Three’s a charm

Shadowclub discuss  their back-to-basics approach for ‘Guns & Money’

The reverence with which Shadowclub approach concerts is admirable.

Bassist Louis Roux talks about  crowd ambience and a flow of energy between the band and the crowd, while singer and guitarist Jacques Moolman waxes lyrical about gigging being food for the soul.

Shadowclub’s loyalty to the rowdy frontier that unites fans and performers has stood them in good stead. Not only do they use their gigs as a direct gauge of a song’s success, but they  are also so comfortable on stage that they decided to do a live recording of their album, Guns & Money, without a backing track. 

  

“The brief was basically to get us all in the studio and play as we would a live performance, and then record all the vocals on top of that, without a click track,” explains drummer Isaac Klawansky. “The result is an album that’s very natural and  that breathes easily; the way we recorded gives it a very human element.”

“The live show is really where Shadowclub comes alive,” Moolman chips in. “That’s what people want, and the essence of the album was to catch that live feel.”

The band – which has been together for going on four years now – delivers a bluesy kind of rock ’n roll inspired by the likes of The White Stripes, The Strokes and The Black Keys. Getting Magic Garden Studios’s Brian Lucey

(who’s worked with The Black Keys and Jane’s Addiction fame) to master Guns & Money was something like a dream come true. 

“It’s incredible that he did our album,” gushes Moolman. “That was huge for us, almost like it wasn’t real. But we also need to remember that we’re that good. We belong in a packed Coca-Cola dome one day and we want to be world renowned, because that’s how you make a proper living out of making music.”

For now, the immediate goal is to promote the album by  gigging as much as possible (Roux says he’s aiming for a page-long gig guide on their MySpace page) and distance themselves from the negative reputation that Moolman and Klawansky garnered when they were in the band Airship Orange.

“We’ve learned a lot since those days,” concedes Moolman. “It’s a respect thing and we’re way older now,” he laughs. “There were funny and naughty parts, but we know where we went wrong, and we steer clear of it today.”

“It was all about fun and jamming, it wasn’t about building a career,” Klawansky agrees. “Now, with Shadowclub, we’re focussed as pushing this thing like a business.”

There’s a refreshing simplicity to Shadowclub’s back-to-basics approach in their moody vocals and energetic delivery. Guns & Money  was released this month, and the band say they cannot wait to play it to the world.

This article was first published in CitiVibe in The Citizen on Thursday 28 July 2011.