INTERVIEW
SHOOK ONES
by Christer Davidsson, August 2007

Hey! It's nice to get the opportunity to ask you guys a few questions!

Kelly Aiken: -It's nice to get the opportunity to answer! I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that people from Sweden, or foreign countries in general, like my band. Shit is wild!
 
How would you describe the Shook Ones to someone who has no idea of who you guys are?

For anyone with a “background” in punk/hardcore, there's the obvious Lifetime and Kid Dynamite references. Some people get bummed when their bands get constantly compared to the same thing, and sure it gets a little old hearing/reading the same thing over and over, but trying to pretend that those bands aren't huge influences (or that Scott doesn't sound eerily like Jay Shevchuk) would be pretty much lying. We love those bands, so it's cool that people frequently use those comparisons in a flattering way. In a more simplistic way, though, we're just trying to do our best to make songs that we love, which of course are gonna end up sounding a bit like the bands we love. Between the 5 of us, there's a whole hell of a lot of different bands that we love, but the elements we all have in common are an appreciation for melody, sincerity, and thoughfulness when it comes to both songwriting and lyrics. We also love raging riffage. So I guess we sound like dudes trying to make music that incorporates all those things. And like Lifetime. And Kid Dynamite.

For someone who doesn't have that punk/hardcore “framework”, like my parents, I usually just say “really loud, really fast, and a little bit poppy”. Or "like New Found Glory if they didn't want to be rich".

For how long have you been doing this band now?

I personally have been doing this band for a little over two and a half years. The band existed for about a year before I joined, so Shook Ones has been going for about three and a half years now. The only two original members remaining are Scott and Funds, who are pretty much in fact the only two original members at all.

You guys have been in various other bands before, haven't you?

Yeah. We're all in our mid twenties, so we've been doing this shit for a while. A complete discography of our past would be both boring and embarassing, but the highlights include Go It Alone, Ripped To Shreds, and No Roses. Past members also played in Blue Monday and Non-Profit Holiday. Current other bands are Typical Ace, Black Treath, Bow +Arrow and Kasey Anderson.

What got you into the whole punk/ hardcore thing in the first place?

A lethal combination of MxPx and Minor Threat. I was 14, I heard MxPx on the radio and minor threat in my friend Justin's basement. The rest just sort of happened. Rock turns to punk, punk turns to hardcore, and all of a sudden I'm the only straightedge kid at my high school and I'm going to Kid Dynamite shows by myself. I never had any sort of specific turning point like a lot of people, I guess, it was just a gradual progression that matched with both my musical tastes and my ideologies as I got older and started thinking more and more for myself.

Your latest album "Feticious Folly Feet" and the 7" "Slaugther of the Insole" are amazing. However, I haven't had the opportunity to hear more than one song from your new split with Easel. Tell me about it.

Popular concensus is that it's our best work. It's kind of easy to say that, though, since it's only 3 songs. I'm proud of all our releases, but I'd say song for song, that one's probably the strongest. We're all really pleased with how the songs turned out, the recording process was really fun, and I think it's a good representation of us as a band - it's got the weirder, dramatic song and the balls-out pop song. It's also got a cover by one of my all time favorite bands, Sicko, which came out really well, and is just a plain ripping song. Not to mention the fact that half the record contains songs by Easel, who are fucking amazing. No joke. I don't even know what the hell Knov is saying, but listening to it gets me amped. Their mid-tempo jam is out of control catchy.
You guys had the opportunity to do a tour in Japan a while ago. How was that?

The best experience of my life. Absolutely every person i met in Japan - at the shows, at the gas station, on the street, at uniqlo - was totally awesome and nice. Imagine two weeks of everyone being super friendly, of beautiful country side, of ridiculous shows with awesome bands, and with built-in after parties at every show. Sometimes i get goose bumps just thinking about how much fun i had.

Going across the sea, whether it's a european band that gets to play the states or vice versa, must be a pretty big deal. Who hooked you up and made your Japan tour possible?

That would be our boy Daiki at Alliance Trax. We had a previous connection to Easel in that the original Shooks bass player, Jimmy Hat, left America to become an investment banker in Tokyo. While over there, he helped form the original incarnation of Easel and record their demo. The idea for doing a split record with them had kind of been rolling around in our heads for a while, so I just emailed Daiki out of the blue and asked what he thought about doing a split for us and a tour for us at the same time. He was friends with Easel and knew about us, so he was totally into it. He also was kind enough to drive us around for 2 weeks and put up with our shit and lose a bit of money on us. And he's responsible for the best 2 weeks of my life. So he's pretty much the best dude in the world. it's all about Daiki.

To be honest I don't know a damn thing about punk or hardcore in Asia. Did you get a chance play with any Japanese bands?

Yes! Holy crap. Too many to name - Easel, For A Reason, Cleave, I Scream, 7 Showers  and pretty much every band we played with. They don't have mediocre bands in Japan, apparently. All the bands we played with were tight as shit and totally on top of their game. Nothing half-assed, even a little bit.

So, when will you put together a new fullength record?

We've started writing songs, but it'll probably be a little while. For the first time in the life of Shook Ones, we're trying to have all the songs finished BEFORE we book studio time. It's gonna take a lot longer this way because we won't have a set deadline, really, but it will be way less stressful and hopefully will give us a chance to really focus on making the songs the best they can be. Me and Jimmy have been talking about trying to have all the songs written by the beginning of 2008 and then trying to record late winter, but we haven't actually talked to anyone else in the band about that yet so who knows. It's safe to say sometime in 2008, though.

So, you've been writing parts of the songs in the studio earlier?

Actually, what I meant was that we'll plan a release, book time in the studio, and then write everything between then. So we'll say "alright, yeah, let's put out a 7 inch", then we'll schedule studio time in 2 months, and THEN we'll write the songs, rather than writing a bunch of songs and then saying "alright, we've got enough songs to do a 7 inch" and THEN booking studio time and planning a release. In a certain way it works out well because it gives us concrete deadlines and gets us of our ass. On the other hand, it restricts the songwriting process a bit, and is stressful as fuck.
 
I really loved the last one. Do you see yourselves going in a different direction in the future or will you stick to what you've been doing?

Both. We're gonna try some new stuff because we've always got new ideas and we wanna try some new shit, but it'll still sound like Shook Ones, definately. It'll be basically just be like the old shit, probably, except we're going to get more extravagant with the bands we bite stuff from.

The sound of your recordings are great. What, besides writing great tunes, is the secret ingredient to make a recording turn out great?

Ha ha! Definately not anything that has to do with me. Anyone that knows us knows that me and Funds are not very technically proficient guitar players, so the quality of recording is pretty much entirely belonging to the quality of the talent of the rest of our members at their instruments, and the rad engineers we've had the chance to work with. For the full length, me and Funds literally had to do so many takes that Chris Common busted his space bar from punching in so many times. True story.

Ha ha, it's always the guitarists' fault that recordings take so long, isn't it?

No comment. Fortunately, for us the people who aren't the guitarists in Shook Ones are very good guitar players and are able to pick up the slack for us in the studio and make things happen in a timely fashion. I can guarantee you that if we ever play “Bad Year” live, it will not be me playing guitar.

To make good music I guess you have to listen to good music. What bands would you say have made an impact on the Shook Ones aprat from the ones you’ve already mentioned?

I totally agree with you on that. We all have pretty divergent musical tastes, so it would take way too long to list all the different stuff that influences us, but it ranges from old school punk like The Saints and The Pagans to ridiculous pop like Taking Back Sunday to indie shit like Joanna Newsome. We're always trying to incorporate our favorite parts from our favorite bands/songs into our own stuff - case in point, try to see if you can find the Fat Lucero bite when the next Shooks LP finally does drop.

Could you name a few records you think everyone should own?

Picking the five best records that everyone should own is too hard, so I'm gonna pick five records by five bands that still exist, work hard, and are full of awesome people. Gracer – “Voices Travel”, End of a Year – “Sincerely”, Sinking Ships – “Disconnecting”, Capital -  “Signal Corps”, and Go it Alone – “Histories”. Support those bands and you can't possibly go wrong.

So, who's the stereo-nazi in the band? You know, the guy who always controls the stereo in the van...

We have an unspoken rule that whoever is driving controls the stereo. Honestly, though, I'd say me and Funds are probably the most aggressive in that regard - not necessarily because we're control freaks, but because we consciously play shit that we know other people in the van don't like. I may actually listen to Fall Out Boy more while on the tour in the van than on my own time, and I am definately the only member of Shook Ones who likes that band.

Tell me about Legitimate Bros, what is that?

As the least humorous member of the Legitimate Bros family, I am the least qualified person to answer this, but I'll do it anyways. It's basically just a bunch of dudes that play in bands together and approach life and music with the same sense of irony and deliberate abandon. Every band can be connected via at least one member to another band, and I think pretty much everyone has a deep-seeded appreciation for the diplomats.

You're from Seattle, WA. How's the punk and harcore scene over there? Do you see any differences between the Seattle scene and for example the New York or Philly scene?

To be honest, I think most of us are pretty seperated from the “scene” around here. We all work a lot and have all sorts of other “grown up” obligations that make it hard to get out to shows. I can say that there are a lot of awesome bands in the area and that there are a ton of awesome people that hang out round these parts. I think the same can also be said for the east coast, and that really most things are pretty similar. The largest difference between this part of the country and the other side is just the general vibe in which people approach things. The northwest is renowned for being courteous, politically correct, and non-confrontational, while the east coast is known for being blunt, loud, and overtly honest. It's more of a difference between west coast people and east coast people than west coast scene and east coast scene.

I've never been to the states but that's pretty much the picture I have of it. Do you think this is a difference that exist for real?

Definately. Having a dude straight out of the neighborhood from the east coast drumming for us now has make it even clearer than ever. It's not a bad thing. If anything, it kinda rules. It's a reality check for us to maybe not be so overtly-PC and uptight, and I'd like to think we're a good influence on old Jimmy Walsh. It's the yin and yang of the good parts of America.

Finally, what will the Shook Ones be doing for the next couple of months?

In a few weeks we'll be playing a weekend of shows with Lifetime, which we're obviously stoked for. We've had the good fortune to play with them and Paint It Black a bunch of times now, and it never gets old. Yemin is an awesome dude, and I plan on headwalking the shit out of some people to “The Truth About Lars”. After that, we're taking a short break while Bo goes on tour with our buddy Kasey Anderson, and then we're gonna hit the road for a full US tour including a trip to The Fest in Florida, a few dates with Cloak/Dagger and Hour of the Wolf, some rendezvous with rev family like Capitol and Gracer and End of a Year, and then finishing off with Easel flying out for a weekend of shows in California. It's the first tour we've done that's longer than 2 weeks in a year, so I'm pretty stoked. Plus, Armalite is playing The Fest, so I'll finally get to see that band - their LP is so ridiculously good.

Anything else you'd like to add while you have the opportunity?

Fuck Eric Wallace. We need to bring that back.

Ok! Thanks a lot for taking the time to talk to me. Good luck to you and the band!

Thank you! Good luck to you and your zine! Keep the medium alive!

Links:

http://www.myspace.com/shookones

http://www.legitimatebros.com