Don't forget your Shovel
Heavy rock outfit Mudd Shovel found their own sound thanks to a dalliance with jazz. Shawn Hicks is the front-shoveller of the three-piece, whose debut album ‘Little White Hair’ will be launched with a gig in Daly’s Bar, Bailieborough next week.
A veteran of playing rock covers in live bands, the Vancouver native sought to broaden his musical toolkit through exploring jazz.
“I was looking for a new direction, something outside of the scope of the rock I was playing,” Shawn tells the Celt.
However, when it came to penning his own music, Shawn was drawn back to his rock roots. He came up with a few guitar riff ideas and played them for his friend and bassist Garreth Tackney, who’s best known for playing with ‘Shouting at Planes’.
“The first tune I ever really showed him was ‘Little White Hair’ and he was like: ‘That’s pretty cool’,” Shawn recalls with his Canadian accent somehow granting an extra credence to his rock musician status.
Needing a drummer, Garreth recruited David Mulligan, who proved a natural fit.
“The music is not all about four-four beats, oftentimes the beats are a little more technical and sometimes jazzy. And David’s a total rocker, but he’s a jazz nut too. He plays in everything from big bands to jazz bands. The first time we got together and jammed, we just kind of clicked.”
While Shawn’s flirtation with jazz was short-lived, it had a lasting impact on Mudd Shovel.
“The usual set-up of a pop song would be like intro, verse, chorus, verse, bridge - you know that’s standard. When it comes to jazz, you take one good phrase and you beat the shit out of it. [John] Coltrane and all the other famous jazz guys, that’s what they did. And if you listen to it, you never really notice that it doesn’t change. It’s just the same phrase done better or different with accents on it, and so that’s kind of what ‘Little White Hair’ is - it’s the same chord progression over and over again through the entire song, and it doesn’t change up - things are added on top of it.
“That influenced some of our song-writing: not to be so set in our ways - it can all change up.”
While Shawn is the lyricist, the music seemingly finds its feet quite organically.
“We tend to be at our best when we’re just jamming, you know not sitting down trying to write something on the spot. David is really at his best when he’s just thrown something and he puts a beat to it he’s one of those kind of musicians, and it’s the same with Garreth.
Typically “the guts” of their songs are sketched out within the first five minutes.
“From there we just refine it,” he says.
An example of this was the atmospheric ‘Third Time Today’ which came together in jig time. It’s inspired by what Shawn insists is a true event. They were renovating his wife Fiona’s old family home in Stradone, and they were considering what to do with a “big old blackthorn” standing alone in their field.
“My father-in-law, he said, ‘Whatever you do, the priest told us, don’t take that tree down. Ever’.
“I was like, ‘yeah whatever’,” recalls Shawn.
While he didn’t fell the tree, Shawn did trim it.
“Well a couple days after that, the crows started attacking our windows - literally pecking the putty out of our windows - the windows had been up there for ages, but they decided to start doing this. In the middle of the morning you’d be woken up by crows outside your window pecking at it.
“An uncle of Fiona’s, he was gaelgeoir and was also big into mythology and he said, ‘Well you need to make peace and fairies’.
“I was like what a load of crock,’ he says laughing. “He said you need to make peace with the crows, and I didn’t know how to do it.”
Shawn’s crow problem is no more – you’ll need to ask him how, but this song is his attempt to make amends.
The blistering Cupid Sparrow opens with a full frontal assault, before it settles down for the chorus and ramps up again.
“The original song was based off a bass rift that Garreth came up with. In the studio we were trying to find a way to make it gel and he came up with a sample during the chorus that took it to the next level.
“The one thing we learned about that song was it sort of spanned genres a little bit. There’s almost a half dance half rock tune.
“We’re noticing women are liking it as much as guys are, which is great, because it’d be nice if it appealed to everybody, not just metalheads or rockheads.”
This willingness to serve the song, is exactly what Shawn, Garreth and David are pursuing with Mudd Shovel.
“It’s exciting to be able to have different musical ideas with guys that are actually in the same frame of mind.
“When I threw it [Little White Hair] out, they didn’t say this is a bit weird, or that is a bit off. They said, ‘That’s cool’.”
Had the others said it was “a bit weird”, Shawn is seasoned enough to be able to take it.
“We’re at that lovely stage of life and musicianship where if somebody says ‘That’s shite’, we don’t get upset, we just move on.
“I was in bands with friends and you’re always worried about saying something like ‘Maybe that note was out’, or ‘Can you sing a little higher - put more into it?’ And you’re always a little timid, because they’re a friend.
“But when it’s a bunch of guys with the same goal - just interested in getting the best song possible, it’s a different feel. It’s much, much easier to get ideas across.”
Beyond that, Shawn harbours dreams of the trio knocking together “an album or two” and possibly even having people listen to this “musical legacy that’s a little different - I think that would be quite the goal.”
Very much within their immediate sights however is the eagerly anticipated launch gig at Daly’s Bailieborough on Saturday, December 27. With Spent Priests from Brooklyn on the support slot, they expect it to be a great night.
“We’re hoping to have a really big night - like the old nights when you went out to watch a really good band play , and the atmosphere that goes with it. We’re hoping to get that back into the music scene all over Ireland - that’s what were aiming for.
Tickets cost €10 and can be purchased from www.muddshovel.com.