photo by: Alysse Gafkjen

Shaking the promised land – with David Shaw

The Revivalists frontman David Shaw, recently was a guest on Artist Waves Live, speaking with me about his new solo material. The songs “Shaken” and “Promised Land” were released on September 25th and instantly struck a chord with listeners everywhere. Dealing with heavy and relevant issues to present day – like speaking your truth and standing up against social injustices, Shaw’s first wave of solo material certainly hits home.

Over the course of our conversation, Shaw and I dug deep on his solo songwriting process, what it means to him to have these personal messages out in the world and what’s on tap with a full album coming in 2021.

As a songwriter, how do you know when something you’ve written is best suited for being a Revivalists song vs. being solo material?

It’s a tough one, a lot of the songs I’ve written for the group came from just me – I’ll turn a demo in, play the bass, play the drums, and it doesn’t always come out verbatim what the group does, but sometimes its pretty close. One of the things I’m learning through this process is what’s better for this project vs. what are the songs that are going to fit, that makes the album a cohesive unit and one true artist statement as opposed to a conglomerate of songs. That’s something our band is learning as well. We’re all just songwriters. I feel very fortunate and lucky that we do have so many songwriters in the band because a lot times that falls on just one guy or maybe two.

When I really sit down, any song can be a Revivalists song, we’re not worried about doing any kind of style, that’s one of the things we said from the beginning. Solo, I was just trying to focus on certain truths I was trying to speak on – things that were super-tied to me.

For these solo songs, have any of them been with you for awhile or were they written over the past seven months, as a result of quarantine?

None of them are that new. Most of them are from this one to two year period. It’s kind of funny, when all of this stuff hit I had a creative boom so I’m excited for the next stuff to come as well. That’s the cycle I want to get into – to bring the best energy I can to each project.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE:

Listen/stream “Shaken” and “Promised Land” HERE:

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JeffGorra@ArtistWaves.com