Five Minutes With ... Shy Nature

Five Minutes With ... Shy Nature

Words: Linn Branson

Based in north London, Shy Nature are a three-piece alternative rock band whose sound revolves around the distinctive, delicate vocals of William Blackaby, contrasting with an urgent mix of jangly guitars and melodies that zip along - and straight into your head. Drawing inspiration from timeless Sixties songwriting and New York garage groups, often marrying darker lyrical themes with bright instrumentation, their name references the silent observations which often inform the songs.

William Blackaby (vocals, guitar), Matthew Paisley (drums), Gary Saloman (lead guitar).


Hey, guys, howdy ....who do we have here?

WILL: Will and Matt, or William and Matthew if you want to be more formal.

Introduce us to your fellow band members and their respective parts within the unit.

WILL: I play guitar and sing, Matt drums and Gary plays lead guitar. Live, we’re joined by our friend Luciano, who plays bass guitar.

'Shy Nature'....how did this come about as a band name? Are you all shy boys?

WILL: We're not particularly shy really. We just liked the way those words sound together.
MATT: There is some meaning behind it too – we did an interview a few months ago and the writer actually summed it up better than we ever have: “a name referencing the outlet provided by music for thoughts that may otherwise go unexpressed”.

Have you been surprised by how the media and fans have picked up on the band?

WILL: I guess we were a bit surprised - we put 'Deadly Sin' online and within about a week it was on Radio 1. We didn’t really expect that.
MATT: With things like SoundCloud, being able to see who listens to your music and where is fascinating. After Deadly Sin, we shared another song (“Lifeboats”, which was properly released earlier this year) just with people who had supported us and made comments about our first track. The response was pretty inspiring for us.



After you formed early last year, you went quite rapidly upwards from releasing debut track 'Deadly Sin”, to supporting Breeders at 2000+ capacity Forum in London for what was then only your sixth live show. Can you recall your feelings last year as all this started coming together?

WILL: It was exciting, for sure. Matt lives in Kentish Town across the road from the Forum, so having the opportunity to play there a few months after we properly started the band was hard to believe.
MATT: With that show, one immediate feeling was how easy load-in would be. We filmed a video walking from my kitchen to the stage in under a minute, which is fun to look back at.

A lot has been written about William's vocals... do you consciously train that voice, or is it au naturel? NME described you as conveying emotion, by sounding largely devoid of it. Are you a naturally restrained person?

WILL: It's not trained at all, but it has developed over time. I hadn't ever planned on being a singer – I’ve always been a drummer. Getting into writing and singing just kinda happened, so the last couple of years I think it's changed quite a lot from becoming more confident at doing it.

Your sound has been variously alikened to Vampire Weekend, Mystery Jets, The Walkmen - quite a celebrated list. Would you agree with those references?

WILL: They’re all bands we like, for sure.
MATT: The Walkmen are probably the most direct reference, as we started experimenting with using organ sounds with some of their tracks specifically in mind.

The new EP 'Birthday Club' is just out, tell us a little about the tracks on it. Are they a departure at all from your self-titled EP of last year? Maybe in terms of writing progression?

WILL: Most of the songs on the new EP were written around the same time as our debut came out, so I see it as a kind of natural progression from that. ‘Birthday Club’ is a look back to hanging around in a small town with nothing to do but stand around. The place I always remember was a card shop called 'Birthdays’, hence the song name.
MATT: ’She Comes She Goes' was inspired by walking around Liverpool Street late one night and thinking about the nature of modern business, with loads of people crammed into these lit-up towers, each floor holding its own stories of failure and success.



WILL: ‘Young Heads’ is about people being bored in meetings and minds drifting. I used to work in an ad agency cafe, and all day long watched meetings happen with everyone just looking really fucking bored. I guess it’s kind of linked to ‘She Comes She Goes’. ‘Tonight Is On Your Side’ is about giving up on what you want to do with your life for various reasons: lack of self confidence and more commonly, the pressure to earn money and live a 'normal' life. An overall theme would be observations made growing up at different times in life.

You had the tour originally scheduled for now, but that has been cancelled, I gather, bar the London date?

MATT: Yeah, due to various commitments we had to drop the extra shows. We’ll be back on tour in 2015 for sure. The Lexington will be our first headline show since February - and it’s one of our favourite places to see bands - so it’s a great place for us to end the year.

Acting as your own PR, given us a short spin on Shy Nature: the band, the music.

MATT: Shy Nature are three friends who started making music in a bedroom in Kentish Town. In broad terms, we’re an alternative rock band. Will has a distinctive, quite delicate voice that contrasts our use of jangly guitars and rasping organ sounds. Our musical inspiration comes from a mutual love for the classic songwriting of the 60s through to the simple, intense sounds of New York garage groups. Live, our sound is pretty energetic, though we also like doing stripped-down acoustic versions of the songs, and have self-produced a bunch of videos so you can hear them that way. Generally, our mums like these versions better.

Who are the musical influences behind Shy Nature, and how would you say that has impacted on your style and sound, if at all?

WILL: I'm personally influenced by Wilco, Morrissey, Beatles, John Martyn to name a few, and usually start writing a song with just an acoustic guitar.
MATT: The music develops from there in a collaborative way, without too much thought for things that influence us. We’re pretty united on wanting to keep things simple – most of our favourite songs aren’t complicated, just well written and recorded in a way that has personality and that people can connect with.



What plans do you have for an album? And in what direction would you see that going?

WILL: We recently spent in a week in this pretty unique boat studio, and are going back later this month. We’ve had a load of songs waiting to record for a while, and although we’ve thought about re-recording a few existing tracks for an album, we’ve ended up tracking almost all new material.
MATT: Up until now, our recordings have been done mostly at home and layered up in a way that doesn’t really reflect how we perform and sound live. The recent sessions have felt way more natural, and the fact most of the songs are new has allowed us to be a bit more spontaneous. It’s too early to say exactly what plans we have for an album, but to us it feels like we’ve properly figured out how we want to band to sound. That’s an exciting feeling.

You now have a few sentences for your big plug to push whatever you might want to promote. Use it wisely. Go.....

WILL: Our new EP called “Birthday Club” came out a few weeks ago, and we’re playing our last live show of 2014 at The Lexington, London on Thursday, 4th December. If you like the record, we’d love you to hear it live – you can get tickets here: http://dice.fm/shy-nature or here http://wegottickets.com/event/295760

Last word: spill your word or words of wisdom. Say 'pass' if you have none!

MATT. Always carry whisky in case of snake bite. Furthermore, always carry a small snake.