E.Z Shakes Essential 8 Questions
Did you have a musical mentor? If so, who was it and how did they influence you?
As far as a mentor goes, I can't say I've ever had someone who took me up under their wing and showed me much. I had more strong examples of people who loved to play music. My mom played in a small touring band when I was little and my grandparents during holidays would encourage us all to pick up instruments and play along with old country gospel songs. I'm largely self taught and have kinda marched to my own drum with tons of encouragement from family and friends through the years.
Where do you draw inspiration from when writing?
I have a hard time identifying inspiration so I more or less try to be available and let it find me. When sitting down to write, I generally have no preconceived ideas about what to write about. It takes the fun out for me and puts rules around what can come out. I find my songs are born out of - or perhaps are the byproduct of - subconscious dumping.
As far as a mentor goes, I can't say I've ever had someone who took me up under their wing and showed me much. I had more strong examples of people who loved to play music. My mom played in a small touring band when I was little and my grandparents during holidays would encourage us all to pick up instruments and play along with old country gospel songs. I'm largely self taught and have kinda marched to my own drum with tons of encouragement from family and friends through the years.
Where do you draw inspiration from when writing?
I have a hard time identifying inspiration so I more or less try to be available and let it find me. When sitting down to write, I generally have no preconceived ideas about what to write about. It takes the fun out for me and puts rules around what can come out. I find my songs are born out of - or perhaps are the byproduct of - subconscious dumping.
When/where do you do your best writing?
Most of my writing happens in the evenings on my back porch. During the daytime, when I'm selling my soul at my day job, I come up with melody lines or a lyric that I really like the feel of and voice record into my phone for later experiments. I find having a place and time set apart really helps me in consistently creating things I'm excited about.
Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?
Mostly, I write from/about personal experience. The shape that takes differs though. For example, many of my songs are autobiographical in nature but written from the outside looking in as opposed to me telling a story. I think I use a lot of observations and experience of others to color these stories, so - I guess in the end, it is a combination of all the above.
What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician and what’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out?
The best advice I ever received was from my guitar player in a former band. He said "If you're going to play that guitar and sing, you gotta hit those chords like you mean it and sing loud and proud so folks can hear you." The other great advice he gave was "I don't care what other band you share the stage with... be so good that they look like shit in comparison. Our job tonight is to make them look bad." Best advice to give is be committed and believe in your art, work hard and never give up. It's a discouraging world out there.
What has been your biggest success?
I think success is a hard thing to pin down. Hopefully every mile marker you cross as a musician is your biggest success. The mile marker we just passed is releasing our second full length LP 'The Spirit" so I'd have to say presently that is it. The hope is your next success is just slightly out of reach but not unattainable.
Favourite (or first) concert you have ever attended?
My first real concert was Stryper on their To Hell With The Devil tour in Peoria, IL. My uncle took me and I was blown away.
I'm a live music nut so it's hard to say my favourite but at the beginning of the year before everything stopped I got a chance to see OM and they are the best I've seen in a while.
Recent release you cannot stop listening to?
I know it ain't country but I can't get enough of the new IDLES record "Ultra Mono". I've also been spinning the new All Them Witches record, Nothing as the Ideal, a good bit.
Most of my writing happens in the evenings on my back porch. During the daytime, when I'm selling my soul at my day job, I come up with melody lines or a lyric that I really like the feel of and voice record into my phone for later experiments. I find having a place and time set apart really helps me in consistently creating things I'm excited about.
Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?
Mostly, I write from/about personal experience. The shape that takes differs though. For example, many of my songs are autobiographical in nature but written from the outside looking in as opposed to me telling a story. I think I use a lot of observations and experience of others to color these stories, so - I guess in the end, it is a combination of all the above.
What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician and what’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out?
The best advice I ever received was from my guitar player in a former band. He said "If you're going to play that guitar and sing, you gotta hit those chords like you mean it and sing loud and proud so folks can hear you." The other great advice he gave was "I don't care what other band you share the stage with... be so good that they look like shit in comparison. Our job tonight is to make them look bad." Best advice to give is be committed and believe in your art, work hard and never give up. It's a discouraging world out there.
What has been your biggest success?
I think success is a hard thing to pin down. Hopefully every mile marker you cross as a musician is your biggest success. The mile marker we just passed is releasing our second full length LP 'The Spirit" so I'd have to say presently that is it. The hope is your next success is just slightly out of reach but not unattainable.
Favourite (or first) concert you have ever attended?
My first real concert was Stryper on their To Hell With The Devil tour in Peoria, IL. My uncle took me and I was blown away.
I'm a live music nut so it's hard to say my favourite but at the beginning of the year before everything stopped I got a chance to see OM and they are the best I've seen in a while.
Recent release you cannot stop listening to?
I know it ain't country but I can't get enough of the new IDLES record "Ultra Mono". I've also been spinning the new All Them Witches record, Nothing as the Ideal, a good bit.
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E.Z Shakes is a Small-town Illinois, raised on the sounds of heartland rock & roll, hard-hitting punk, and old-school country/gospel music. Over the course of two EPs and a pair of full-length albums, E.Z. Shakes have become one of South Carolina's most acclaimed musical exports — a band of amplified roots-rockers whose regional acclaim is steadily turning into a bigger, bolder movement. Their songs are grounded in epic Americana twang and dressed up with layers of shoegazing shimmer, swooning pedal steel, atmospheric guitars, and rolling reverb. It's a sound that's as wide-ranging as the group's own resume, with Seibert (vocals, guitar), Todd T. Hicks (pedal steel), John Furr (electric guitar), Stanford Gardner (percussion), and Jim Taylor (bass guitar) all cutting their teeth in other Carolina-based acts before banding together. Raised in a hippie Christians who bounced from church to church, searching for a congregation that suited their family's countercultural ideals. The experience left a mark on Seibert, who developed an appetite for diversity — in art, life, faith, and beyond — that he'd later put to use as E.Z. Shakes' raspy-voiced, genre-defying, storytelling frontman.
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