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.

Locked and loaded

Locnville break the music mould with their latest album ‘Running To Midnight'
   

There’s no sun in anybody’s pocket on the freezing cold morning that I chat to Brian and Andrew Chaplin of Locnville, but the twins’s sunny dispositions and excitement over their latest album completely belie the cold shoulder that Joburg’s  projecting.

With the phenomenal success of their debut studio album Sun In My Pocket, there’s obviously a degree of pressure for the next album to live up to expectations. Going the “safe” route and keeping the sound of the new album similar to the their successful debut was not an option, however.

 

“For us it wasn’t a choice. We knew we wanted to evolve our sound,” says Andrew, before his brother  Brian chips in. 

"If you start thinking ‘I have to make it like this’ then you’ll start driving yourself crazy,” Brian explains. “We just ended up making music that was relevant to us right now, and I’m very proud of this album. It’s definitely still Locnville, but the sounds, the production and the songwriting have all evolved.”

“Even  with the first album a lot of people struggled to put it into a genre,” explains Andrew. “Everyone would ask if we’re dance or hip hop or R&B, which I love, because I would hate to be put into a box. Music is so much more than that, it’s an art form, it’s not one thing.”

One of the defining characteristics on the latest album Running To Midnight is that each track differs dramatically from the next. A track such as Staring At The World Outside boasts big “in your face” production, a quick tempo, different robotic vocal effects and a collaboration with a female vocalist, while the intriguing  City Lights stands out as a good example of Locnville breaking the music mould.

“The whole structure of City Lights changes from the first verse to the second verse,” Brian explains. “I really enjoy songs like that, and that’s kind of the future. We keep experimenting with arrangement of songs, because they don’t always have to be verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Of course you need that as a hook in the mainstream market, but we’re also about taking that formula and reinventing it.”

Every track might operate as a kind of a genre on its own, but fans will recognise the  theme from  Locnville’s debut album being expanded upon in their latest offering.

“Sun In My Pocket can be interpreted in so many ways and of course our version was that you control your life. In this album we wanted to take that same theme, but explore different sides of it. We’re heavy believers – preachers almost – in that  quantum physics idea of achieving anything you want to. If you believe it and take action to make it happen, it will happen, it just may take some time,” says Brian.

Both Chaplin brothers agree that Running To Midnight is a very open and honest album, especially in their addressing insecurities they’ve had with music in a few of their new tracks.

“We look at the regular stuff, like  when you’re going on tour, somewhere you’ve never been before, and you think ‘is this going to work?’ or ‘ are they going to like it?’” confides Andrew. “You go through all these questions, and when you’re living life like that, it’s crazy, you can really lose it. That’s something we really wanted to show people. It isn’t all peaches and cream, it’s pretty hardcore, but we also want to show people that with perseverance you can do it.”

The pros and cons that the “fame” side of their success has brought is something that the Chaplins are still coming to terms with, but both of them agree that being a team helps soften the blows of bad publicity or mean spirited jabs.

“We’d be kidding ourselves if we thought that everyone would like or appreciate what we’re doing. You learn to ignore it. Even back in high school days people were tuning you, the only difference is that now you read about it on Twitter,”  laughs Brian.

This article first appeared in CitiVibe in The Citizen on Monday 4 July 2011.