Shawn Farley is the epitome of the Independent Musician. He’s spent over 20 years in the business and has self-produced and distributed six albums on his own label, Wonky Records.
Additionally, Shawn is a studio warrior. Thanking the product of technology wizards around the world for allowing him to produce his work from the sanctity of his own abode.
He’s played in bands from Washington DC to Seattle, including his current Seattle trio, Half Zaftig. The music he produces is thoughtful, quirky, catchy, and inventive and reflects a lot of the personality of Shawn Farley himself.
IRM: Where are you from and how does that influence your music?
SF: I grew up in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. I became a musician because other kids I went to school with were making up songs, making crude recordings of them, and playing covers in garage bands. This was in the mid-80’s, long before the ubiquity of Garageband, the Internet, or even cell phones. The idea of having access to even a four-track recorder was pretty much a pipe dream. But that didn’t matter to my friends and I – we didn’t know better. What I did know was that I got the same charge when I listened back to our little home tapes that we made, as I did when I listened to the vinyl LP’s (yes, LPs!) that I brought home from the store with my allowance. Making recordings was what gave me the “bug”, and everything I’ve done since in music has followed from that. I don’t know if being in Virginia mattered as much as being in a middle-class suburb surrounded by lots of other creative kids to be inspired by. I certainly don’t see any sort of “geography-based” stylistic imprint on my stuff. The DC suburbs are a hodge-podge of people from every corner, drawn to the area by government jobs. As a result, I don’t think there is a “sound” that emanates from that area, like one might associate with Nashville and country music, for example.
IRM: Who are your main influences musically and what do you see of them in your music?
SF: I have very eclectic tastes. When I was very young, I was most influenced by movies I was seeing, and didn’t really listen to pop music at all – but I know every note on that original 2 LP Star Wars soundtrack! I still tend to imagine music in cinematic terms – songs feel like little “movies”, and I always say that I make music “that has stuff that HAPPENS in it.” Of course I have worshipped at the feet of the greats of rock and pop since, i.e. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, The Who. In high school the biggest band in the world was the original Van Halen, and they’re still probably my favorite band ever. And I don’t know where I’d be without Zappa, The Police, Prince, Rush, U2, R.E.M., The Cure, Bjork, Nine Inch Nails, all of those Seattle bands from the 90’s, Beck, King’s X, Mike Keneally, Matt Mahaffey, and I could go on for pages. I’m still a voracious consumer of new music, always looking for the next thing to get completely obsessed by. Last year I discovered the work of Rob Crow and I spent months digging through and being delighted by his huge catalog. As far as what do I hear of these artists in my music – well, I think most of the people I mentioned tend to jump around a lot stylistically. None of them are “genre” bands/artists, and that applies to me as well. I could never understand why you’d want to limit yourself to one sound or style. I love extremely heavy and atonal music like what Meshuggah does, but Eric Whitacre’s chorale music dissolves me into a puddle at the drop of a hat. I’ve been a Madonna fan forever. I think I have something of a pop music sensibility, too – even when I’m working on the weirdest or heaviest tunes in the catalog, I like to think they’re “hooky” in some way.
IRM: Tell us a little bit about your project “5240″.
SF: “5240” is not an album, first of all. It’s more of a challenge, a gauntlet I threw down at myself. I’m approaching a personal milestone, in November I’ll be 40 years old. It’s a cliché, but you really do find yourself “taking stock” when moments like that come along. The last proper “album” I did was released in late 2007 (Life Like Luster with my band Half Zaftig), and I spent 2008 thinking about what I wanted to do next. I felt like I’d been on the “write some songs/make an album/rinse/repeat” treadmill for many, many years, and I was in a bit of a rut. Add to that the gigantic impact the Internet has had on how people not only consume but perceive music, I just felt a need to explode the paradigm I was used to and do something else. I’ve always been a horrible procrastinator, and a painfully slow writer. I think it would be fair to say that I have always tended to over-think my songs. But I’d also noticed over the years that many of the tunes that people enjoyed the most over the years were the ones that came out with the least amount of time and effort; songs that just fell out of the air and into being in just a couple hours or days. I decided to push that idea to the max, and commit to finishing a completely new song every week for a whole year. So, that’s “5240” in a nutshell. At the beginning, saying out loud that I was going to write, record, and release 52 songs in one year seemed ridiculous, even to me; I’ve gone entire years without writing anything new. At this writing, I’m twenty weeks in, and I’m working on song #21. We’ll know in just a few months if I can pull this off.
IRM: What is the story behind “I like you more than you do”?
SF: Before “5240”, I had never specifically tried to write a “solo acoustic song.” I had done “acoustic versions” of songs I had written for bands, but the idea of just writing for voice and acoustic guitar had always terrified me. “I Like You More Than You Do” was my second attempt to slay that particular dragon (the first was week 3’s “The Last Time We Talked”). As far as what the song is “about”, I’ll just say that I think most of us have met many people along the way who were told that they were worthless or unwanted for so long, that they’ve come to believe it.
IRM: You’ve got 20 years in this business, what is the one thing you would tell an up-and-coming musician is the most important thing to remember?
SF: I would say if you want to go into music to be famous and make a million dollars, there are many better ways to do those particular things, so don’t waste your time and efforts on that. The only reason to make music is if you literally have no choice in the matter. For those who understand what I’m talking about, I’d just tell them to be disciplined, STAY OUT OF DEBT (no credit cards!), and do the work every day. If you’re a songwriter, write, write, WRITE, and if you’re a performer/player, PLAY.
IRM: What do you find to be the most helpful aspect of the internet as a musician?
SF: Well, it’s democratized everything, hasn’t it? People all over the world can be listening to my songs or albums within seconds of hearing about them. There’s no need for an artist to HAVE TO enlist the help of giant conglomerations to release music anymore. There’s an unprecedented amount of interaction between those who are doing creative work, and those who are enjoying it. Bands that would never have gotten exposure via the “accepted cultural gatekeepers” 20 years ago can make a decent living being completely “under the radar” today. There ARE no “cultural gatekeepers” anymore.
IRM: What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of the internet for a musician?
SF: Well, it’s that whole “democratization” thing again, innit? And the fact remains, a lot of folks who want new music aren’t really sure what to do now that those old “gatekeepers” are gone. And now that it’s easier than it’s ever been to make a decent recording of your song on your laptop at home, the Internet is flush with more music than ever before. So the challenge is, how do you help people find you, when every musician everywhere else is trying to do the very same thing? How do you stand out? Should you even try? Can you keep on top of all the yearly-changing trends? A couple of years ago, MySpace was going to save us all. Now it’s Twitter. If the default advice a musician hears from all corners is, “Have a presence EVERYWHERE,” well, someone’s got to keep on top of all that, don’t they? And if you’re doing it on your own, can you find time to write your next song? Artists can’t pull a Tool or NIN anymore and take five years between releases; your audience will move on, so you’ve got to be creating MORE now than ever before.
IRM: You have $5 for lunch – what are you eating and who are you sharing it with?
SF: I’d be making Sir Paul McCartney watch me eat a Dick’s Deluxe at Dick’s Drive-In in Seattle. He’d forgive me, though – because the chocolate shakes are so good there.
IRM: What else would you like to share with your fans?
SF: I would just like to thank everyone for sticking around with me for the ride. I live to surprise them, and as much as it’s a huge challenge trying to keep up the pace and think up something new for next week, the feedback they give me via blog comments and email keeps me going. So, THANK YOU.
