The Shys
A Thunderstorm, A Pallor And That's The Good News
Apr 18, 2009
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Mike Gentry
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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She's Already Gone
original version appears on You'll Never Understand the Band The Way That I Do
This tune started as a chord progression and verse melody the guys wrote and would jam in rehearsals before our first record even came out. It needed a chorus and one night I was on the drums and I started to sing the melody and words you hear now. A year or so later a couple of the guys were at a little party over at Delta Spirit's studio down the street and they were all jamming a ramshackle version of the song and Matt was singing these insane sexual lyrics for the verse and everyone was laughing singing and screaming together on the chorus. It got recorded and the guys played it for me and I thought it sounded really cool and had a great loose vibe so we decided to do the song for our new album and I wrote some lyrics for it and we recorded it live in very similar manner to the party.
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The Hangman
original version appears on You'll Never Understand the Band The Way That I Do
Written rather quickly on my back patio on one of those cool days in California where it's sunny and winter at the same time. Recorded it on a cheap little tape recorder and showed it to the rest of the guys. Chris came up with some insane guitar stuff and it was one of the first songs we played with our then new drummer Tony. We knew he hit really hard and so I wanted to have some songs he could really dig into -- this was one of the first.
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Mercy
original version appears on You'll Never Understand the Band The Way That I Do
This one all started with the bass line groove the band had been playing and it sort of grew from there. This tune had a big hip-hop influence as far as the feel was concerned. I had written this chorus and even though it was very different from the feel of the verse I felt it could work so we stuck them together. It took us all awhile to get used to it and we sat on it for a few months came back and listened to a live demo of it and decided we all liked it.
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Two Cent Facts
original version appears on Astoria
I think this was the first song we ever played as a band. I wrote it when I was 19 or 20 and clearly really into Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Simple two chord rock n roll song. This is a sort of more chilled out version than you hear on the record.
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She's Already Gone (alterna…
original version appears on You'll Never Understand the Band The Way That I Do
It was hell getting to our Daytrotter session back in October of 2008. Our van got broken into a few days before in Pittsburgh and it took days to find someone to replace our window and many failed attempts. Finally we found a Junk Yard in Rock Island IL that had the right window and we had to drive all night from this crazy sold out show we played in Pontiac, Michigan on Halloween the night before. Everyone celebrated that night and didn't sleep much on the drive and we were in shambles by the time we got to town and finally got the window picked up and then installed at a different place. If I recall correctly, Sean Moeller (GOD BLESS YOU) offered us beers and coffee to get through this session in which we were very tired and perhaps a little worse for wear. This was tracked after those beers had started to do their job and we embraced the fact that we were all a little burnt out and it was much easier to sit down with an acoustic guitar than do another full band take.
The Shys come out of a fertile Californian hot bed of this soulful rock and roll revival, from the young legion of boys who have chosen to follow the rustic wisdom of the father, the dirt, the prospectors and the hopeless breeze and those who wish upon it for their salvation or what could amount to such a thing. They share common likes with friends like Delta Spirit and seem like brothers to this movement of taking the gritty feeling of greasy clothes and an empty wallet and rolling with it, making the idea into a lifestyle that feels like the Dust Bowl era or Bruce Springsteen's interpretation of it through the tones of backwater blues and southern distortion, barking out the orders. It's a light, cracking fire that keeps the smell of struggling, gasping wood in your nose and mind for an extended period of time. Lead singer Kyle Krone sings, "Shake, shake, shake these blues away from me," on the band's latest album, You'll Never Understand This Band The Way That I Do and it holds this quivering, sad clatter that makes the blues in question sound as if there is a good amount of authenticity and punch to it and there's the hint that all that needs to be done to get out of this seismic rut that's draped a pallor or a drizzle over this guy trying to get from one day to the next. The music has heart and soul and what the band does with that heart and soul is it dances with it and allows it to heat its way into the microphone, wheel out of the amps and surge through the speakers with the kind of body of thunderstorm that makes a night into a dangerous mystery, but a wonder as well. It burns and it lights into the kinds of songs that make a person more appreciative of the feel that one gets from getting out of bed and re-establishing the direction that you might have discovered and put to rest before hitting the hay the night before. It's about finding that driving passion and falling in love with lots of things and maybe one good person that is going to last and try for the same things. Krone also sings, "I feel like I found my savior," and that's probably not a god. That's something else entirely and if we've figured that out - what or who that actually is, for him or ourselves - we've all won. The mixed up definition, the fuzzy lines and the lack of communication between the sought and the seeker are really what it's all about and how we're led there is the bitch and the icing. The Shys linger through and over all of it, giving a bunch of howling and biting memos that shouldn't be ignored.
The Shys Official Site
Aeronaut Records
