Shadow Academy – Invisible

By starrymag | June 7, 2022

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

DAN: I would say it’s somewhere between 90s alternative music and 70s progressive rock. My two favorites!

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

DAN: This might sound like a similar answer so the last question, but I love early 90’s stuff like Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden, as well as bands like Rush, Pink Floyd, and Genesis from fifteen to twenty years earlier.

Q) Talk about the story behind your new song “Invisible.”

DAN: It’s partly the story of Griffin (the scientist from The Invisible Man by HG Wells), and partly the more contemporary feeling of being stalked and chased after in a world with increasing surveillance.

Q) What do you think it is about the song that fans connect to?

DAN: Hopefully, it’s the music and melody hooks the grab them, but lyrically I think we can all relate to the challenges of a world where we each have our privacy eroding by the day.

Q) What is your song writing process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?

DAN: For me it helps to have music before I start writing lyrics. I’m a believer that a lot of these songs are just kind of floating out there, and artist just has to put themself in a place mentally and emotionally where they can channel an idea.  Having music to work off of helps me find that place lyrically. (I’m sure all this might sound weird to some people, but it’s been my consistent experience with writing. The best stuff always just kind of appears in your mind, whereas whenever I’ve really sat down to write, it’s always felt like pushing a stone up a hill.)

Q) How much of hand do you have in the production of your music?

DAN: I’ve been fortunate to be in this band with Jim [Roach], who has been a professional producer for many years. Occasionally, we’ll go outside our group for mixing and mastering in order to get second opinions, but everything else we’ve done ourselves.

Q) What are some themes you explore on your self-titled debut album?

DAN: There’s a lot of literary themes on the album because I was reading a lot of classic literature during the pandemic when we created it. Those books are considered classics for a reason though. They connect with basic ideas of the human experience – hope against despair, the individual against the many and the importance of overcoming fear to find meaning in life.

Q) What tracks off the album hold a special place for you and what makes them so significant?

DAN: I think “Once and Never More” and “Wind and Waves” stand out to me, but they’re all important. Personally, I’ve been in a comedy band for the last thirteen years and, as much as I love it, there are other sides to me which I couldn’t express in that setting.  This album was a huge outpouring of pent-up emotion, and I can hear it in my voice when I listen back to the tracks.

Q) Were any tracks in particular a challenge when it came to the song writing or finishing touches?

JIM: The song I remember really wrestling with was “Once and Never More.” The writing came pretty easy all around, but getting the arrangement right became the challenge. As it goes, the demo had a lot of magic, but I kept thinking I could make it better by adding things and changing the instrumentation. I probably tried around thirty different arrangements of that song and each time it just didn’t feel quite as right as the demo. So, the challenge became keeping the magic that the demo had but re-recording the parts “properly” as they would be final takes. It ends up that 75% of the instrumentation came straight from the demo as I just couldn’t beat the emotion behind the playing! When it felt “finished” it was nearly a carbon copy of the very first version we made. In fact, with just did a cassette tape giveaway of the record and we included the “Once and Never More” demo on the tape.

Q) What do you hope listeners take away from listening to this new album as a whole?

JIM: I’d love for listeners to really feel the amount of time and passion that went into the writing and recording of this record and my hope is that the songs and the music hit differently for people. I’d also love for people to take away an appreciation of a whole record that was designed to be listened to in full. That seems to be missing in today’s landscape and we put a lot of time into this being a whole experience. Dan [Avidan] and I both love the craft of songwriting and recording, and we wanted that to show in the whole presentation.

Q) Will there be an upcoming tour to promote the album or are you solely focused on livestreams for the time being?

JIM: Our independent schedules are quite busy through this year so there’s nothing immediately being planned. I have a few records I’m producing, and Dan is on the road quite a bit for 2022. My hope is that we get out for a couple weeks at least sometime in 2023.

Q) What album/band are you currently listening to and why do you dig them? 

DAN: I’ve been listening to a lot of early Smashing Pumpkins – primarily Gish and Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness. Both of those records were incredibly formative for me when I was in high school both as a drummer and a guitar player. It’s been amazing to revisit them and be re-inspired by the music that got me into this business in the first place. Those albums weave really heavy and really delicate music perfectly, which is something I love doing with Shadow Academy. I’m sure a bunch of new Shadow Academy songs will be born out of me revisiting these records.

Q) You are a part of social media. Why is that such an important way for you to connect with your fans?

JIM: I suppose it’s really the only current way to connect with your fans on a day-to-day level. I love that it’s immediate. We can get a little note from someone in Bulgaria telling us about how a song means something to them because of what they were going through in their life, and we can respond instantly. It’s an incredible thing really and we try to respond to every one that writes us.  There are obviously massive downsides to the speed that social media moves; like getting caught up in maintaining content for fans and not focusing on making new music. That’s a very real thing! I hope our fans understand if at some point we go dark for a bit. It just means we’re working on something new for them.

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

JIM: I’d like to say thank you and that we are working hard to create things that excite them for the long haul. It’s a tired trope, but it’s true: If we didn’t have fans supporting this band, we wouldn’t be able to do it. It’s that simple. We are so thankful that in the short time we have been a band there has been a lot of people who gutturally responded to the music and were genuinely affected by it. It’s hard to describe how magical that is! So, if you loved our record and been a support to us in any way at all, (even by sending a note to us!) thank you from the bottom of our hearts! More music is on the way.