Tune in on Thursday, October 17th at 5pm to hear Frontal Lobe speak with the Oakland-grown Shannon & The Clams ahead of their October 19th show at Oakland’s Fox Theater.
Shannon Shaw and Cody Blanchard, two of the four band members, discuss the band’s Oakland beginnings, the earth-shattering reason their new album came to be, moon-based conspiracies, and how they got WWE wrestler Mick Foley to lend his hand-clapping expertise to the record.
The band burst onto Oakland’s DIY music scene in 2009 with their self-described “acid-soaked, spaghetti-western prom” rock sound, releasing their first studio album I Wanna Go Home. Six albums later, the band is touring across the US and internationally, while collaborating in the studio with luminaries like Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys).
Their most recent album, The Moon Is In the Wrong Place, dives hard and fast into grief and catharsis as the band grapples with the tragic and sudden loss of their friend (and frontwoman Shannon Shaw’s betrothed), Joe Haener. Listeners get caught up in a brief dream of happily-ever-after, before getting thrust into a psychedelic, upside-down reality where nothing makes sense and happiness seems just out of reach. To play the record is to bear witness to a close-knit group of friends wrestling with irrevocable loss, using music and prose as their lifeline throughout the process. The end result is a beautiful, heart-rending, and technically well-executed journey that all who have been knocked around by life can relate to.
Photo: Jim Herrington
