Behind The Music: Aaron Shanley

August 2, 2010 No Comments

Aaron Shanley has achieved a lot for a musician of 20 years old – winning this year’s Katherine Brick Song Writer of the year award, performing in the Ulster Hall, playing Glasgowbury, touring America and setting up his own label, ‘Love Gum Records’. But that’s not enough – he plans on releasing two Albums this year, following them up with a transatlantic tour and then publishing a book of short stories and poems next spring. MLNI quiz him on his serial over-productivity…

Words By: Matt Wheavil

In your MySpace bio, you say you were writing acoustic songs at 16 and you dropped out of school to pursue a singer/song writer career. Was that a difficult decision at the time?

No it wasn’t. I kind of had ideas to be a journalist so that was on my mind… only a small amount of me was really into pursuing that because the whole music thing was full force. So it was sort of difficult in that way, because I sort of thought, well if I drop out now, I’m the kind of person, if I do something I’m going to do the hell out of it and I might never get the opportunity to backtrack and do this again, so that was difficult. I think it was difficult for parents too, they kinda… thought I was insane!

How did they react?

They’ve always been really supportive and I think that they knew there was sort of something there with the music thing and that I wasn’t entirely deluded but I just think if you grow up somewhere like Lisburn and you decide to pursue a career as a singer/songwriter, it’s so unusual, that your parents and stuff are obviously going to worry because it’s not the job the guy next door has… so in that sense it was kind of hard.

You must feel justified pursuing the singer/songwriter career now because you won the 2010 Katherine Brick award for young songwriter of the year…

Yeah, that was definitely a surprise. I was at the Belfast National songwriters festival and there were just so many songwriters there that were so good and they chose to give me the title, so it was like ‘woah’. I won a guitar and got to play a song in the Ulster Hall. It was definitely life changing – I remember that night going like ‘I think I’m onto something, I think this is alright.’

My mum, dad and my brother all came out and saw it so it, which gave me a lot of motivation to keep going. Almost clarification for me personally because I’m my own worst enemy, I’ll keep doing something but keep being convinced that I suck, so something like that to come from other people, especially in that industry, it was a proud proud moment.

It also says on your MySpace, that you spend way too much time studying  strange things you don’t need to. What sort of strange things?

I’m obsessed with Oneirology – like the study of sleep, sleep patterns and lucid dreams. All that sort of stuff, I’m slowly but surely becoming an expert on it.

So you write songs about that?

Yeah it sort of feeds its way into my songs sometimes because I’m a complete insomniac. Actually it’s kind of funny how that came about – because I’m such an insomniac I stay up all night at my computer. I think I was about 16 or 17, up online all night looking for insomnia cures – I was so insanely tired but so awake at the same time and I’d been looking for ways to get myself to sleep… I ended up reading into dreaming and lucid dreaming and all this stuff and started practicing lucid dreaming from 17, 18 and just got really into it.

What is lucid dreaming?

You’ve probably done it before accidentally, where you’re in a dream but you’re aware you’re dreaming.

So you can control it almost?

Yeah exactly, it’s kind of hard to explain but you can change things or manipulate what’s going to happen and if you do it so much, you can train your brain to go into that sort of sleep…

Insomniacs maybe find it easier; maybe it’s your desire for sleep that draws you to it?

Yeah it’s crazy, it’s sort of a really confusing thing. I kinda like being an insomniac in ways because I’m super hyperactive and over-productive, so it’s good for just sitting up all night and just writing and writing and getting a lot of stuff done. The only problem is you’ve got to spend a lot of time editing all that stuff in a better state of mind… but at least if I’m up all night writing there’s material to take and work with.

That leads to my next question, you might have answered it – you’re a creative jack-of-all-trades. You write short stories, you acted in a sitcom, you write poems and songs, so where do you find the time and energy to do all that?

Yeah, haha, it’s probably coffee, just constantly drinking that all the time. But I’ve always written short stories and poetry and stuff, which is one of the things that sort of got me into song writing when I was younger and had a band… when it came to writing songs, maybe just lyrically and stuff it seemed easier for me than the other guys in my band and I guess it’s cos I’d always written stuff down and found clever ways to maybe word something or ways of using metaphors or something, so once I got into songwriting after a couple of months it was very addictive.

I still write poetry and short stories all the time. In fact I probably write more of that than I do music, which is pretty insane because I’m already having trouble with the whole music thing, recording too many songs. I’m recording two albums this summer. I’ve got enough for about six…

How do you go about the writing process when you put a song together?

I wish there was a method. I wish it were the same every time. I wish I could wake up and sit down at a guitar or a piano and go, right I’m going to write a song now. And there are some people that do it and I just think it’s incredible but I can just never do it and I’d usually write from about 5am until maybe 8, go to sleep for another little while and then get up and do some more writing. But I would just write everything on my mind, whether it’s just short stories or thoughts or just angry ‘F*** Yous’ at somebody.

Then eventually when I’m sitting with the guitar and playing some chords, I just start singing words at random almost, over the chords, and a lot of it is stuff I’ve been writing down and it’s maybe one word and it finds a story. So it’s very sub-conscious. I mean there are names that I have used in songs that I’ve written this week that I remember writing down in a note book last year, you know, what they do and who their lover was and now it’s in songs and I kind of think, “where does this come from?” Then I remember a year ago writing this short story in a notebook. So it kind of lingers and then comes out eventually.

You’re using your journalism instinct perhaps, constantly taking a log of what you’re doing all the time, using it for ideas…

Yeah, I’m planning on putting out a book next year on the record label that I set up – I’m going to use it as a vehicle, almost like a publishing company as well. So I’m going to put a book out maybe March or April next year and it’s going to be short stories, poetry and tour dairies. It’s kind of nice because of the music, I get to be on tour and being on tour means I have stuff to write about all the time. I’m almost accidentally perusing the other thing I wanted to, just by being on the move all the time.

And being on tour, as hectic as it is, there’s a lot of waiting around, you know hotel rooms and train stations. So they’re just perfect times to take out a notebook and write about everything you saw the last couple of days and what you thought about it and the people that you’ve met. I don’t know what other musicians do in that time, there’s a lot of time spent doing nothing and if I’m not doing something I’ll freak out… I get really restless so it’s probably just my way of keeping sane – just writing constantly.

According to your MySpace you’re working on your debut album, can you tell us more?

I’m actually working on two albums – there’ll be a full band studio album with all new songs coming this Autumn and if you order it online, you’ll get a free 6 track acoustic EP called The Nashville sessions. Both will be official releases on my label, Love Gum Records and available separately on tour.

In the Nashville album, Cara Cowan is doing backing vocals… It’s funny, Cara is like my favourite local artist – I just contacted her about singing some of the songs because I thought her voice would really work, so we did some demos and stuff. So she’s gonna be featured for pretty much most of the record so I want to give her a shout out.

You’re obviously into collaborating with other musicians, showing appreciation…

Exactly, Allie Bradley helped me out with most the full studio album and she’s a great singer. Also, on the recording of ‘Let The Sun in’ Pete McCauley (of Rams’ Pocket Radio) played the piano, Shauna Tohill (Silhouette) did backing vocals in a song called ‘Go Easy’ which is coming out soon and then Mike Mormecha from Mojo Fury did backing vocals on my song ‘Oh My Girl’ – it’s so funny because it’s the highest vocal I’ve ever heard him do and it’s really cool stuff… A pretty Prince-esque vocal!

Why’s the seperate EP called the Nashville sessions?

Because most of the songs were written while I was in Nashville for a song writing festival and that city really… I dunno, it was just incredibly inspiring so I wrote like crazy when I was there. I was lucky enough to meet two guys in a bar while I was there and they had a studio and somehow I ended up there, sitting up all night drinking beer and recording… I’ve got to go record it properly now but a lot of the songs really define everything that’s happened the last few months… Meeting new people, being on the road, things that happen on the road, missing home, missing girls. I guess it’s kind of a travel album, experiences of being away… realising the things that you never thought you miss but you do.

That’s a pretty good motto…

Yeah, like there’s some things that I didn’t take any notice of when I was here until I was in America… Like a packet of Cinnamon lozenges – Do you know how hard they are to find in Los Angeles? I searched everywhere for those things and I couldn’t get them anywhere! I never saw that coming… there are things not as trivial as that but it’s an example that’s actually true; just things that aren’t around, that you would never notice at home but you notice when you’re gone. It almost takes you a while to realise what those things are because you know there’s something missing. So a lot of the album is about stuff like that.

What advice have you got for other upcoming Northern Irish acts?

I think regarding young singer/songwriters, who play acoustic guitar and can do gigs by themselves, go out into the open mic scene in Belfast, even in Dublin too and everywhere else but especially Belfast is a really a good one. There are places to play every night – The John Hewitt on a Monday, La Boca on a Tuesday, Lavery’s back bar on a Wednesday… There’s one in Katy Daly’s on Thursday and I’m not sure there’s one on a Friday but Molly’s Parlour in Lisburn does open mics on a Friday.

So, if you just show up to those, even two a week and rotate them, people will start to know you and hear your songs and you might get offered a gig, you know “I love your stuff and I need a support act…”

I guess it’s a really old school way of getting out there. I remember being 16 or 17 and sneaking into those places, jumping on stage and just making a racket. I’d bring home burnt CDs and sell them for a couple of quid, make a bit of money too.

That would be my advice, don’t fall for the 21st century thing. Don’t just sit at home and hope MySpace works for you!

Future Plans?

I’m putting the albums out digitally on the 27th September but before then on, the 9th September I fly to Kansas and work my way from there to Nashville and Utica music festival in New York State and then Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and New Jersey. Coming back home for the release – doing an album launch in New alibi’s book store on the 30th September, so that’s going to be the main launch of the album and then I go to the UK from the 4th October to the end of October, then an Irish tour in November, then I think I’m back in the UK in December up until Christmas. So, yeah, the future’s pretty… I’m tired thinking about it!

There’s a single I’m putting out in August before the album comes out called ‘Today I’ and it’s just an acoustic song and it’s featured in a film called cupcake, directed by Colin McGivor.

Sounds hectic! Thanks for your time.

Not a problem, great to meet you.

You can catch Aaron Shanley live at this years Sunflower Festival in Hillsborough on the 22nd August 2010

Features