 You know the story; Kansas; Dorothy is swept up by a tornado, up into the sky and ends up in the Land of Oz. The film breaks free from the monotone of black and white and shades of grey into the vibrant, visual effervescence of Technicolor; a magical hallucinogenic for the eyes of the audience. Shudder is the spirit of that whirlwind.
I have the pleasure of sharing some of their thoughts and introducing them to you. Welcome. SHUDDER Why do you write?
We write for the pure love of music. We write for the writers before us that have inspired us. We use our writing as a social tool. And, of course, we write to entertain. We love to share our feelings with the world... it's what makes us feel alive. What process do you go through, to write a song? Do you start with melody and then add the structure, for example? Do you start with a lyric? Is it a joint effort? Is it a democracy or does that go out the window when someone is fucking about with your idea? We usually begin with a guitar riff, and then add lyrics. Occasionally, we'll have some lyrics we write music around, but that's a bit more rare. Dustin usually starts the process with one of these two... from here the evolution and structure of the song and all its' parts are left to the Shudder Democracy.  Which of your songs is your favourite? Well, it changes very regularly. Currently, most members are enjoying "In Case of Fire" the most. Which musical heroes and why? Dustin and Wurm agreed on The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Beck, Ben Folds, and Kurt Cobain... Why? Radiohead and Beck carved new paths. Their originality has expanded rock and progressed rock and even music in general in wonderful new directions. Ben Folds because of his genius at songwriting. The remaining three because they established the keys to good rock songwriting: Variety, Atmosphere, and Dynamics. Mark mentioned The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Primus. Primus, for the sheer inventiveness and using talented musicianship without fitting any moulds. Eric listed Ben Folds because of his incredible songwriting ability and his talents at the drums and piano. “Ben Folds makes me want to play piano...” says Eric. Eric also mentioned Nobuo Uematsu - composer of the Final Fantasy game series music, for his truly marvellous composition. Just as you can tell the character of a man by his enemies, I think you can tell the creative heart of a musician by his heroes. The first time I heard the SHUDDER song, ‘Penguin’ (right click to hear; pick open in new window to listen while you read). I was struck by the amount of ideas that went into one song. When I see the list of dudes given by Shudder I understand why they can be so diverse in their outlook. What I can’t understand is how they put it all together into a coherent whole. It all seems so natural I think, why didn’t I think of that, but that, I have to confess, was just my ego rolling across the floor. These guys are the Wright Brothers of music. You remember the Wright Brothers; a couple of misfits who thought outside the box, who quietly made the world a more intimate place with their vision of flight; the moment they thought to themselves, ‘let’s put the wings on the outside of the plane and see what happens’ there was no stopping them; but as I say, how they can be so consistently original is a mystery to me. I asked them about this.
 Do you ever get a creative block?
Yes. If yes, how do you overcome it? We usually just take time away from it, focus, and return to it later. For instance, if we’re writing a song and we aren’t feeling the direction it’s headed, we’ll work on another song until we get some more thoughts on the first one. We also try to listen to other music we love for inspiration in songwriting. Although, we stay true to our everlasting goal of writing songs that do not sound like any others. Do you ever worry that the last thing you wrote would be the best thing you ever do, and the next song will be not as good? There is always a feeling of question, about our worth and ability to make it further and be better. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. The feeling of hoping the ability is inside you and you didn’t just "get lucky" with a song or two. These feelings usually last until we write another song that we get a great reaction to, and then our confidence returns… for a while at least.
How about other non-musical heroes?
And yet they look so calm. Who would guess looking at it, the depth and range of the emotion that crackles and vibrates when they plug in tune up and let loose and fire up the machine. With such a confident sound, sometimes gentle and then passionate I wondered if they ever got stage fright with such faith in what they do. Do you get, or have you ever had, stage fright? Have you performed live much? One evening at a local bar here, the band drank a bit too much ourselves, and played poorly. Also, when we first started as a band, we played a couple of church gigs. These were our first shows and we had no idea what we were doing. It was… bad. Shudder was formed in 1995 in the basement of a church by singer-songwriter, Dustin Blakeman, and bassist Wurm. The band changed and grew and broke up and was hammered and nurtured by those two founding members until nine years later, Dustin and Wurm stood alongside brothers Mark and Eric Johnson. I’m not going to cheat you here and give you a line or two of the story, because it belongs in a book. SHUDDER learned their craft in
Would you describe yourselves as tortured artists?
"Tortured" seems a strong word. We accept our position in life and live it as passionately as we can, enjoying the music we make along the way. Although, it is very hard at times to feel so strongly about something like music, when you live in the world we do. It’s sometimes hard not to let the fact that our success in this business, at times, is a matter of chance, get you down.
Do you think other people describe you as this? |
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Speaking of torture, this brings me to the matter of Boy Bands and the repackaged regurgitated hormone sodden pre-pubescent fuckology of aftershave soaked designer music squeezed out of the ample buttocks of the music industry at large. Forgive my bile. What do you think about manufactured bands like the ‘Backstreet Boys’ or ‘Take That’? You may not have heard of 'Take That’, as they were English. Hopefully you were spared the horror, the musical blitz of regurgitated pap for pre-pubescent girls, which shot up the English charts like a scalded cat up a cactus. My ears still bleed at the thought of them. |
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It’s terrible. Just awful. We have no problem with the style of music. If you can sing, then sing. It’s just the consumer makeup, sex, ass, tight clothes, makeup, sex, white teeth, sex... the garbage that comes along with it. I’d be happy to see a “boy band” video of just the guys sitting in a basement singing together or something. Also, these types of bands don’t generally write any of their own music, which we never much respected.
If, as essentials to the maintenance of life, food, air, water, shelter, warmth and companionship were free, but everything else above and beyond that was to be paid for in someway, would music be free to the people or is it a non essential luxury? That’s a tough question. For us, personally, there’s no question. Music is essential. There is not a day that goes by that we don’t have music in our life in some manner. We do know that not everyone has that same passion. It’s a bit of the “dreamer vs. builder” mentality. However, we don’t think music should be about making money. For example, if Shudder were to become very successful, and make more money than we do with our day jobs for making the music we love, the very last thing we’d be concerned with was how many people were downloading our music for free on the internet. Because, frankly, from where we sit today, any new ears listening… we consider success.
What is the apparent music scene, meaning the MTV, highly polished plastic music a symptom of in
There is so much musical noise thrown at people from adverts to elevators to cars to malls; do you think it dulls the musical appetite so much that the mass has to be spoon-fed musical pap? Yes. We are, at times, bombarded with music. Mostly, the music becomes parodies of music we’d like to hear. Fortunately, people (if they choose to) can easily tell the difference between truly inspiring music and garbage thrown at them. We have faith in music lovers’, if we can only get the business on our side.
Would the world be a better place with less music? If it were like sex, as in an individual chemistry thing between consenting adults, but not something you should be doing in the middle of a mall while people were choosing what colour toilet roll they wanted, would this be better than the barrage of boy and girl band clones we endure now?
But okay. The sermon is over. Now just so you don’t think I can’t lighten up I asked SHUDDER some other questions at random. You see, Geetan can be as relaxed as SHUDDER if he tries; hard; and drinks a little whiskey.
CLICK ABOVE TO SHUDDER Have you got a publishing deal? However, when it comes to us as individuals and as musicians, we are citizens of the world. We have love for all types of people and want our music to connect us all in loving ways.
What advice have you got for other songwriters? There are ways to be creative and still entertaining to a large audience. Find the magic spot between new, interesting, creative… and catchy, entertaining, accessible. Just stop copying others! Use music you love as inspiration.
Nadine Gordimer
CLICK ABOVE TO SHUDDER The last scene of the Wizard of Oz, the scene you never saw, is Dorothy, and the Tin man, and the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow stopping to get the fuck out of the way as Eric and Dustin and Wurm and Mark head toward the rehearsal room. They’ve seen Oz, and figured out the Wizard, and now they are bringing Oz to the people. Dustin, Wurm, Eric and Mark, it's been a pleasure. Geetan Click the poster to visit SHUDDER
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I’m convinced that SHUDDER is way ahead of the pack; just listen to
Can you tell us something about the best gig you ever played?
While we wouldn’t say music is quite as personal as sex, we do believe that it has been significantly downplayed in our society. It has lost a lot of its’ original appeal as “art” and become so obviously about money. But, honestly, maybe aside from 12 year old girls, there aren’t a lot of people that aren’t willing to admit boy and girl band clones are not doing their part creatively. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always stop them from listening to it.