In a candid conversation with Marcus Rosario on KALW, Shannon Shaw and Cody Blanchard of Oakland-based Shannon & The Clams open up about the deeply personal nature of their newest album, The Moon Is In The Wrong Place. The duo discusses how the record honors Shannon’s late fiancé, Joe Haener, and the healing process of sharing their music with fans.
For more information on Shannon & The Clams, you can visit their website and Instagram.
TRANSCRIPT
MARCUS: I'm joined by Cody and Shannon. How are y'all doing?
CODY: Hi.
SHANNON: Doing great. This is like the nicest weather I've ever experienced in San Francisco.
MARCUS: Yeah. It's supposed to be like 80 today too.
SHANNON: I love it.
MARCUS: So how's the tour been so far? You've been on tour. This record's been amazing. It's been getting a lot of play on KALW.
CODY: Really? Yeah.
SHANNON: Love to hear that.
CODY: I don't, we never know what's going on. You don't know if a radio is playing your stuff.
SHANNON: Well, the way I can tell is that the fans know the lyrics.
SHANNON: Like the people in the audience are singing along and it's not just singles. You know, we're playing some new stuff that's a little bit more obscure on the record and people are singing along. That tells me a lot.
MARCUS: Which songs particularly are being sung the most at your shows so far?
SHANNON: Dolly's Clock. Um, So Lucky. What You're Missing. UFO.
MARCUS: So any favorite moments from the tour? Any particular standout moments so far?
CODY: Shannon lost her voice completely in, was that Albuquerque? Mesa, Arizona, which is like outside Phoenix. Yeah but it was like, song two or something or song three. She's like, I can't do it anymore. I can't sing. And I kept trying to get her to do stuff. So then we had to improvise. And, I basically like took over, we were just sort of like telling the crowd what was going on and like riffing with the crowd and like digging up old stuff that we could think of to play. And like thinking of cover songs that we knew and then our keyboard player played some of his original songs and it was just very unpredictable, chaotic. And the crowd really liked it. They thought it was really funny and fun. And we were just digging really deep.
SHANNON: At some point, Nate, our drummer, ended up on bass and Will sang one of his songs and played guitar and then me and Cody were on drums. It was fun. We really made the most of it.
MARCUS: When you all go into a show, is there like an ideal set list or you kind of improvise a little bit each time?
SHANNON: We've been trying to stick to a set list.
CODY: And you change it a little bit every night, right? You're like after the show you're like, I didn't like that one in there. Let's change that.
SHANNON: Yeah, it’s kind of like we had to fine tune the set list. I used to never want the same set list, but now I understand why it can be powerful, you know, you can have a really smooth show and the band just gets so tight doing it like that, like the transitions and so it's actually been fun for me to use the same, a similar set list.
CODY: Because this is what happens, is you don't have to think about what you're doing. Because you kind of know what the next one is. And then it frees up your mind to totally just chat or improvise or do whatever, you know, it just lets you be more loose.
SHANNON: I feel like I play more confidently.
MARCUS: So let's talk a little bit about the new record. I mean it's deeply personal. How has it been received? How has it been like, you know the journey of, creating it to playing it out. How's that overall?
SHANNON: It's been good. It's cathartic. And for those who don't know, my fiancé passed away. And so this album is all about that. And I feel like I've referenced this a few times, but in my mind, I'm like, I built a pyramid for Joe. We built a pyramid. That's how I like to think of it. And I feel like that's a success. You know, I feel like people know Joe and that was, that was really important to me.
CODY: Yeah, so many people who didn't know him or know who he was, they do now. Man, I'm thinking about the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. And there's all those weird pyramids in there. Yeah. There's lots of Egyptian kind of stuff. They're beautiful.
MARCUS: In terms of any song, I think of the song, we'll play it, Bean Fields, were you surprised at how it was received? And why did you guys decide to use that as the first single?
SHANNON: Well, it's one of the first songs that came to me and I was really worried that having this upbeat song was going to be like off-putting to people, but it just felt, it felt so right and so natural and it's a celebration. It's like a way to reframe this horrible place is by finding a way to celebrate it instead of disowning it and hiding it. And I think that that's weirdly freeing to be able to do that. And I think everyone just feels like they're cutting loose on that song. And it's kind of an immeasurable joy.
CODY: You should explain the bean fields.
SHANNON: Oh yeah. For those who don't know, the bean fields are - so Joe was a vegetable farmer and an amazing drummer, but he was mostly farming for his family the last few years. And he died in this bean field that he planted. And in a terrible accident so every day we're hanging out in this place where this devastation took place and crying there and bonding there, me and his family and friends, Cody and his family. And, um, it became this place of comfort and it was an interesting juxtaposition to be surrounded by this black hole in the earth from the accident and then surrounded by like beans growing and these big green leaves and blossoms everywhere and bees buzzing and butterflies and dragonflies. It just was like, there's so much life next to so much death. And it became a place of extreme comfort and peace somehow. I'm really grateful for being able to see it that way. And I feel like that kind of, that concept sort of encapsulates the whole album. You know, it's all of those emotions and kind of wrapped up and into the album. It's like, it's all the dark and it's all the light and, uh, what we do with it is, is what's important.
MARCUS: That's real. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. We'll have just one last thing. What can folks expect from your show tonight? I know you've been on tour. This is a hometown show. Anything you want to share with anybody tonight? They're playing at the Fox Theater in Oakland.
SHANNON: I am so excited. I'm trying to play it cool, but I feel so incredibly proud of our band for being able to go headline the Fox. It's the most tickets we've ever sold headlining.
MARCUS: That's beautiful
SHANNON: And it's just such a positive and beautiful thing and to be back in the city where me and Cody met and started this band. It's a really cool full circle to go back and be there. And I have so much family coming and so many friends and it just feels like the perfect way to wrap up this tour, it just feels right.
MARCUS: That's great. So Fox Theatre in Oakland tonight, and then you guys are gonna be touring right, a little more after this?
CODY: We're going to Europe in a couple weeks.
SHANNON: One thing I do want to point out at the Fox show is our artist friend Jesse Lortz slash Dracula's family Oh,
CODY: Oh yeah, we do have some weird stuff going on. Yeah, there's some weird stuff going on.
SHANNON: We're looking for a face painter if you know anyone.
CODY: Okay, well I had one, she's in her 70s, but she was booked in Napa today so she couldn't do it. But we wanted to have a face painter just doing free face painting. But so far we haven't had that. But yeah, Jesse Lortz, um, was like one of Joe's favorite, like comic and graphic artists. They were friends. He's doing airbrush, like state fair style t-shirts, like one of a kind. Okay.
SHANNON: They're so cute. And like all the art is, is concepts from the album. And yeah, he's making us each a custom one too, but there's just limited amounts and I think people are going to go crazy for those. It's like airbrushing there at the venue.
MARCUS: And there's still tickets at the door, right? So people can go. So folks that are listening right now, if you want to go check out Shannon and the Clams tonight in Fox Theater in Oakland, you can still get tickets at Fox Theater. And where can folks find your guys' info? Your social media? What is it?
CODY: Yeah, I think, I feel like our most actively used one is Instagram. So it's Instagram, uh, at Shan and the Clams. We have this other new website that we just deployed. This is like a special project of mine. It's called, TheMoonIsInTheWrongPlace.com, which is the name of our album. It's kind of like this fake conspiracy manifesto website. Like, very unhinged stuff about how the government has changed the orbit of the moon and stuff like that. But it's kind of this guerrilla marketing thing I'm trying to do.
CODY: It sounds interesting. It's a very good read. It's a good read.
MARCUS: Anything else you'd like to share with the greater San Francisco Bay Area community?
SHANNON: I just want to shout out Habibi is opening the show and then Noel and the Deserters who are Bay Area. And Habibi, we played with a bunch in New York back in the day, but now they're in, I think LA. That's a lot of our good friends and Noel plays in my solo band and yeah, it's going to be a real fun reunion tonight and people should go. This is absolutely a special show.
CODY: There's a really good video that we posted yesterday of a guy kind of protesting the show outside. And I don't know if you saw that or not, but it's a good watch. It's a good watch.
SHANNON: Did you think it was real?
MARCUS: It was great.
SHANNON: That's our buddy, Joel. He was made for that role. Yeah. He's awesome.
CODY: He really nailed it.
MARCUS: Those, those listening right now can check it out on Instagram. I want to thank you guys again for coming by KALW and coming through. So Fox Theatre tonight in Oakland. Be there. Shannon and the Clams, hometown show. You're listening to KALW. Thank you guys.
SHANNON AND CODY: Thank you.
