Tell us a little about your influences , as a band and your personally ?
Individually we all have different influences and we all bring them together in the way we play as a band.
Music that's influenced us as a band range from bands such as Love, The Cribs, The Go Team, Motown, 60's Garage and Pysch, The Libertines, Paul Weller, Curtis Mayfield the list really could go on and on.
Talking about myself, musically the Small Faces and vocally Steve Marriot are a big influence on me, as a songwriter and performer Paul Weller is untouchable. Other than that I love Stax and Motown, Sam Cooke is a god! Along with Brian Jones my male style icon!! And lyrically Jarvis Cocker has never really been beaten for me.
How did the band get together ?
Bit of a long story really, myself and Roger formed a band with two other friends back in 2001, called Almost Grown (yeah bad name I know), the drummer and the guitarist lets say had one night of passion that caused a lifetime of awkwardness so our drummer left.
About 2 months later we fell out with our guitarist big time, I won't go into why and we chucked him out of the band, by that time we were called The Immediate. We recruited Clive via the internet and he introduced us to Joost, and The Shake! were born.
Retro-Britpop-soul what ever you want to call it seems to have stayed well beyond its 'Sell by date' this time, seems a while ago since The Libertines brought back good old English pop, why so different do you think to the 90's Britpop scene.
I think all of the above have the common theme of no matter whether it was classed as 90's Britpop of the Libertines-esque bands of today, it's all good British music, the lyrics are very British, people are signing about the towns the were brought up in and no one is putting on an American accent. It all goes back to the days of the Kinks and then the list goes on, The Jam, The Smiths, Pulp, Sleeper, Oasis, The Libertines and The Cribs all of those bands and the bands that make this quintessentially British music will remain as people can relate to it.
Can't ignore the Mod question can we , how much does that scene influence the band and you ?
Probably not so much the Mod scene nowadays but definitely looking back the music that people associate with "Mod" has been a huge influence on us all. The Mod scene brought to me a love of soul and that has had a large impact on me and the way I think about singing and songwriting. And of course then there is the clothes, I am a big fan of the classic "Mod" look and the boys like a nice sharp suit from time to time, I would say all of us are influenced by the Mod scene but are wary of pigeon holing ourselves as a band.
where did you record the tunes you have up on myspace ?
Our last two EP's were recorded with Ed Deegan at Gizzard Studios in Hackney Wick, its all analogue and he used to work at Toe Rag Studios, recorded The Cribs first album and likes Doctor Who.
We will shortly be putting up a demo of a new song and a cover of Have Love Will Travel on myspace both of which were recorded at our “home studio” by our lovely bassist Roger Green.
Tell us about the deal with Rowed Out Records, any plans for a follow up or an Album's worth of your songs ?
Adam from Rowed Out is a lovely guy and heard our music over the internet. He is a lifelong music lover already had his own site selling mod tunes from the last 40 odd years and he had always wanted to set up his own record label. We were the first release on his Rowed Out label and to be honest we didn't know what to expect but Adam has been a great help totally supportive and is now a firm friend. He came all the way down to The Dublin Castle, Camden from his home in Lincolnshire to bring us down our first release so we could do a "Single Launch".
We are featured on his second release a compilation called "Soul Like Fire" which features 18 bands from across the world playing their own take on "60's Mod & Beat" music. We would love to release our second EP on Rowed Out and there has been talk of an extended EP or album, we just have to wait for the right time for both Adam and ourselves.
You have some great titles for your tunes, how do the come about, what is 'Troubled scene' about.
I hate thinking of song titles I always write the lyrics and melody and think job done until one of the boys says "What's that one called?" and then I spend forever totally over thinking it. Troubled Scene was probably one of the easiest songs I have ever written lyrics for, Roger started with the bass line and the melody for the verse came from there. I often find if I can get a melody then the rest is easy, the lyrics almost appear. This was written about the modern "rock star" that the scenesters will fawn over even when they are on the edge of destroying themselves, it's just saying they almost want them to self destruct for a bit of excitement and too much is about the "celebrity and personality " of the person and not enough about the music, it's a very Troubled Scene you see, how long is it going to last if peoples fans are urging them to get back on the drugs send themselves further into madness etc just so that they can feel a bit rebellious?
Tell us Faye about the bands live shows, you guys don't seem to gig too much, is that lack of decent venues to play or the fact you like to keep the public waiting for the next one ?
Recently we have laid off of the gigging for various reasons, we wanted more time to write new songs and the lack of a full time drummer doesn't help, also last year we gigged a lot especially over the summer, we played a lot of lovely venues, met nice people and had good shows but also played for a fair share of downright awful promoters who don't promote at all and just expect you as a band to bring 50 fans each. Also as most unsigned bands know, payment is rare and touring costs money and it became so expensive with travel cost etc... So we are just being a bit more selective now more with the promoters that we deal with rather than the venues.
What has the reaction of any music press been to the Shake ? any good reviews worth a mention ?
We have had our fair share of press coverage, though never enough! A lot of coverage in our local paper of course and many internet fanzines, though probably our high point was being picked as one of James Jam's top 5 Up and Coming bands in his weekly Radar feature in the NME last year and being interviewed by Sohostrut of course ;)
What does the future hold for the Shake ?
Well unfortunately we have lost our drummer to the world of Jazz, however we have got a couple of temporary replacements, had a cracking gig with one of our new drummers Hayden at Clwb Ifor Bach at the end of March and a hometown gig this weekend. Hopefully we will find a permanent drummer and then just get back to gigging a bit more regularly. We are in the midst of writing some new tunes and want to strengthen the set we have already got with some new songs, of course a manager would be nice but we'll just take it as it comes.
Thanks Faye say good night to the good people of Sohstrut....
Good Night my friends and remember don't let the bed bugs bite
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