In Conversation with Shaky Dawg pg. 2
Table of Contents - page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
I knew his children and they had told me that he had so many songs he had written, and Dark World should try and get him to record them. At the time, Dark World agreed to let him do a recording of whatever he wanted after the Crawlers project ended.
I had worked with him finding the chords to some of the Crawler tracks. I felt I knew how he was approaching his lyrics. So in November 2008, I ran into him and asked him if he was ever going to come down to the studio and try recording his songs the way he wanted to hear them (He had always been a bit uncomfortable with the classic Nashville country sound J.A.Bohr had produced the Crawlers with.) I asked him what he wanted to create and he told me this dream of Country-Techno. Playing his songs with techno rhythms, instead of the classic sound line-up of country.
I'm not a country fan, but did want to try expanding my own studio performances (Having someone like Kylyra as a sister can be intimidating, with her being so versatile and I having so much similarities in my work. I wanted to do more styles myself.), do something unexpected.
So Shott and I talked about how we could try and get the sound he wanted. In early February 2009, we got together in the studio and began with 3 songs; Cruisin', Criminal, and Prison. Shott is the main vocalist, I played the guitars and bass, both Shott and I wrote the techno rhythms, and Ky and I sang back-up vocals on the tracks. It wasn't Shaky Dawg at that time, it was O'Shott's solo project with me as a studio musician. After finishing mixes for the first roughs ('cause we needed to hear what we were creating), he passed around copies to his friends, and requests for live performances began. So as we began working on the next four tracks, we decided to try and take the project live. So it was in March that Shaky Dawg really becomes a band. I was originally supposed to play bass live (my choice). So as we finished the second set of four tracks and began the next set of three tracks, I began pushing the bass a little, going more eccentric.
He really wanted me to enjoy playing the tracks live. The electric guitar parts were written and played like Shott wanted to hear. He choose the sounds (amps, eq and distortion) for the electric. I enjoy playing with the sounds he chose, as they are probably not something I might have chosen myself.
Kylyra had been working on setting up the first Poets Express night and wanted us to open it up (the pre-show entertainment). The core band is Shott and myself, but we both wanted more to the live show. My half-brother, Spike, joined the live band on bass, a friend of Shott's played the acoustic and I had to jump in on electric (we couldn't find someone who wanted to play my leads?!?). I probably was a bit put off for the first few weeks having to memorise the guitar now, but Shott had always wanted me on guitar live, so I did give in. And we rehearsed the show which 'Break the Bottle' video came from. Then Ky decided to sing with the band live.
So with some summer shows under our belt, we're finishing the full length show. The original final mixes Shott and I finished before Poets Express are available online as the 'Bass Ridin' for Digital Cowboys EP'. Physical copies are available through Amazon.
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