Undiscovered Band of the Month: The Shants
By Staff on January 13, 2010
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Official Sites:
http://theshants.tumblr.com
http://myspace.com/theshantsmusic
Listen & Watch:
l "So Strange, These Days" MP3 l
l "So Strange, These Days" Live Video via Pirate Cat Radio l
Who are your main influences?
Well, its more of a "what" than a who. Each of us grew up in parts of the US that affected the way we play music together. Sam (pedal steel) grew up in Minnesota, on the South Dakota border, so he has a gruff, solemn and at times sweet & sentimental way of playing. He loves Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, George Jones and Son Volt.
Skip (guitars, vocals) grew up in sad, sopping-wet South Louisiana, so he listened to a lot of Southern blues (like Son House and Leadbelly) and New Orleans R&B (Eldridge Holmes, Irma Thomas), but loves bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and Kings of Convenience. Skip is also influenced by his father's record collection - lots of Bob Dylan, Fats Domino, Webb Pierce and Waylon Jennings.
Carver (bass) is from the Central Coast of California, and he is passionate about American soul, and so he loves James Carr, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke and Etta James. Adam (drums) is a devourer of all sorts of music, but folk & jazz in particular. He loves drummers like Peter Erskine and Brian Blade. Carver and Adam are both California natives, so they bring a warm West Coast feel to the rhythm section, whereas Sam and Skip came up in more stark landscapes.
How did you meet?
Sam and Skip met at the gym a few years ago. When the subject of music came up, they found that they had a lot in common. Carver and Skip met through mutual friends/bands that they knew that were from near Carver's hometown in San Luis Obispo (like Treluna, Port O'Brien). Adam came to this project through a Craigslist ad, asking for a drummer who could play more than just two dynamics: loud and louder.
What is your biggest achievement as a band to date?
The Shants are a brand new act, having formed in September of 2009. The recording of our EP, Russian River Songs is our best work yet. We holed up in a little house near the redwoods north of San Francisco to record them live. We only meant to document the way we sound when we're in the practice space, but what we captured felt really good, so we decided to release it. It's a pure an honest snapshot of the direction we are heading in - a lonesome, sweet and slow burning sound.
Where did the band name originate?
Shants refers to a few things.... the somewhat antiquated contraction of "shall not", and British slang for getting drunk "fancy a shant?" or "we got so shanted last night." To us, it represents our music in that it references something that has fallen out of pop culture's radar (honest, early country music) as well as the hazy, sometimes regretful attempts to drown your sorrows.
Favorite Bands?
Right now we're listening to a lot of J Tillman, Basia Bulat, Wilco, Christina Antipa (who we are playing a handful of shows with this month), Beach House, The Meters, Richard Buckner, and stupid classic rock on the radio.
Plans to Tour?
We're playing a string of shows in San Francisco, Stockton, Nevada City and Chico this month. We're planning a West Coast jaunt this summer, during Skip's break from school (he's a grad student at Academy of Art University in SF).
Plans for next release?
Right now we're collecting songs for a full length release, which may include some of the songs from our EP. We've been talking with the folks at Tape Op Magazine's studio in Sacramento, The Hangar, to do some tracking work. Tons of great artists have recorded there, including Vetiver, Devendra Banhart, Au Revoir Simone, The Devil Makes 3 and lots more.
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