Below is a transcript of my interview with Brian Hillard, guitarist for Shadow Status, who'll play March 27 at Planet Rock. They'll be featured March 19 in WOW.
HOW DID THE BAND GET TOGETHER? WHEN?
The drummer and Jer-emy … Jeremy was the main person and our drummer, Bryan, it's evolved from where it's started 'cause we went through four bass play-ers. Originally the guitar-ist was a state police trooper, and obviously he got to a point where he couldn't play too many gigs 'cause of his job. And I was hanging around with these guys and drummer asked me if I was interested and the idea sounded interesting 'cause I had been in a band prior to that and it had been awhile, so I said, "Yeah, I'll do It."
We started in a small little garage, which fit well at time, but it's evolved since then. We started
out as Synder (pronounced Cinder) and I would say about year and half ago, we were looking for a new bass player and I do a lot of research online and stuff and I noticed there were a lot of other bands with that name … I noticed a couple people on MySpace with name Synder spelled the same way we did and I said, you know, we don't want to have the same name as all these people. There was that big band at the time, called Cinder, and, not to be full of ourselves or anything but we thought, you know we don't want to make it big and get confused with them. So I just came up with a bunch of names and that's the one we hit on. We thought maybe Sshadow Fly for a long time. I'm a deep person and I like a bit of dark-ness to the name, so I really wanted that "shadow" in the name, and we were gonna go with Shadow Fly, but we just eventually settled on Shadow Status.
HOW LONG WERE YOU SYNDER BEFORE YOU WERE SHADOW STATUS?
Probably about a year that we were Synder before we changed it to Shadow Status, ya know, and then we just started doing a lot of local shows around here (grand rap-ids).
HOW MANY ALBUMS DO YOU GUYS HAVE?
We're in studio right now, actually, working on an 8-song E.P. we plan to release later this year.
ARE YOU ON A LABEL?
No label. Nope, we haven't jumped that far yet, we're just trying to build it all up, ya know?
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR GUYS' SOUND?
That's a good question.
Everybody's always like, "Our music different than everybody else's," and to point ours is but it isn't.
There'll be a song, like, me and the original gui-tarist, I would write some music and he'd come in with a riff and we both had different influences. Jeremy was more a big 70s background, more like rock ready, a bouncy rock kind of sound. And I'm a more deeper person like Tool and Chevell. I stay modern as much as possible. But we had two influences coming in.
So some of our music comes across and you hear the older-school kind of rock and some songs you hear things that are kind of different 'cause my influence was in it. I try to write deep lyrics that deal with certain situations, like … I do research when I write lyrics. I think we have a classic rock song to a point and then lyrically it'll have a deeper, more Tool-ish kind of sound … I don't how to answer that question.
My biggest influences lyrically are bands that use metaphors, where you're listening to it and you think it's one thing but really it's about something entirely dif-ferent.
SO YOU WRITE ALL OF THE LYRICS?
I write all of the lyrics.
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY MOST OF THE SONGS ARE ABOUT?
Some of my songs have to deal with past rela-tionships and I guess most people go through that where been in past relationships. And It doesn't have to be boy-friend-girlfriend, it could be friends or companies, people that you work for or work with. One of our songs is about envy, called, "Covet They Name," it's just about how people have envy and tend to get carried away with it. Then we have a song called "The Fool's Gold." That's just about how you go through this relationship and find out who was the fool through the whole thing. That song's kind of about the blame thing, too, how you go through a whole blaming situation and then you find out maybe you're more to blame than anybody else.
WHAT'S THE MES-SAGE OF SHADOW STATUS? WHAT DO YOU GUYS TRY TO SAY TO PEOPLE WITH YOUR MUSIC?
I guess the message, basically the message towards people is that, I'm one of those men that I think people shouldn't get sucked into the me-dia. Musically, with our songs, I want people to relate to them but we're not doing them to be-come famous. Most peo-ple get into bands for one purpose and that's be-cause they love what they do. But then if they make it they get caught up in the whole fame thing and the media and the media telling them how they should sound and what they should do and they do that and they lose what they were when they started out. I think that's why I like Tool so much is because they're famous, but they just always do what they want to do and they don't listen to what others want for them.
WHAT KIND OF EF-FECT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ON YOUR LISTENERS?
I hope they understand that our music brings something different to table than the normal music. Obviously our music is not the emo-type bands that are out there right now. We're still trying to survive with some of the smaller bands like Finger 11 and Seether, we're trying to push the rock out there. Hopefully there's still a market out there. I re-member Soundgarden, at end of their spin, Chris Cornell was being inter-viewed and he was asked what kind of music he sees in the future. And he said the Nine Inch Nails-type music with key-boards over the guitars and all that. And obvi-ously he was wrong, it turned out to be the emo stuff.
I guess if there's still a listening crowd out there still willing to hear what you offer, then you keep deoing It. And it's about the band being true to themselves, and I guess that could be longevity, I guess. I understand there are tons of bands out there in world trying to do the same thing we're trying to do, but I think we can do it, too.
WHAT ABOUT EMO-TIONALLY? WHAT KIND OF EMOTIONAL IMPACT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ON YOUR LISTENERS?
With my listeners, it's a relation thing. I hope they can understand … I don't think any of our songs are deep, deep musically and that's why I try to lyrically do them with a bit more meaning. I think "Parasite" has a feel for it that's a little bit deeper, it's got a lot of meaning. Lyrically, I'm trying to get through to them, I guess again it comes down to just writ-ing songs they can relate to.
I don’t know if I want them to understand where I'm coming from, but I want them to un-derstand I'm coming from somewhere per-sonal. Maybe than can not reach where I am but they can reach it in their own way.
Fans have a different way of appreciating the music, you know. If you're going to watch a show and you're a drummer, you're going to be listening mostly to the drums and thinking about how they sound. You know, people can have it hit them in different ways.
LAST QUESTION: WHAT ARE YOU’RE ASPIRATIONS AS A BAND? HOW FAR DO YOU HOPE TO TAKE SHADOW STATUS?
Obviously, Pop Evil is from the same area as us, and to see them touring with Puddle Of Mud, bigger bands like that. If we got the opportunity to be that band, to open for bigger acts … For me it's more about being recog-nized and being appreci-ated musically than get-ting a deal and making money and all that crap. It's about what I have to offer musically and vo-cally to people. To me that's being successful, the more people I can reach out to.
I don't like to try to push who we are more than what our music speaks for itself.
ANYTHING ELSE?
Just that, to me, Shadow Status, what it means is you only know a person at face value, you know. You meet a person but once that person goes his own way, you don't know him. He could be beating his wife, for all you know, but when he talks to you he's all cool. Shadows Status means to always know that everybody's got this shadow.
The drummer and Jer-emy … Jeremy was the main person and our drummer, Bryan, it's evolved from where it's started 'cause we went through four bass play-ers. Originally the guitar-ist was a state police trooper, and obviously he got to a point where he couldn't play too many gigs 'cause of his job. And I was hanging around with these guys and drummer asked me if I was interested and the idea sounded interesting 'cause I had been in a band prior to that and it had been awhile, so I said, "Yeah, I'll do It."
We started in a small little garage, which fit well at time, but it's evolved since then. We started
HOW LONG WERE YOU SYNDER BEFORE YOU WERE SHADOW STATUS?
Probably about a year that we were Synder before we changed it to Shadow Status, ya know, and then we just started doing a lot of local shows around here (grand rap-ids).
HOW MANY ALBUMS DO YOU GUYS HAVE?
We're in studio right now, actually, working on an 8-song E.P. we plan to release later this year.
ARE YOU ON A LABEL?
No label. Nope, we haven't jumped that far yet, we're just trying to build it all up, ya know?
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR GUYS' SOUND?
That's a good question.
Everybody's always like, "Our music different than everybody else's," and to point ours is but it isn't.
There'll be a song, like, me and the original gui-tarist, I would write some music and he'd come in with a riff and we both had different influences. Jeremy was more a big 70s background, more like rock ready, a bouncy rock kind of sound. And I'm a more deeper person like Tool and Chevell. I stay modern as much as possible. But we had two influences coming in.
So some of our music comes across and you hear the older-school kind of rock and some songs you hear things that are kind of different 'cause my influence was in it. I try to write deep lyrics that deal with certain situations, like … I do research when I write lyrics. I think we have a classic rock song to a point and then lyrically it'll have a deeper, more Tool-ish kind of sound … I don't how to answer that question.
My biggest influences lyrically are bands that use metaphors, where you're listening to it and you think it's one thing but really it's about something entirely dif-ferent.
SO YOU WRITE ALL OF THE LYRICS?
I write all of the lyrics.
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY MOST OF THE SONGS ARE ABOUT?
Some of my songs have to deal with past rela-tionships and I guess most people go through that where been in past relationships. And It doesn't have to be boy-friend-girlfriend, it could be friends or companies, people that you work for or work with. One of our songs is about envy, called, "Covet They Name," it's just about how people have envy and tend to get carried away with it. Then we have a song called "The Fool's Gold." That's just about how you go through this relationship and find out who was the fool through the whole thing. That song's kind of about the blame thing, too, how you go through a whole blaming situation and then you find out maybe you're more to blame than anybody else.
WHAT'S THE MES-SAGE OF SHADOW STATUS? WHAT DO YOU GUYS TRY TO SAY TO PEOPLE WITH YOUR MUSIC?
I guess the message, basically the message towards people is that, I'm one of those men that I think people shouldn't get sucked into the me-dia. Musically, with our songs, I want people to relate to them but we're not doing them to be-come famous. Most peo-ple get into bands for one purpose and that's be-cause they love what they do. But then if they make it they get caught up in the whole fame thing and the media and the media telling them how they should sound and what they should do and they do that and they lose what they were when they started out. I think that's why I like Tool so much is because they're famous, but they just always do what they want to do and they don't listen to what others want for them.
WHAT KIND OF EF-FECT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ON YOUR LISTENERS?
I hope they understand that our music brings something different to table than the normal music. Obviously our music is not the emo-type bands that are out there right now. We're still trying to survive with some of the smaller bands like Finger 11 and Seether, we're trying to push the rock out there. Hopefully there's still a market out there. I re-member Soundgarden, at end of their spin, Chris Cornell was being inter-viewed and he was asked what kind of music he sees in the future. And he said the Nine Inch Nails-type music with key-boards over the guitars and all that. And obvi-ously he was wrong, it turned out to be the emo stuff.
I guess if there's still a listening crowd out there still willing to hear what you offer, then you keep deoing It. And it's about the band being true to themselves, and I guess that could be longevity, I guess. I understand there are tons of bands out there in world trying to do the same thing we're trying to do, but I think we can do it, too.
WHAT ABOUT EMO-TIONALLY? WHAT KIND OF EMOTIONAL IMPACT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ON YOUR LISTENERS?
With my listeners, it's a relation thing. I hope they can understand … I don't think any of our songs are deep, deep musically and that's why I try to lyrically do them with a bit more meaning. I think "Parasite" has a feel for it that's a little bit deeper, it's got a lot of meaning. Lyrically, I'm trying to get through to them, I guess again it comes down to just writ-ing songs they can relate to.
I don’t know if I want them to understand where I'm coming from, but I want them to un-derstand I'm coming from somewhere per-sonal. Maybe than can not reach where I am but they can reach it in their own way.
Fans have a different way of appreciating the music, you know. If you're going to watch a show and you're a drummer, you're going to be listening mostly to the drums and thinking about how they sound. You know, people can have it hit them in different ways.
LAST QUESTION: WHAT ARE YOU’RE ASPIRATIONS AS A BAND? HOW FAR DO YOU HOPE TO TAKE SHADOW STATUS?
Obviously, Pop Evil is from the same area as us, and to see them touring with Puddle Of Mud, bigger bands like that. If we got the opportunity to be that band, to open for bigger acts … For me it's more about being recog-nized and being appreci-ated musically than get-ting a deal and making money and all that crap. It's about what I have to offer musically and vo-cally to people. To me that's being successful, the more people I can reach out to.
I don't like to try to push who we are more than what our music speaks for itself.
ANYTHING ELSE?
Just that, to me, Shadow Status, what it means is you only know a person at face value, you know. You meet a person but once that person goes his own way, you don't know him. He could be beating his wife, for all you know, but when he talks to you he's all cool. Shadows Status means to always know that everybody's got this shadow.
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