BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville singer/songwriter Elvie Shane recently released his much anticipated sophomore album DAMASCUS, an ode to his artistic evolution and deep feeling take on country music, available to listen HERE. Drawing inspiration from the Apostle Paul’s transformative biblical story and the hardened beauty of ancient steel, each of the 13 tracks find Shane stepping into the shoes of another, taking pieces of each character he’s met on his journey, and melding them into one beautifully woven work. Shane co-wrote all songs on the project produced by his frequent collaborator, Oscar Charles. Ranging from Appalachian electro-punk to defiant heartland hip-hop, grungy gospel blues and neon ‘90s twang, Shane’s influences collide in DAMASCUS to tell his story – one that countless others have experienced in one way or another. We first spoke to Elvie just over two years ago (read HERE) and the Kentucky native made his first trip during this time so with the recent release of “Damascus” and festival season kicking into full force, it was fitting for us to have a long overdue catchup.
Great to see you man, it’s been a while because when you were last over here we were both a bit sick around the tour so we missed each other but you having new music brings a great chance to catchup and hang out again so I appreciate your time. “No, thank you, I really appreciate it.”
We’re going to talk about the new record but as it’s been a hot minute, first I just wanted to touch on a couple of things that you have done since we last spoke. You came to see us a couple of years back but at the start of this year you headed even further afield and went down under to Australia for the first time. “Australia was really awesome although the plane ride over absolutely sucks to get there but once you get there, the people are really kind, the cities are very clean and it feels very safe there but the fans at the festival were amazing. The festival (CMC Rocks) was cool and for whatever reason Morgan Wade wanted to swap sets at the campsite on the very first night so she ended up going in my slot and I was like hell yeah, I’ll close this thing down tonight, let’s go! That was awesome, they were there for it that night and that was the only time that I’ve ever played a show in shorts my whole life. It was hot and I was vibing so I just rocked the jorts and the Chuck Taylor’s with some high socks you know but had a blast that night. Then the next three shows that we played, it was like every time that we went out on stage, we would see more and more people until the last day where we had an awesome crowd. On the way there it was easy, no jetlag but when I got home I was destroyed!”
I did notice that they got you in on their little tradition that they have down there. “Yeah, drinking out of a shoe! I’m not much of a drinker honestly but I thought I’d chug from a boot if it’s going to make them feel hell yeah good but I have no idea where that started.” It makes me laugh at how it’s not something you guys do and isn’t an American tradition in college towns but it is very random. Did you know it was a thing before you went there? “I was warned on the way over there. I was a little drunk and I did take Kameron Marlowe in my Chuck Taylor that I wore every day that I was there and he drank it! But, I think he was a little drunk too ha ha, he was in the middle of his set and I just walked out on stage pouring a beer into my Chuck Taylor and one sock.”
It’s cool how your music can take you to new places like that which is so far away. The other thing I wanted to talk about before we hit the record was Stoned Cold Country where you did a fantastic version of “Sympathy for the Devil” as part of that project. How did you get involved with that and also how did it feel to be able to be a part of Nashville’s love letter to The Rolling Stones? “Well, I never thought that I was going to get the gig, management asked me if I would be interested and I said of course I would but they’re not going to call me. I guess they hollered at Robert (Deaton) and said give this kid a listen, then he listed to “Backslider” and called back saying we’d love to have you. They told me to pick five songs out and I come from a very old southern, traditional raising area where I grew up so something to do with religion and the spiritual battle going on in the world has always been somewhat attractive to me for whatever reason so “Sympathy for the Devil” was my first pick. I thought there was no way that I would get this, I bet Eric Church or somebody already picked this one but five minutes later they text me back to say it’s yours. I wanted to do that song in particular because the song was so misrepresented when The Stones put it out, people called them devil worshippers and things but the simple fact of the matter about that song is that it is not an ode to the devil or we should have sympathy for the devil himself but it’s about calling humanity out for the atrocities that we’ve committed over the centuries and using the devil as the scapegoat for the evil that we do. He wrote than song after he read a book called “The Master and Margarita” so I went and read the book, watched the interviews and recording of the original as I tried to dive into that song as much as possible to be able to represent what they were going for. It was awesome because I got a really awesome education in The Rolling Stones and that song, then that ultimately led me to being able to record the ”Damascus” record, which had been a no up and to the point of that documentary being filmed.” Then like the pro that you are dude, you lead us in perfectly to talk about the new record. There isn’t a song called “Damascus” on the project and you’ve explained previously the inspiration for the project and title comes from the biblical story of the Apostle Paul then also linking with Damascus steel. Did you have this as a concept when you started worked on the album initially or did it come as an idea that brought the songs together as you were working on it? “The idea for “Damascus” originally came in the thought of the Apostle Paul in the bible and it was after we had written the first two songs for the record which were “Baptized” and “Forgotten Man” where there is a lot of contrast stylistically and everything in those two songs, but I loved those two songs where I was just saying hey, I’m on my road to Damascus and I’m just trying to figure out where to go. What happened was we continued to write more songs that were so far from each other stylistically that the thought of Damascus steel ended up coming to me later and that is where it really tied together. I just wanted an excuse to write and be able to do whatever songs that I wanted to do without having to pay attention to what country or rock and roll or hip-hop should sound like, it’s all just music to me. I don’t care what category you feel is necessary, I just want to write songs that make me feel something and hopefully I can invoke that emotion out of people when I sing.”
Looking through the track listing, you co-wrote twelve of the songs and you wrote the last one on your own, I see that Oscar (Charles) produced the record and he has a lot of the writing credits along with Dan (Couch) too so did you end up writing a lot of this record in one time slot or were any of them older songs that just happened to be a fit? “We wrote “Baptized”, “Forgotten Man”, “Chicken Shit” and “Jonesin’” in the first weekend which was three months after we put “Backslider” out, then after that it was spread out over two years. I wrote “Does Heaven Have a Creek” on my way to the studio as we were finishing up the project, I was writing on the bus, we had that writers retreat that started it where the whole time I’m trying to get back of ADHD medicine and there was a lot of turmoil in my life. We had moved to Kentucky, I did some of the writing and recording in Kentucky, everything that you hear on this record was recorded in a basement at a farm that my wife and I had in Kentucky, the back of a bus, the basement at a buddies house or a rental house in Alabama on the beach so we recorded this thing everywhere.” For people that listened to “Backslider” and now hear this new record, what do you hope that people take away from who Elvie Shane is right now and what you have to say since the first album? “I feel like “Backslider” was definitely a more nostalgic record about my coming of age years, growing up, where I grew up, leading to Nashville, my dreams coming true, getting married, becoming a father and all of that but it was also very much an Elvie record. Elvie is my first name and my middle name is Shane but I went by Shane my entire life. I changed to Elvie Shane because my grandfather’s dad was named Elvie and he always called me Elvie Shane when I was a kid, that was my cowboy name to my papa you know. Elvie is this guy, I’m Garth Brooksing this shit and talking about myself in the third person here but Elvie is this guy who decided to get rid of all the shit from the past, be a little more bright eyed and bushy tailed about life, happy go lucky and go chase those dreams down. Ultimately being Elvie for a little while just made me realise that Shane is there for a reason so I feel like “Backslider” was an Elvie record and “Damascus” is a shane record. I’ve got to see the world a little bit now and I’m weathered by it, I’ve seen struggle from Sydney to London. I’ve seen beauty from Sydney to London as well but I understand struggle more, it’s been a closer friend to me in life. “
I haven’t had a terrible life but I’ve just witnessed it, we didn’t grow up dirt poor but we didn’t have a lot of things that we wanted just the things that we needed. I got to witness it through all the people around me growing up and I don’t consider myself an addict, I have drug issues and have since my teenage years but it’s always been easy for me to quit or be like hey let’s do this for a little while and have fun, then not do it for a little while and take care of ourselves. I care about those people that have real strong addiction problems because I have lived the life enough, know people that have the problems and lost the friends so I wanted to talk about that because I care about them. Struggle is the overlying theme in this record and I just see people struggling, the world is struggling, people are pissed off and we are human beings where life is fucking hard sometimes! I wanted to try and unify people, if you listen to this record I think you will hear universal struggles, I want people to quit focusing on the nuance bullshit and remember that when we shut our doors with our closest friends and families, we probably all lived the same where w love, we work, we prosper and we also fail.”
Everything that you have said definitely comes out when you hear this record and struggles are something that we all go through and look or feel different to different people, you mentioned you have witnessed these struggles across the globe from Sydney in Australia to London in England, and you came over here to play some shows in 2022 so are you hoping to come back and see us again soon? “I would love to, I hope so. I think that they really enjoy what I’m doing over there from the comments on socials and stuff, I think that people would really like to see me come back and I would love to come back. The first time I got sick so had to miss the thing with Breland but I was able to do the rest of my shows, then last year I was fresh off Adderall and other shit for three months, I was doing things to better myself. I was running and doing jiu-jitsu where I ended up breaking my ankle before we were supposed to come over there and that kind of knocked me out so hopefully the people that bring me over there aren’t gun shy to bring me because I would love to come back, I absolutely love it over there and would love to come back as soon as possible!”
DAMASCUS Track Listing:
Outside Dog (Elvie Shane, Oscar Charles & Jonathan Sherwood)
What Do I Know (Shane, Charles, Sherwood & Dan Couch)
Jonesin’ [Feat. Jenna McClelland] (Shane, Charles, Ryan Tyndell & Jeremy Spillman)
Baptized (Shane, Charles, Couch & Luke Preston)
Forgotten Man (Shane, Preston, Couch & Charles)
Pill (Shane, Lee Starr & Nick Columbia)
215634 (Shane, Adam Wood & Ben Chapman)
Appalachian Alchemy (Shane & Preston)
First Place [Feat. Little Big Town] (Shane, Wood, Couch & Jakob Miller
Winning Horse (Shane, Couch & Charles)
Fan On (Shane, Driver Williams & Hayes Carll)
Chicken Shit (Shane, Spillman, Tyndell & Charles)
Does Heaven Have A Creek (Shane)
The sophomore album “Damascus” from Elvie Shane is out now via BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville and available HERE. You can find details of all his upcoming shows on his WEBSITE whilst you can keep up to date with everything that Elvie is up to be checking out his socials on: INSTAGRAMTIKTOKTWITTER & FACEBOOK