Shawn Smith and his band Brad are making the media rounds to help get the word out about their upcoming record United We Stand (out April 24) and as part of hitting the media circuit Smith spoke with local podcast The Sibling Rivalry.
During the interview (which starts around the 20-minute mark here) Smith talks about the new album, performing at the infamous Drop in the Park show as a solo artist, the high-profile bump in the road Brad faced while starting its career and what it’s like having a member of Pearl Jam in your band. Aside from those items of note, there are a lot of other great things about this interview.
For starters it’s an interview with Shawn Smith and while seeing interviews with Smith isn’t rare it also isn’t all too common. Another thing that makes this interview so much fun is that it’s done by fans, not a stuffy music journalist. The show’s hosts, Jeremy and Aaron, struggle to contain their excitement while interviewing one of their musical idols. Speaking as someone who has had to contain himself multiple times in attempts to avoid having a Chris Farley show moment, I can 100 percent relate to what they were going through.
Since most people know Smith’s voice from the Lo-fidelity Allstar’s remix of Pigeonhed’s “Battle Flag” Smith talked briefly about the song. The remix is much, much different than the original and Smith sounded a bit miffed at how Pigeonhed was handled in regards to that song. Apparently, an A&R guy at Sub Pop told Smith that people weren’t interested in the vocal aspects of the song which is interesting since Smith’s vocals is one of the key components of Pigeonhed’s sound. Of course the A&R guy was right (sort of) as “Battle Flag” ended up being the band’s biggest song.
Give the interview a listen at the link above and for fun check out Smith and some friends play “Purple Rain” with a splash of “Crown of Thorns” tossed in during the Hootenanny for Haiti back in 2010. You can also score some of Smith’s solo material over at his Bandcamp page where you can pay whatever you like for the tunes.
