SHAKEDOWN INTERVIEW
Sacramento’s Shakedown has been making noise now since the 90s. Having just released its brand new album New Sound Delivery, Shakedown’s sax player DQ (The Whiz) is pretty excited to share this album with the world.
There is no doubting Shakedown has had a long (four full-length albums) and turbulent history (ever revolving door of players in the band). After a quick re-cap through the evolution of Shakedown, taking in the good times and the bad, it is obvious DQ is more than happy of where the band is now; standing on firm ground and coming out with an ever evolving new sound.
DQ: Yeah, the band has gone through a lot of turmoil. We have gone through a lot of phases, but it is growing pains and I am glad that we went through them because now we are beyond professional and we are at that level where we can do full-blown concerts. We have the material and the professionalism to play large venues and that has come through us growing.
The Pier: What’s the band’s main influences these days?
DQ: The band’s main influence comes from like the Police, the Who, the Clash, basically the big 80s bands, that type of stuff. When Sublime came in the band was already above that and where we wanted to be musically. I can speak for everyone in the group and say Sublime was not the main influence for this band; they were in the ball park, but are more in the left field from where we are heading now.
That type of reggae music is great music, but I think it only represents the dank smoking surfer bro types. We appeal to those type people, but I don’t think we necessarily are those people in essence. Those type bands that are like that, and there is a lot out there now, want to sound like Sublime. Our sound we are shooting for now, especially with this new album is more of a pop type of album. I mean pop to the point that everyone will be able to accept this album. We are talking, 60 to an 8 year old will be able to enjoy this album. We also have a strong hip hop influence this time, but the lyrical content and message also has a stronger feel to it – which is live life, enjoy life, work hard and have fun in the process.
The Pier: It has been almost three years between albums for the band, you must be really happy to finally get New Sound Delivery out there?
DQ: You have no idea. A couple of the members had personal issues going on and we had to let people go. I took time off to go work on fishing boats for a year in 2005-2006 and so that was our time to write the album. So then at the end of 2006 and this year we recorded it and by the summertime it was done.
Between each album we always put out another album/single. Love to get Love single came out with four tracks on it before this new one. It gave you a preview as to what New Sound Delivery was going to sound like. AJ Wilhelm (Filibuster) produced the album. We like the way AJ works with us because he knows what we are looking for and for the next album we may look for something different in way of a producer.
The Pier: Let’s talk more about New Sound Delivery. Does the name come from all the new styles explored on the album?
DQ: Yeah New Sound Delivery gives you an idea of where are at now and where we are going. This album introduces you to MC Randy Rooke (Bles) and DJ Mr Vibe. We cut a DJ for about five years, but now we got one back. It is good as it gives us another way of how we can write music. Mr Vibe comes up with a lot of ideas.
That’s why when we named the album New Sound Delivery, as it is different from the previous album, which was a little more reggae influenced. This album has that, but we also concentrate on the dancehall aspect and we also tried to bring in more hip hop. More poppy type hip hop and also a more rugged and grimy hip hop you know? That’s where Bles comes in, he writes great lyrics and he has a great stage presence too. He is wild on stage. I’m wild on stage too, but having him next to me it makes it a lot better.
New Sound Delivery is the title; letting everyone know, this is where the music is going to. Good music will always transcend physical limits no matter what it is. When it comes down to it, when you have artists out there getting signed and getting their stuff on radio, well the quality of the music that is out there is…. well I am not saying its garbage, what I am trying to say is the quality of music out there is mediocre. Today the musicianship is just not there in pop music, RnB, or reggae and all the music that is going on. There is only a couple of good bands that are out there and half those good bands aren’t even mainstream they are underground.
I think what we are trying to do is bring the musicianship back; we are trying to bring good music to the table, by having a good stage presence and have your live show be as good as your album and your album be as good as your live show. We will always try to be true to who we are, no one sells out when you change. When you change you become better. That’s what happens when you get older, you get better not worse. We are bringing a different approach this time, but we are being true to the music first, before we please anyone else.
The Pier: Now this album has less songs than the previous one (Call it What You Want), did you want to concentrate on just perfecting 12 great sounding songs this time round?
DQ: Exactly, instead of having 20 songs of just songs we wanted to have 12-15 songs that could be on radio. We really feel that on this album and we are going to start filming our first video here in a couple of weeks. We wanted to concentrate on making sense to the listener and being pop acceptable. We are not just trying to be an alternative band, I think we are trying to get a more mainstream market. We feel we can stand up to any band that is out there with this album.
The Pier: What’s your personal involvement in the songwriting process?
DQ: Just the direction of the songs when they all come out. You will get a different aspect of every song on that album when you hear them live. There are parts on the album that we didn’t put on there, but you will hear them live. Like on Undone there is a saxophone part in it and New Sound Delivery there is a sax part in it. We took them out because we wanted to keep the raw grittiness of the song, but when you see them live there will be a different aspect to it.
Just like the Grateful Dead, people would say every show you go to is a different show and a different experience; that is what we are trying to do. With writing I bring the energy and I’ll have a lot input when we are sitting down writing the songs. I may be the sax player but I do more than just play sax, they call me the glue, I keep it altogether.
The Pier: As you mentioned before, you got a new MC in Bles and a new DJ, Mr Vibe, on this album. How did that come about?
DQ: Bles, Mr Vibe and Mark Kinyon were in a band called Daily Struggle. They were also on Root One Music before even Shakedown got on there. In essence some people like to say this new album is a Struggle/Shakedown album. The reason why we got Bles was that it gave us a better option to display what we were trying to do and to feed his talent as well. The last two albums we didn’t go with a vocalist that just did rapping, so we wanted someone with that specific talent. We used Bles on the song Sacramento Frustration off the album Call it What You Want, after hearing that track we wanted to do that and take it to the next level and play shows with the guy. So Mark brought Mr Vibe and Bles in, to bring that different hip hop vibe into the band. They were friends so it was like bringing in a family member anyway.
The Pier: You have personally been in Shakedown for many years now. Do you have a favorite show or tour memory?
DQ: Yeah I do. It is something to do with Shakedown, but it isn’t. We had a double show where we played the Concert in the Park in Sacramento. There was like 4,000 people there that day. We have the record for the most amount of people at that event. Anyway that same night we shot off to San Francisco to play a show with Radioactive from Spearhead. Then the next day I had a show with him at the Health and Harmony Festival and I ended up meeting the guys from Wisdom. It was a really good thing for me, as I go to meet a lot of good musicians that are really my good friends now and I got play a lot of shows with them.
It is at this point I change to speaking to vocalist and guitarist, Mark Kinyon, about Shakedown’s future plans for world domination.
The Pier: Hey Mark, so what’s is Shakedown’ s touring plans coming up? I’m sure there is a lot folk dying to hear this new stuff live.
Mark Kinyon: If we have to do our own tour it probably wouldn’t be until the spring. We have our management trying to get us on a couple of bigger tours. If that doesn’t happen anytime soon we will go out and do our own US tour again in the spring time. The tour before the last one we got as far as Florida and all the way up to Boston. We didn’t make it that far last time, so we are going to try and do a lot of East Coast shows on this next one.
The Pier: So DQ sounds pretty excited about this new album, I am sure you feel the same way?
Mark: Yeah, it is our best album we have done yet and I am ecstatic with it. I think the production on the album is really good and I guess my favorite track depends on what mood I am in. I think that the title track turned out great and Million MCs is one of my favorites. One of the lighter songs Easy that Way is a fav too.
The Pier: So it sounds like things are working out really well lately then for Shakedown?
Mark: Very much so, because the newest members are from an old band of mine and I’m a big hip hop fan. So it’s nice we are now dabbling in hip hop rhythms and not just strictly reggae. I always get excited about that kind of stuff.
Thanks to DQ and Mark for chatting with us today at The Pier.
To find out more about Shakedown check out:
New Sound Delivery can be purchased online here