In Conversation With #125 - Sheppard
Australian pop powerhouse Sheppard have just released their colorful album ‘Kaleidoscope Eyes’ - a project that started exactly one year ago where the band decided to unmask a new track every month. It has seen them take listeners on a journey of love, loss, pain and joy. They took a moment to talk to about this adventure of theirs.
Hey there Sheppard, how are you? So your album ‘Kaleidoscope Eyes’ is out now, what is the meaning behind the title?
Hey! We’re great thanks :) So happy that Kaleidoscope Eyes has finally been released. The title is a metaphor for how love can completely change your perception of the world. When you’re falling in love, it feels like somebody has turned up the saturation on the colours around you and life feels like a more bright and colourful place to be. On the other hand, if you don’t have love, or if you’ve lost love, then the world can become a darker place. It’s a vastly powerful emotion. We actually have two different versions of the album cover to reflect these two faces of love - one side is day time, the other is night time. You can see this on a poster that’s included with the vinyl.
Where was the album recorded? Any behind the scenes stories?
The album was mostly recorded in our home studio in Brisbane, but this was the first time Amy, Jay (our guitarist/co-writer) and I split up to write songs. Usually we start everything together, but this time, I flew to Sweden on my own for a few weeks, Amy flew to Nashville for a few weeks, we both took a trip to LA, then did some writing at home in Brisbane with Jay. At the end of it all, once we had a bunch of demos in our bag of tricks, we got back together in Brisbane and picked a new song to finish off every month.
You set yourself the challenge to release one single a month for an entire year, what led to that choice? Did you find it challenging?
So at the start of 2020, right before the pandemic crippled the global economy, we decided that we were going to convert a room in our house into a mini studio, and spend our year writing, recording and releasing a song every month (with a video) and this would eventually become our third album. It was a hell of a challenge, but looking back it was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. It was a profoundly rewarding and liberating way to release our music. The reason we decided to do this was because the way people consume music has changed dramatically in recent years. People just want to “cherry pick” the singles, and the rest of the album tracks get somewhat glossed over, or not given as much attention. Releasing every track on the album as its own single solved that problem. Every song got its month in the sun. We were also over how long it took to build up a single for release in the conventional way. For example, our single ‘Die Young’ took 10 months to release from the moment it was written. It’s just such a long build up that by the time it’s released, you’re already numb to the song, or you might have moved on as artists. There’s also SO much pressure riding on the performance of that single in relation to the album - it can be very stressful. By doing it this way, we didn’t have time to care about how well a song was doing or how it was performing in the charts, we just got to work on the next release. We honestly loved it. Those 12 singles + some extra tracks are the songs that comprise ‘Kaleidoscope Eyes’ and we feel they’re some of our best songs to date.
Before Covid-19 you were touring extensively, how are you adjusting to ‘normal’ life? What have you got up to?
Like many musicians during Covid, most of our time has been spent writing and recording whilst live shows haven’t been possible. We’ve been quite fortunate here in Brisbane though, as we haven’t been affected too badly and life has been able to go on as normal... kind of. Strangely, we did get to experience some pretty unique shows thanks to Covid. As air traffic was practically non-existent, a radio station on the Gold Coast organised an epic live streamed show for us on the main runway of the Gold Coast airport. Surely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We also scored the halftime slot at the AFL Grand Final which is possibly the biggest event you can play in Australia, so as a band dealing with a global pandemic we’ve been very fortunate indeed!
What are the key themes and influences on the album?
The main theme that weaves its way through the album is the power of love and how profoundly this phenomenal emotion can affect your world around you. Love in all forms. Falling in love, falling out of love, and probably most importantly - learning to love yourself. It all has such an impact on how you view the world, and how you move through life. We’re also lucky enough that we’ve all now found amazing love in our long term partners, so it was an easy place to write from!
Do you have a favorite lyric on the album? If so, which one and why?
“In a world that’s colourblind, we see it all through Kaleidoscope Eyes”. It’s the first line of Die Young, the first song we released for this album and also the first track on the record. It just encapsulates the theme of the album so well, and sets up the vibe for the rest of what’s to come.
Now the album is out there, what next for Sheppard?
Well international touring is still out of the equation, but thanks to the song a month challenge, we’ve really streamlined the process of writing/recording/releasing music - so we’ve already started the process of writing album 4 and hopefully we’ll continue the trend of consistent music releases. Amy has also been quietly working on a country album which will hopefully see the light of day in 2021. Apart from that, we’ll have to wait and see!