shugE‘s new album, Dark Winter is coming out February 2 with an all ages show at The Legacy Building on February 10. But he has been releasing singles since December with a series of videos. The songs are meaningful and melodic.
Dark Winter is a 15-song album. That’s quite ambitious. Why did you decide to do something so big?
I didn’t go into this album intending it to be this long….it just kind of happened. I left a bunch of potential songs off the album, didn’t even include everything that was recorded in the studio. I just had a really big year when it comes to writing new material that was high quality songwriting (in my opinion). Two of the songs on the album were even written during the studio recording process…one (“With Me”) was even written & recorded after every other song on the album. I had recorded vocals & guitar for all the rest of the album & was about to have our first studio day recording the other instruments & I walked in that morning and had another new song that I simply had to record first thing that morning. At the end of the day that song had been completed with drums & mandolin on top of my vocals & guitar.
I do think one specific thing gave me an unusual boost to my songwriting last year: participation in a local singer/songwriter songwriting challenge group that I’m super glad I joined. That group of super supportive, super welcoming, & super talented folks are probably responsible for the skeletons of over a third of the songs on this album.
You have been releasing singles for the album in advance of the big unveiling. How has that gone?
It’s been pretty great. I released the first song, “With Me”, on December 8th & another every two weeks in December & now I’m releasing a song every Friday in January.
I’ve also released one official music video for one of the songs (“David & Devon”) & pretty high production value lyric videos for the others. Some people have figured out that even though I’ve only released 4 songs so far on streaming (as I write this), if someone goes to my YouTube channel you can find a playlist for the entire album that has a video for each of the 15 songs, & they are in the correct order for the album.
David & Devon is such a touching song. Can you tell us more about them?
David Huttner & Devo Sykes were wonderful people, good friends, & talented musicians and performers in our local scenes. Devon left us in fall/early winter of 2018 & David a few months later…they were incredibly close. They were in a bunch of local bands over the years, most notably the band they were in together called “MEMEME” with key members of the current band Artificial Flowers (who will be performing at my album release show).
I first met both of them (as I mention in the song) at a DIY venue in South Minneapolis called “C37”. It was a really great space near 37th & Columbus Avenue South where a bunch of artist friends rented out the 4 apartments in a quad-plex building & jointly ran a DIY music venue in the huge basement. David & Devon were a part of a very close knit circle of friends who basically ran the C37 & I met them there in the late 2000’s. They were young, most of the crew being right around 18-21 years old at the time…they were pretty big fans of my music at the time so I got booked to play a bunch of shows at the C37 & over the years became really good friends with both of them as well as several other folks in that crew. Some of them even got involved with my old record label at the time (Anti-Civ Records). They were both very creative & very kind people. I miss them very much & this was possibly the most emotionally difficult song I’ve ever written. I had to put it down & come back to it a bunch of times over the course of a few years in order to finish writing it.
The video for Thinking About Drinking Again came out on New Years Eve, which is a time many of us reflect on good and bad habits. What role does music play in your reflection and is there a message you hope to share with the listeners?
It’s pretty common for people to interpret my melancholic songs as depressing & sad & miss the message of hope that I really intentionally but subtly work into my songs. I love to joke about how sad or depressing my music is…& if you’re a fan of music from Elliot Smith, or early Bright Eyes, you will almost surely enjoy my music– but my art is actually about mostly positive messages subtly slipped between the sad & melancholic textures.
“Thinking About Drinking Again” is about overcoming the urges to undercut my successes in personal & mental health growth & how I’m happy that I quit drinking in excess to self medicate over 5 years ago. Despite how often people misinterpret a song like that from me & think it’s about someone falling off the wagon & back into alcoholism (it’s really about the strength to do the opposite). I felt like the true meaning of that song is incredibly relevant to a new years eve video release.
My songs are on the surface about sad topics from loneliness to alcoholism to poverty…but the more you get to know my songs (I hope), the more it becomes clear that there are deeper positive messages. It’s like a really emotionally powerful television program where you could just take the lessons & stories from each individual episode from watching it….but once you make it through an entire season you start to connect the dots & realize that there are bigger, overarching plotlines that you would’ve missed if you hadn’t kept paying attention.
Ultimately my songs are about the good in people & the incredible potential of human beings to really love & care for each other despite the overwhelming hugeness of an uncaring & cold world that tries to trip us up. I like playing with sad textures & subtlety, but the overall message is one of hope & love.
Please tell us more about the release and the release party.
Absolutely! The album officially released on February 2 & will be available on all streaming services & physical CD’s will be for sale on my website. Vinyl will be coming much later than I wanted, mainly because the album is technically too long to fit on one record so I’m thinking about a delayed double vinyl release that’ll include some older music of mine on it as well.
The Album release show is going to be a little unconventional. It’s happening on Saturday, February 10th at a space called the Legacy Building at 4024 E 46th Street, near Minnehaha Park & referred to me by Tony at Minnehaha Recording around the corner. It’s not a traditional venue, which I think compliments my punk-community DIY-ethos past.
It’s going to be an all-ages early show with supporting performances from Grant Glad, Artificial Flowers, & A Sunken Ship Irony.
I’m flying my friend Mike Watson back into town to play the show (he played all the mandolin on the album) & my 15 year-old son Rio (who got to miss a day of high school to record drums in the studio on some of the songs) will be joining us on stage on the drums.
Music will start at 6pm & especially with it being an all-ages show I’ve been posting online that I really don’t want anyone to feel embarrassed if the ticket price is an obstacle ($10 advance through http://www.shugemusic.com, $15 at the door) & to feel free to email me at shugemississippi@gmail.com & without any judgment I will put anyone who wants on the guest list. I paid out of pocket to rent the space so I would really like to cover that, but nobody missing the show who wants to be there is more important.
Mostly Minnesota 