Behind the Shades

If less is more, can more ever be less? In the case of The Shades, it just might well be. An eight piece collective from Cork, their debut album Explosive is a quiet delight that glides along in subtle and restrained tones – despite the presence of a DJ, samplers, drums, double bass, guitars, trumpets and flutes.

“Graham (White) and myself are from the same town in Cork”, explains vocalist Ray Scannell of their origins, “and we started messing around with music. It was more an indie affair then as Nirvana were big. We were always playing different musicians and bands around town but when Portishead and Massive Attack came out it was hugely influential to the stuff we’re doing now”.
How did they end up with this current line up?
“It was trial and error, playing with various people that we knew from around town. There were fellers we met from the school of music. We started bringing in orchestral instruments to mix with the electronic elements. The whole time we were trying to get to grips with the equipment as well, the samplers and sequencers. It took us a couple of years, playing around with the technology and the different people”.
Not that everything worked out from the start, as Ray explains.
“It was difficult at the beginning, it was a massive undertaking. When we gigged it just became a wall of sound so it took a lot of work in rehearsals to decide who was doing what. The record is a lot more pared down but live it can get too much”.
Indeed, listening to Explosive, you’d never guess that it was the work of eight pairs of hands.
“‘Taking My Time’ is the best example of that simplicity”, agrees Graham, “just three chords and four words. Not everyone plays on every track on the album. We used to be an electronic band when we started and we started to add live instruments, then we added a drummer three days before we started the album”.
Not only have the various members had experience in different Cork bands, but Ray is also a playwright of some note. Has this has an effect on the band’s sound?
“I don’t know. They’re two very separate things. I was doing music before I was doing theatre at all, hacking away at it and then the theatre stuff seemed to happen straight away”.
It’s a very sad sounding album though.
“Completely. Some of those lyrics were written when I was sixteen. It’s the classic unrequited love scenario. Its funny looking back at it now, how caught up in the melancholic side of it I was. It’s the break up album I suppose”.
Does he think that such emotions can, in a funny way, be uplifting?
“I know for a fact that I write better when I’m down. It might just be a release, I don’t know. At the same time, that’s just the writing process. The playing side of it is a lot more positive”. Nor does he see this as the be all and end all of the band’s sound. “No, the new stuff is going in other directions. There will always be elements of downbeat melancholy about it because that’s what we’re in to. Lyrically it’s becoming more mature though. There’s more going on now.”
Graham too, is keen to look to the future.
“It’s very much the start of the process. The new stuff is still the same sound but has more of a band input, whereas on Explosive Ray and I wrote all of the songs. The lads just played over what was there already. Our drummer Jean and guitarist Graham are both heavy rock guys, whereas our double bassist Rory is a jazz player. Ray and myself are into downbeat so we try and keep it from going to rocky. That’s why people think we’re different, there are so many instruments coming in. We all really stick to what we want to do, we don’t change to jump on any bandwagon”.

Explosive is out now.