your girlfriend… and that’s what music is always trying to do, bring people together and getting people to identify.
And who writes the lyrics?
Steve: We all do really. We have these speed writing sessions where we all sit around and pick a topic and ‘I’ll see you in for minutes…so what do you have? I have this…’
Tex: Invariably someone won’t have been listening and end up writing about shaving.
Steve: Some people are great at one particular thing and that may be our downfall, maybe that’s good for us. We all seem to be better when working together. We all can write lyrics, we can all write music, that’s a great thing I think.. One day one of us might be particularly melodic and we’ll go with that person until they run out of ideas and then we’ll step in. In contrast to us barging over each others with ideas that are going nowhere.
Tex: We think it’s quality control for the standard of the song, it’s just helping the song get better.
You’ve recently recorded your new album Rescue Rooms, which is out on April 8th, how did that go?
Steve: It’s actually a mini album, it’s 7 tracks and we want to continuously release albums in the same format. I think the days of full-length albums are over and we never want to make a full-length album because bands get know for one songs and whatever. It’s good to stay current to your sounds and to your fans because if you’re playing stuff that’s too old and you can’t relate to, you find yourself think ‘Fuck, this is just another gig.’, whereas if you’re bringing a fresh sound all the time you keep the band interested.
Barry: The actual recording sessions happened over quite a long time. We initially started 2 years ago, so to a certain extent, to us anyway, these are songs that we’ve known for a very long time. We recorded in our own space and there was a lot of working and re-working stuff as well.
Tex: We like to record everything 3 times, and then lose a hard drive, go get another one, all that shit.
Steve: Yeah that has to happen for you to learn to say mentally ‘Well that had to happen.’… I’m not ready to discuss it actually, it’s that hurtful.
Barry: It’s funny when that stuff happens, maybe it happens for a reason. You might say ‘I don’t remember that part’ so you have to fix it and change it up a bit and you might come out with a better song as a result.
Tex: Serendipity is a nice word for that…
"Serendipity is a nice word for that…"
After working with some very acclaimed musicians and producers, have you been able to take much on board to improve The Shoos?
Steve: Along the way we’ve encountered a couple of people. We were out in America. We’ve worked with Michael Beinhorn [Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden and Marilyn Manson producer] and Warren Huart from the Fray. I think it’s kind of interesting because you expect them to come out with some kind of sentence that will make you realise what the music business is all about not really they’re just like you and me. It’s more like ‘let’s make a song’ and they’ve got a guitar around their neck and I have a guitar around my neck, let’s get these guitars talking. You can see why people like working with these guys because they’re easy to work with. I also think they bring out the best, we felt like bringing out the best of ourselves for them. I don’t mean under scrutiny but we’ve got a chance to play here with you, let’s do it, let’s make it happen.
The Shoos have also supported some great bands, has that aided you as a band?
Tex: We went on tour with OneRepublic, played with Maroon 5, Taylor Hawkins and then another American band called Lifehouse. It gives us a great platform to play to people that otherwise wouldn’t normally hear us and also to play in big sold out venues around the country.
Barry: It’s always great to have the opportunity to play with those people as well but, in the same way as with the producers, they’re just people with guitars and a drum kit.
What would you think is The Shoos biggest achievement to date?
Barry: Still being together!
Steve: We might bicker but it’s all in aid of being a better band and we learned a lot about The Shoos by talking about The Shoos. We’re in a car going to a gig, we talk about a film, we don’t talk about the band. So we learn about each other and doing these little tours we get a better idea of each other and bring it back to The Shoos.
This being a TCD publication, have you any anecdotes relating to Trinity?
Tex: I’ve tried to break into Trinity Ball a few times, but each time I got caught. One year my mate Daragh went through this hugely elaborate scheme to forge tickets. I mean he set up fake bank accounts, back then you had to go into the bank and have your details from the college and stuff. We got through the first gate but soon got kicked out. Another time I hid in someone’s dorm closet but the room got checked and I got thrown out. They’re the only stories about Trinity that I have!
Steve: It’s a nice place to play actually. I played there a few years in Front Arch on that stage, it’s a good vibe at about 5 in the morning.
Tex: The Pav! A sunny day in the Pav!
The Shoos debut album Rescue Room is out now. They also play a headline gig tonight in Whelans.
