REES SHAD – AN ARTIST SPOTLIGHT AND IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW
By Ralph Beauchamp
Rees Shad loves crafting songs that tell imaginative stories touching on a myriad of compelling narratives. Shad is a veteran songsmith that has dropped 17 full lengths spread over three decades. His music spans multiple genres including folk and Americana. Rees Shad deploys his tunes to chronicle his self-exploration and his singular observations of the world around us. He has collaborated with top tier talent as well as being a proficient producer and audio engineer. Rees Shad is a man on a quest to let loose prodigious music that totally resonates with his fans.
Shad’s latest release is Porcelain Angel. All 12 tracks (with 2 bonus songs) flourish with an intimate richness. The tunes deliver a deep harmonic edge yet remain extremely melodic. His songwriting is at a revolutionary high. Every song is cinematic in nature and Shad‘s orchestration is fresh and invigorating. His vocals reverberate with profound intonations while his musicianship is masterful. Tracks like “Ain’t That the Way”, “Great Big World” and “Porcelain Angel” shine with a dynamic vibrancy. Porcelain Angel is a true confirmation of Shad‘s innate ability to compose music that transcends.
Rees Shad will be performing this month at Cantean Coffee & Tea (1600 Whitney Avenue Hamden CT) on Friday 10/17.
Rees Shad was kind enough to sit with AMP for this in-depth interview.
·AMP: When did you realize that music would be your goal in life?
REES: I don’t actually see music as a goal per se. That’s kind of like asking me what my goal for the act of speaking might be. For me the purpose of music is communication. It helps me to tell the important stories and connect with other human beings through those stories and through the performance of music.
I began making music not long after I started being able to walk upright. Fascinated with the family piano, I would reach up and start playing melodies that my mother and father would be surprised by. I’m sure this reaction was part of why I continued fiddling with the instrument (positive reinforcement from otherwise distracted parents), and before long they were finding someone to give me lessons and I was writing songs by the time I was five years old .
Often those songs were about communicating to people the thoughts and feelings that I couldn’t seem to communicate as easily in conversation. I think I’m a much better conversationalist today, but if I were honest I would tell you that music making is my first and primary language.
AMP: How does a song typically begin with you – with lyrics, a melody or a story?
REES: I literally write music every morning that I am not on the road. And when I’m on the road I tend to rwrite whenever I get a quiet moment in a hotel room or if I’m staying with someone sleeping on their couch, I tend to wake up before everybody else in the household and start fiddling with a piece of music. My approach to writing varies tremendously…
There are times when I have a vision of a scene that needs telling and from that visualization I write a story, and then translate that short story into a condensed version in the form of lyric. From there my synesthesia with the written word (I learned to read by singing in my head the text that I was trying to understand, and to this day, I still impose melodies onto the written form as I read it), suggests a tune, and I find the chords to match that melody. But there are plenty of times when the melody comes first… or a groove… or a chord pattern.
All the serious writers I know exercise the muscles necessary for all these various approaches so that when a hint of inspiration happens they can seize the moment and get down to it. My catalog is as deep and varied as it is because I try to keep my mind open to inspiring moments.
The Canadian songwriter, Lynn Miles (brilliant!), says all of her close friends know to expect her to seize upon a song idea at any given moment and simply excuse herself to leave whatever they might be doing to go and write the song. So inspiration comes in every form possible, and that form dictates how the song can be written.
AMP: Looking back, what would you say was the turning point in your career?
REES: There have been a bunch of careers, man… and there have been a bunch of turning points. Just out of college, I built and ran a highly successful recording studio for over a decade, that introduced me to a network of professionals that encouraged me to start a publishing company, and then a record company. Things got very heady!
I was doing records with relatively robust sales for an independent label, and I was getting to play my own music all around the country and in Europe before I came to the conclusion that I was playing Rees Shad karaoke every night. always trying to reproduce a record I had made in the studio, and never simply living in the moment of performance in any form that might take.
So I left the music business I sold all of my assets and went back to grad school to become a college professor. 2 masters degrees (MS & MFA) later I was developing curriculum for the second largest university in the country and getting to teach incredible students and help them change their lives. But the entire time I kept recording and releasing music, I just wasn’t marketing and performing it. I did what made me happy, and some people continued to listen. So, I went back to school in 2018 to pursue a PhD in education policy and curriculum, and while writing my dissertation realized it could be a lot more interesting if it was just a song.
The next thing you know I’m back in the studio and have left grad school having accepted third master’s degree (Ed.S.) and decided that I wanted to perform again. This time every night will be a little different, and I don’t care that the performance is not what people heard on the record, but instead designed to be an experience in the moment. Like jazz . I know that’s not the genre that I compose in, but I appreciate the aesthetic and the sensibility of improvisational moments more than simply regurgitating the same thing night after night.
When I allow myself the freedom to approach my own songs that way I realize the true essence of communication – responding to the moment without anticipating what that moment should be like. Like thinking about a response to someone you are speaking to while they are making a point instead of listening to what they are actually saying. When I make music like this now, I realize that I want to keep doing it and that I can keep doing this until they dig my hole.
AMP: Do you feel your sound has changed significantly over the years? And if so, why?
REES: You’re talking to an audio engineer and record producer here, so sound can mean a lot of things. In terms of fidelity, my productions have gotten cleaner with the integration of more efficient digital systems, but you’re talking to a guy who still likes to get on tape when I can, and I love the sound of vinyl.
But maybe I’m teasing you a bit here… sound can also be genre as well as arrangement, and both of these are things that have been in constant evolution for me over the last 40 years. I’ve explored just about every primary genre of music there is at one point of or another and it all informs whatever I’m doing in the current moment.
I was thinking the other day that my songs have evolved to be a better representation of the original intent. Also, I feel that my guitar playing continues to improve as I study the depth that this beautiful instrument has. I do this continually, and I keep on coming back to how deep I can go with it. Evolving all comes down to the creative practice , and how I feel empowered by continuing to engage in the creative practice.
Lastly I would say that my songs are informed by my continual exploration of the world and its wonders. I have a dedicated work ethic that results in me wanting to pursue knowledge continually. So the more I’ve learned the better informed my creations have become.
You know the old cliché writing instructors spout about writing about what you know? I think that’s horse chunks, man. Know about what you write! Asimov never went up into space. RESEARCH the topics that you engage with. INFORM your dreams with foundational facts and specifics. EDUCATE yourself about what you want to write about.
Having started out a complete moron, and getting to the point where I feel like maybe I know what I’m talking about 10% of the time, I guess that sounds like the most significant change….
Wait did I just flip the question?
AMP: What has been the most surprising part of your musical journey?
REES: I don’t think when I started making music professionally in my late teens that I thought the ride would be this exciting 50 years later.
AMP: What themes or messages do you find yourself returning to in your work?
REES: That too is constantly evolving. As of late, however, I spend a lot of time thinking about how human beings are incredibly adaptable but in our current society we reject the idea that things change . We don’t educate for it, we don’t celebrate it, and so when change comes upon us we are unsettled. We want what was, and are frustrated that we couldn’t just sit back and bathe in that was for the rest of our lives.
I could get up on my soapbox and talk about how we can better educate America to be more adaptable in the face of change (it was the dissertation, btw), but this is not the place for that conversation. Suffice it to say that I have visited this topic from various directions in a number of my recent compositions.
I think an offshoot of that is the exploration of personal evolution. In addition, I like to tell stories where we recognize by the end of the story significant change in the character’s overall worldview. I would say that 90% of the time, that world view I’m describing changes to encompass an empathy for others that had not existed beforehand, and so I think empathy is a major theme in the work that I do these days as well.
Bottom line, empathy is the thing that our world needs most of all and seems to have less and less of as we move forward.
AMP: Your latest full length is the ambitious Porcelain Angel. Can you give us a little insight into the release?
REES: I don’t see Porcelain Angel as particularly ambitious.
Compared to my larger narrative works like The Riggley Road Stories, The Galahad Blues, or my operetta The Watcher, the new album actually brings me back to my comfort zone of song crafter and acoustic musician. The stories here are ones I am very proud of, the musicianship here is paired down arrangement-wise, but probably some of the best I’ve been able to capture on tape to date, and I think the songs are very much worthy of the attention of others.
The title track explores the topic that so many Americans suffer from, which centers around how best to care for others who are going through turbulent times that bleed over into the lives of their friends and family…drug addiction, unsocial behaviors, deep depression… When do you give your all , and when do you have to cut somebody off? And if you’ve had to cut them off what happens if you lose that person entirely? That song came to me fully formed, by the way. Sung to me by a dear friend that I lost a few years back.
It is important to say that there are far more joyful vignettes here, and explorations about some of the topics that we’ve spoken about earlier in this interview like change and overcoming trauma, and finding joy in the moment. I feel like my songs continue to get better and better and better, and so rather than ambitious, I think this album is a collection of my best works to date.
AMP: Are there any collabs you would love to explore?
REES: If you look at my catalog you’ll see that all of my albums involve collaborations with interesting musicians, writers, engineers, and producers. It is a long list of professionals who I have shared my heart with and who in turn have treated it respectfully and given their artistic input to accentuate.
Any recording you make is a collaboration unless you are the sole writer, performer, engineer, and producer, and the people that you work with shape the outcome with an indelible hand. Some people struggle against that as artists, and I’ve always thought that was foolish. I love working in a recording studio with other people…. Literally my primary comfort zone. Sitting by myself … hell I can do that anytime,
I’d much rather sit down with a musician who is a complete stranger and start seeing what we come up with when we play together than just sit by myself and play my songs the way they originally sounded in my head when I wrote them. The voices of others in chorus is how music is made and music is most probably our species’ original founding language and societal catalyst. The recording process as I experience it is where my songs turn into music.
AMP: Is there a song you wished you had written and why?
REES: A song? Single song?? Are you kidding? There are thousands of songs that I wish I had written. If you are a creative who does not envy the creations of others you’re working in a vacuum , and the opportunity for personal growth is null and void.
I occasionally perform cover songs at my shows, and I do not try to replicate what was on somebody’s record, but instead I work to inhabit other people’s songs with my own sensibility and experience of the world. So Randy Newman’s song ‘Losing You’ is one of my favorite pieces to play on the piano. I can live in the masterpiece. Cole Porter’s entire catalog features songs that I would give my eye teeth to be clever enough to have composed. I could go on and on about all the artists and songwriters and composers whose work I adore and envy. You ain’t got the time, believe me.
AMP: What’s next for Rees Shad?
REES: Tagging onto the last question, however, I have a work in progress that will be my next album, and it is currently under the working title tribute. I have been reflecting on my many influences and influencers in music, art, and literature and have decided that I would start composing songs that pay direct or indirect tribute to those writers.
I don’t know which songs will make the final cut, but at this point I’ve written songs that give a tip of the hat to Margaret Atwood, JD Salinger, John Updike, Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Lowell George, Randy Newman, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, John Prine, Van Morrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Picasso, Monet, & Joseph Cornell. I think I have close to 20 songs written and another 10 in utero. half of them are in some stage of the recording process.
We’ll see what comes out in the end. Generally, I intend the songs to not have overt references…many listeners will not know who I am referring to – and they shouldn’t have to be able to enjoy and appreciate the song and it’s narrative. The songs should succeed simply as songs, but a few are directly addressing and giving thanks to folks. I have a tune called ‘Cigarettes,’ that I’ve actually been playing out recently, and it tells the story of my discovering John Prine, and how I mourn his absence still.
Anyway, that’s on the stove as we speak. Stick around for dinner and let’s see what you think.
REES: Thanks for making me verbalize these thoughts here.
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