An interview with Christopher Shawn
This week's guest is Christopher Shawn from the gothic americana band SOVIET//SHIKSA. We'l be discussing their recently released song 'Demonize' (Youtube/ Spotify) from the three track EP Melancholia. Along the way we'll be discussing which band will be ideal to have play at your (Sigur rós) and why, the EP series (Songs about Sex, Death and God I, II and III) and the accompanying book 'His time with Sex, Death and God' by Christopher Shawn and touch on other influences for the band.
Transcription:
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hello this is christopher
shawn from soviet//shiksa
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and i'm here to talk with the
ennrons on your new favourite song
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hi and welcome to your new favourite
song and this week i'll be talking to
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chris shawn from soviet shiksa about their
song they released recently called demonize
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hi chris all the way from nashville how are you
i am very good how are you today i'm very good
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i'm quite excited really glad that you agreed
to talk to me today about about your song and
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so first of all i think it would like
to maybe get a bit of an introduction
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who you are where you are and a bit
about the band as well and what you do
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that sounds good to me i'm christopher shawn
and the soviet//shiksa is the the name of my
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i guess you could call it a solo project i am a
formerly a backing musician i played bass with
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singer songwriters and multiple
bands and things like that and
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got kind of tired of not writing my own stuff or
performing my own thing so i recruited a band and
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started playing shows upsetting audiences in
nashville and all across the southeast and
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northeast united states so and soviet//shiksa
is a solo project but you don't do it all on
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your own i guess or or no i do not do it all on my
own i do write the songs i do structure them but
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the band members i have recruited they they write
their own parts they add their own pieces we like
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to say felt on the pretzel i i play with the full
horn section live i have an amazing rhythm section
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yeah they're talented musicians and honestly
it would be totally different without them
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okay and are they also in other bands that
you're in or or just friends for this project
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actually all the musicians i'm playing
with in this project i had never worked
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before like i had played gigs with bands that they
had worked with just they're just musicians i had
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found in town working with other groups
and other musicians because you're in in
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nashville right which is like the the center
of the united states music industry i guess
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we we like to think we are the center of the
musical world well you know this i'm british so...
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i mean what we understand you all have a pretty
pretty happhapening music scene there yeah yeah
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but i mean guess nashville is a place where you
can get a lot of musicians and studios and stuff
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like that so oh without a doubt yeah and then
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bands no no i i i had to stop i was losing my mind
honestly there's a lot of music out there that i
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i played base for for money and out of boredom and
it got tiring and i just i didn't need to anymore
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and i just decided that it was something
i needed to stop doing okay and so they
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just concentrating on the soviet shiksa yes and
do you also sing the song yes i am the the singer
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of the front and i am the the beautiful face
that people see screaming at them from stage
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behind a very very impressive beard and a
really huge quiff as well i can see yeah oh yeah
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ordinarily it's it's a little quiffier today
than usual but yeah it's usually pretty puffy
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yeah yeah it's a tendency to react i mean
it adds about five inches to your length
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to your height i guess yeah it's quite impressive
so you i also sent you some ice breaker questions
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some questions i think i had to get to know
you a little bit better and the first one you
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asked was which band dead or life which band or
artist dead or alive would play at your funeral
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yes yeah and i i had thought about this and this
is actually something that i i thought about a lot
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at one point in my life i was at a musical a music
festival in tennessee called bonnaroo one year and
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i had eaten a bunch of acid and i was i
was walking around the festival grounds and
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i had forgotten that a band called sigur ross
i believe is how you pronounce their name
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was playing at about 12 30 at night on some
stage and i was just kind of wandering around
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aimlessly not really knowing where i was going
a little lost in my head and i just heard this
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almost angelic cooing coming from the distance and
the crowd responding to it i just drifted towards
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the lights and there they were in all their glory
and i just remember thinking honestly like this
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is what i want to die to if the weather wasn't the
acid oh i'm sure the acid had an effect but yeah i
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think seguros would be the perfect soundtrack
to most people's funerals especially my own
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and if people don't know this band why why
would they be a perfect funeral or send off
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big sounds heavy moods incredible unusual vocals
that you're not going to get anywhere else they're
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hard to describe but they're they're definitely
worth listening to i'm probably slaughtering the
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pronunciation of their name if you're out there
and you're curious it's s-i-g-u-r space ros
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get in there and and dig in because okay
but we'll put a link to this spotify i guess
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and they're probably on the spot we'll put a link
to the spotify in the show notes so anybody who's
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interested to just go and directly check them
out book them for your funeral award if only
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um so are you a listener or a talker a little
bit of both with most people i'm a listener
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with closer friends i can be
a bit of a talker but yeah
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and in show scenarios i tend to be very quiet and
almost stoic but you know occasionally i'll i'll
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chat people up but i definitely prefer to be a
listener yeah because i mean it's you know now
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that you say that about shows i mean you have
people who are definitely extrovert on stage
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who really come alive on stage and they really
engage their audience and how do you do that
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on stage i mean i don't know how i think show
via shiksha is the music is quite something you
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listen to it's especially demonized so how
do you engage your audience i engage them
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with unchecked aggression i think
that's the best way i can describe it
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um i i dress in a very unassuming manner and
usually i'm in the crowd before i'm on stage and
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for the most part i don't talk i'm very
polite and then when we start playing i
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immediately start screaming at them
i i have been called antagonistic
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songs that are very subdued on the records tend
to come out much angrier much more spiteful alive
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the horn section those boys do a great job of
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stirring up people and and getting in the
face of the audience and it's yeah i think
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antagonistic is probably the most accurate word
i can think of because i think i i engage the
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audience from the point of view of you don't
need to be here so i'm going to drive you out
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it's not really very good for your ba your fan
base if you drive people away no i mean it seems
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to work i think people hate themselves on a
very deep level and they appreciate the abuse
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so the third question you asked was which failure
did you learn the most from hmm i honestly i don't
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know i've had a couple of failures i recently
started a divorce which i think i learned the
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most from the the three ep series songs about
sex death and god it's a narrative it's a loose
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narrative but it's a narrative about a struggling
writer going through a divorce and the stories and
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the songs are a combination of his perspective of
the situation than the short stories he's writing
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and it's somewhat autobiographical to a point
but yeah yeah i think when you put so much
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time and energy into a relationship like that
with somebody else and it kind of falls apart
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there is an opportunity to learn a lot and that's
definitely the one i've learned the most from
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and what did you learn specifically yeah what's
what's the thing that really stands out for you
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self-sufficiency to not just financially or
professionally but emotionally you have to be able
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to take care of yourself and be there for yourself
before you can be there in any way shape or form
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for anybody else okay and have you used that in
your in your music with soviet//shiksa are you
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using that for an outlet for this emotional i
guess turbulence that you're feeling in going
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through a divorce is quite a turbulent
time i think so the three ep series was
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definitely being written in in the worst
parts of that and the the newer stuff i'm
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writing now is definitely in the wake of
that and there's definitely some elements
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in the newer stuff that hasn't been recorded
that will be recorded in november of this year
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but yeah i'm definitely using it
as a as an emotional fuel for sure
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okay and the because the the the ep series are
called songs about sex death and god parts one
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two and three yes that's right and i mean
they're also on spotify today i'll put the
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links on to those as well but is there any do
you sort of say you should listen to them in
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in order or just jump in and out you can jump
in and out it's totally fine there is a book
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that i sell that actually reinforces the narrative
a little bit it's it's called his time with sex
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death in god it's available on amazon.com and it
puts the the the tracks from the multiple eps in
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the correct order and there's a piece or two of
poetry that kind of helps seal the deal so to
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speak as well but you can listen to it any way you
want to most people nowadays like to just pop in
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listen to a song or two make their own playlist
that sort of thing and that's totally fine
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but there's more there if you want it for sure now
the song demonized that's not part of that that
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that's from melancholia i think miller is that
right i've been saying melancholia i i believe
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that's the pronunciation i think it's one of those
words it's you know tomato tomato you can you can
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do whatever you want and across the pond you
guys have your own inflections for sure so have
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at it yeah that's what they say yeah americans
and british are divided by a common language
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it's it's interesting but anyway
melancholia yes that's that's the
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most recent release by soviet shiksa
and we released it in february within
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tensions to to kind of run around on it and then
the pandemic happened so we shut down everything
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but yeah it's a three song ep which we use to
kind of express ourselves and stretch out from
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the constraints of the threesome of the three
series ep because we were so focused on that
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sound that i was working on that i wanted to kind
of stretch our legs and see what we could do so we
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we did three very different types of songs and put
them out as an ep and i mean because demon i think
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when i i said about demonizes it's like johnny
cash meets the doors at a thrash metal festival
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but i mean you know you've got this very deep
baritone voice which is a bit like johnny cash but
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you're seeing like like jim morrison especially
on that song you know it's really got that feel of
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riders in the storm and that's that kind of yeah
what would you call it kind of dreamy type of
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vibe going on yeah some sort of like a satanic
crooner yeah yeah yeah well i mean it's called
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demon eye so i mean you know it's probably
the right way and it starts off with this
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we've got the snares and like a kick drum i
guess i think so and and the horns going on
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there in the background and very simple riff bass
riff yeah are you playing the bass riff on that
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no no no that would be ricky demayo my basis
supreme laying down the base for us on that
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track
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how is that different than to the other tracks
that you've done i mean what's the what's
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so special about this particular sound on
this track this one was interesting i had a
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there is a i believe they're worldwide
i believe they're called this
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the the satanic church i think that's the name of
their group it's a it's a coalition of satanists
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and there is a local chapter in nashville and i
had gotten invited to a meeting i guess because
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of my aesthetic and just my overall personality so
i was like yeah what the hell and i'll join these
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folks for a lunch and there's a a a a a german
sausage house in nashville that i had lunch with
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these people at and they were really good people
really nice and it was just interesting to hear
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them talk about their daily experience and their
their groups goals and things like that nature
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and how there's a lot of misconceptions
behind what they are and what they believe
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and what they do and their whole thing is empathy
and reason and i went home from that meeting
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of thinking a few things just the weird irony
of the entire situation and also just like
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that's an intriguing subject that like they
have these weird misconceptions and these weird
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perceptions are laid out upon them but they're
totally different and it seems like on a lot of
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issues and ideas they're on the right side and i
kind of just went home and wrote a little piece
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with some words that rhymed and then i had a
couple of riffs that i looped around the house
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and just started growling into a microphone
until i found the vocal rhythm that's kind
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of where that song came from and like you
said it's a very simple riff and it runs but
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once i got the the rhythm section in there and
i got the horn boys behind it i think we had
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something really special there yeah because that's
something you'd actually i i listened to it again
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and kind of realized that the horns were in
there so when the first time you hear it you
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don't really hear the the horns you hear this
big bass and the kick it really you know grabs
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your attention and then all of a sudden you think
the second time you hear you think oh hey hold on
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it's got some horns and what what have you got
in the background the trumpets or on this yeah
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the horn section consists of saxophone trumpet and
trombone on the trombone yeah i mean because it's
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really quite subtle there in the background in the
very beginning but they come around about halfway
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through they start to come back in again really
loud and then you've got this kind of cacophony
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this sort of satanic cacophony halfway through
the song which i think is the bit that you chose
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the the the clip the clip that
we played at the beginning
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yes yeah i definitely wanted the the
the horns to be noticed because i think
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you know there's a lot of i guess sludgy doomy
metal out there but i don't think a lot of it
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has a horn section to back it up i think it's
a really interesting sound for sure yeah i mean
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most metal is kind of in my experience kind of
leans more towards a classical you know bach and
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and anything but you're kind of more leaning
towards here maybe jazz using horn sections it's
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not very metal i mean would you describe yourself
as a metal band no i would i wouldn't go that far
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we have heavier stuff we have some stuff i would
say like leans on the shoulders of punk and like
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maybe a heavier rock but i don't have any metal
ambitions although i do love a lot of metal
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i just i don't have it in me i don't have the
dexterity or the talent to play metal either
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and i my voice has a hard enough time holding
up with the way i treat it on stage every
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night as it is so if i was screaming
more it would probably be a bad idea
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yeah did you did you i mean because
you've got this deep voice you you might
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tend towards kind of a thrash you know well
this this death metal is this really grunty
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sound but it's it's not it's quite melodic
as well i think that's all yeah yeah for sure
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and that's that's the other problem is i'm not a
talented singer i've been probably just as long as
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i've been writing these songs so i think i put the
first ep out in 2017 and that was recorded maybe
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about four months after i had finally decided
to start singing into a microphone by myself
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so i'm learning as i go i think i'm getting better
who knows it sounds pretty good did you or did you
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do the the recording and the production yourself
or did you get somebody to do that for you
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no there is a my my engineer gentleman his name is
weston wallman and he works out of nashville very
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talented very talented guy he works at a legit
real studio during the day but he also has his
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home set up which is amazing and fantastic and
he's been nothing but a a godsend when it comes
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to like helping me get my ideas into a digital
medium that makes sense okay and i mean you how
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did you lay down the tracks then i mean because
that's always something that's interesting to
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first certainly to me when we were recording
as well there's a kind of an order you
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lay your tracks down in and then you
build up the sound so how did you do that
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ordinarily at least our our our process consists
of the earlier stuff we didn't really mess with
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click tracks or tempos but
melancholia we use tempos
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on demonize in particular we set
the tempo at 66.6 beats per minute
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we thought that was fun but yeah ordinarily
especially going forward we'll set a tempo i
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will lay down scratch tracks where i play a loose
guitar part and do a little loose vocal part and
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then we'll get drums in and record the real drums
and then lay the bass on top of that and go from
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there but usually when we're tracking drums we're
tracking live so we're playing the songs live and
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tracking drums and then we just lay everything on
top of that so do you play all the instruments the
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whole song live in one go you don't record them
multi-track no we do we do the multi-track but
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when the drums are being recorded to have the
live band energy the band is playing live with
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the drummer so we'll just be the mics will just be
on for the drums and then once those are recorded
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we record everything on top of that so you
still have that kind of essence of playing alive
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in that spot in 80 if it happens with the drums
and then you go from there and do you have a when
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you're playing with the drums are you using like a
condenser mic to get a room to get the the ambient
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sound of the other instruments in the room or to
just clean drums playing microphones honestly i
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i think that would be more in weston's wheelhouse
i honest i don't know anything about production
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or anything i am not a gearhead by any stretch
of the imagination i barely know how to use
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my own gear let alone his i know he has a
multitude of microphones and there are cables
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everywhere and it's overwhelming and he handles it
with the grace of a disney princess it's amazing
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yeah because i mean you know that's why you use
a click track obviously is if you're going to
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use those kind of ambient noises from the the
room then you need to make sure that you always
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playing at the same constant tempo otherwise
you get face changes and stuff which but okay
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and what's this what's the the song really about
i mean what's what are you trying to say to people
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in the song what's the message
you're trying to bring over
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i don't honestly i don't i'm i'm terrible
at conveying messages or imparting
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a certain feeling or idea that somebody
should take from anything that i create
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without trying to sound too pompous but i i think
it's i mean if you could take anything from it
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what do you take from it that you
shouldn't take some things at face value
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and that sometimes what seems right is wrong
sometimes what seems wrong might be right
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okay well gets you know given the time it's
really interesting yeah so lovely of this
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the satanist most people say yeah the saginaws
are nice people but they just believe in satan
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well that's that's that's another misconception
most satanist if not all satanists don't really
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believe in any manifestation of a real satan
it's it's but yeah it's in my experience every
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satanist i've met has been nothing but
a peach they're always amazing people
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with any kind of person i'm sure there's terrible
satanists out there i can't wait to meet one
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well this little you know what they say about
you know if you go outside of your door and you
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actually engage with the world that you find
out that most people are actually pretty okay
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i don't know if it's in the states but in in the
netherlands a guy wrote a book and it's become
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quite of a bit of a hit and i'm trying to think
of the the english translation is most people are
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okay the most immense dosa it's like most people
are actually okay and they won't want to rob you
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they won't want to steal from you they won't want
to hurt you in any way in fact most people are
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programmed to be sociable to to and if you get
that into your head then actually engaging with
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other people is not so different difficult
because most people are pretty much the same
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on the level i'd be willing to agree with that for
sure yeah so what's what's on the cards for soviet
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shiksa in the near future in there in case you're
not gigging at the moment no honestly i think the
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majority of what happens with us in the future
depends on americans ability to just wear a mask
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coming from one of those problematic states
like tennessee where people's pride tends
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to be put over people's empathy i don't i don't
know how long it's gonna take for us to kind of
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clear the woods to the point where there's
gonna be live shows i do know that i've
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become more proactive with engaging the
audience i do have with instagram so
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if not bi-weekly it will probably be weekly
i'll be doing live streams where i'll be
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playing some songs and chatting up the people
who choose to watch the streams through instagram
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we will be reporting oh i'm sorry i'll be on your
instagram page yes yes and and well it's a free
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free shout out to yourself what's your instagram
handle the instagram handle is soviet shiksa
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what does that mean by the way i wanted to
ask you that question what does show what
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does soviet//shiksa i mean well yeah so i think we
all understand what soviet is and the connotations
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behind it a shiksa is a yiddish word or even like
a jewish slang for a a promiscuous non-jewish
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woman and maybe a hundred years ago it it would
have been taken very seriously in most of the
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world nowadays i think it's still considered
relatively offensive in parts of old europe
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and in certain families for sure they still
don't take entirely through it i have gotten
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a lot of odd reaction that was unexpected from
people from all parts of the world to me it's a
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it has a an unusual meaning i i picked the
words mainly because they sounded neat together
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and then as i tend to do i
assign meaning to things that
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shouldn't have any meaning assigned to them so i
have my own personal reasons for keeping the name
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but honestly there's not much there it's just
it sounds neat and i like the word shiksa i
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think it's an interesting word i mean would you
i mean you say you've got some personal reasons
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but would you mind sharing them or what your for
keeping the name well you know when you when you
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hear the word soviet you think of maybe like you
know the soviet union and old style socialism and
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the concept of the worker and the greater good
and with with with shiksa you you think of this
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this almost like cartoonish demonic temptress
and you think of propaganda cartoons and just
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these awful ideas that people have they're just
kind of like painted with hate and you have just
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these two things that don't necessarily have to
be awful things and yeah it's basically when ideas
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become bigger than themselves and they they they
get construed into caricatures and monstrosities
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and they don't have to be and it's easy to
project hate onto those things yes it is and
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i'm not saying anything positive about the soviet
union but i think i just think the word soviet in
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and of itself is just this nasty unusual idea
and it doesn't have to be it's just it's just
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a it's a busy word but like i said i didn't
think of anything when i put the words together
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but yeah it's about overcoming temptation for the
greater good that's that's the tagline i have in
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my head when i hear soviet shiksa and i don't know
why it doesn't matter why it's just it's a it's a
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yeah a great tag line huh was the tagline again
overcoming overcoming adversity for the greater
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good overcoming adversity that's a song title
if i ever heard one overcoming adversity for
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the greater good okay so we're coming to more or
less the end and so what it's like if you've got
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a shout out to somebody or if you want to pitch
a new song or merchandise where can we find chris
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shawn and soviet shiksa on the internet where can
we help support you all right i am i'm not a big
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believer in facebook i've had much more positive
interactions and experiences through instagram so
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instagram would be the medium i would like for
you to reach out to me if you're so inclined to
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to engage with the project soviet//shiksa so it's
instagram.com/sovietshiksa and of course there
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is a dot-com sovietshiksa.com and you can access
everything from music links to spotify and itunes
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to the links to the book if you feel so inclined
to check it out to our youtube page where there's
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live videos and music videos and that sort of
thing but first and foremost if you want to keep
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up with us instagram is the way to go for sure
okay cool and maybe one last thing maybe spring
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this on you it's called your your new favourite
song so what is christopher's new favourite song
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what is my favourite song i i have a hard
time listening to a lot of contemporary music
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right now i find myself we we
talked about jim morrison earlier
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i've been listening to the soft parade
way too much here lately so honestly the
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soft parade is probably my new favourite
song the title track from the soft parade
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okay great it's probably not gonna i'm probably
not gonna be able to interview them for the show
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anytime soon but yeah that's great i will
put the link up link to that as well in the
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in the show notes so chris thanks very
much for spending the time with me on this
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for you guys still morning it's me it's all
it's early late afternoon i had a great chat and
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00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:58,640
well thanks very much thanks again for
showing up and flicking your quiff at me
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00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:06,240
no problem it was a lot of fun yeah i'm
gonna get inside before the mosquitoes
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realize i'm out here and i hope
you enjoy your day yeah you too
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and i'll keep in touch absolutely i
look forward to it okay bye-bye bye-bye
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we hope you've enjoyed this podcast and
that you come away with an appreciation
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of the creative process and more importantly
have found your new favourite song
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all of the songs featured in the show are on our
spotify playlist the ennrons' new favourites and
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00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,520
you can find all of the links mentioned
in the podcast in the show notes below
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00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:49,680
next week i'll be talking to rivita about
her song i believe which is a melancholy
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00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:54,560
ode to protecting one's inner self against
the hard response of a sometimes cold world
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if you enjoyed this podcast then please hit the
subscribe button and leave a review on itunes
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00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:06,480
spotify or the podcast app you're listening on
if you want to help us to continue making and
291
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:15,120
growing the podcast as well as releasing new
music then visit www.patreon.com/the ennrons
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00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:19,680
and support us for as little as one euro
month we really appreciate it and every
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00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:24,720
little bit helps to cover the cost of making the
podcast thanks for listening and see you next
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week