“As always, it’s going to be a party,” says Rose-Garcia. “As every one passes, I get even loftier ambitions about what we’re going to do to celebrate. I’ll just be cloud talking, saying like, ‘We’ll rent a boat,’ or something like that. There’ll be a show, of course, and I won’t take any cash from it – I’ll pay my band really handsomely and pay the opening acts three times what I would for a normal gig. I try to use it as a feeding frenzy for everybody – it’s a prosperous time on the savannah where all the animals eat.”
Although Rose-Garcia has been performing as Shakey Graves for the better part of a decade, he only started gaining wider attention in the last few years. A grassroots following and huge sales on Bandcamp brought national and subsequent global interest. His latest album, last October’s When the War Came, was released internationally this year and has received warmly positive reviews from all across the world. When questioned about the album’s prevailing success, Rose-Garcia says that even though the perfectionist demon on one shoulder will dig into any perceived flaws, it’s better to take up with the angel on the other side and be proud of what you’ve done.
“You don’t want to end up like George Lucas or something, just constantly changing things and trying to make them perfect,” he says. “I wouldn’t change a thing about this album, but I’ve definitely learned more about the songs when we’re playing them live. I’ve found ways to make the songs sound even better when we’re performing them, but I’ve only come across that through actually playing the songs after the album came out. It’s a real chicken-and-egg situation, if you know what I mean. The main thing that I’ve learned is that you should play a song in as many different ways and as many different styles as possible. From there, it’s a matter of figuring out which one works the best for what you’ve just written, and being absolutely certain about the finished product.”
Earlier this year, Rose-Garcia and his current backing band – vocalist Esme Patterson, guitarist Aaron Robinson and drummer/percussionist Chris Boosahda – were one of the final musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman before the veteran talk show host’s retirement. Although several hundreds of artists appeared on the show over the years, the Shakey Graves crew knew the significance of being one of the last.
“The whole thing was surreal,” says Rose-Garcia. “It’s such a weird experience, because it’s so fast and it’s recorded so early in the morning. It barely even feels like an actual memory – it’s not like we got to hang around and shoot the shit with Dave or anything like that. It was a real wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am deal. We took in as much of it as humanly possible, though. It was magical… it almost felt like a dream.”
In the time since the release of And the War Came, Rose-Garcia has been busying himself with extensive touring and media appearances. New songs and ideas have come up here and there – a demo collection, Nobody’s Fool, was released online for this year’s Shakey Graves Day – but for the most part, songwriting hasn’t been a top priority. Although a characteristically prolific artist, Rose-Garcia hasn’t been in the appropriate environment to really get stuck into his next work.
“When you’re on the road, writing music is usually the last thing you want to be doing,” he says. “Think about it this way: I’m playing six nights out of the week. When I write music, it’s because I have excess energy – it comes to me when I’m in my robe, I’m off tour, I’ve slept until the afternoon and I feel like drinking coffee, smoking weed and playing guitar. When I’m touring, I have tonnes of shit to do – if I’m not travelling to the show, I’m getting ready for the show. If I’m not getting ready for the show, I’m making sure that I’ve eaten, called my girlfriend, even spoken to my parents. Most of my energy is going toward keeping myself sane.”
However, some jams have surfaced from various soundchecks with his bandmates, which he describes as “weird, complicated surf rock with beautiful vocals.” He’s unsure it if this stuff will ever see the light of day, but holds out hope. “There’s some meaning to this madness,” he laughs. “I promise you.”
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
