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9-15-2003

What were you like as a teenager? Did you play any musical instruments?

I was a fairly quiet person, but well liked and respected by a spectrum of people - even got voted Most Intellectual and Most Individual in my high school. I was never a part of a clique in high school except that I did smoke pot and play serious scholastic chess. Those two things sort of force you into a unique and limited social situation sometimes! Some of my fondest memories involve bus trips to chess tournaments. There's nothing like a bunch of chess geeks on a bus, each a part of a larger farting melee. But I have given up public farting, grass, and chess for better and more important things, however.

As for instruments, I bought a really nice used Les Paul early in high school because I loved Jimmy Page and Alex Lifeson so much. I never practiced except when I hauled it over to my friend John's house for an evening of annoying attempts at playing Black Sabbath riffs. He was much better than me, and I didn't have any sense of even how to get started. John is dead now, a car crash involving alcohol and drugs. Let that be a lesson to us all: Better to focus on the music. Let the drugs go.

What was the first instrument you learned, and what other instruments do you play?

Well, the guitar thing that I mentioned above was the first attempt, but it was in November of 1987 that I bought a decent bass guitar and started to really practice with the intent of growing musically. I acquired other types of guitars around that time, too. I nostalgically held on to the receipt of that bass purchase for years, and that's why I remember the exact month it all started. Like everyone else, I suppose it was Geddy Lee that made the bass attractive.

I had met a drummer in college, Patrick Gaffney, a dear friend to this day. He was already quite good as a player and we spent a lot of time moving about from place to place setting up and practicing. I picked up electric and acoustic guitar during those days as well, because it was necessary for me to write music. I couldn't really figure out other people's music, but I found that I could remember my own stuff well enough for Patrick to contribute to it. We eventually formed a trio called Nazgûl (from Tolkien) with a guy named Chuck Cook on bass, and I played electric guitar. We played instrumental fusion-metal and had our moments of greatness in our practice room. We played live once, and I was scared to death.

I still play those instruments, but I also have a Ztar, a unique MIDI-controller for people with guitar technique. I've always had a drum machine of some sort for practicing and arranging ideas. Now I use my computer as the central hub of it all.

What is your primary motivation to create music?

I don't know if I can put my finger on it really - it's a deep impulse to create and it extends beyond music into all the arts. I know that I can't stop, and that I don't ever want to not create music. I really enjoy being able to produce my own material and polish it up with virtual studio technology. In my early days it was a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. I was a terrible engineer and was never able to get very far with recording until much later.

If you could change anything in your past, musically, would you? And if so, what?

I would certainly practice more and not smoke grass. I would also have spent less time on the metal side of things and moved on to jazz harmony. I don't have near the technique that I could have had, but the college days of having whole afternoons to play are long gone. I have to squeeze it in now.

Have you ever written a song that was done by another artist?

Yes, I have a pop song called Iris Sundial that I co-wrote with the band Venus Hum. They are on MCA now and are among the best songwriters I can think of. The song is unreleased at this point, and I should probably contact them to work out something because it really is a fine song with a great female vocal performance.

What were your early influences, and what do you listen to today?

Early on it was classic rock and some pop influences, whatever was on the radio and TV shows like Night Flight and The Midnight Special. My first exposure to Zappa and The Doors was on Night Flight. My parents used to have some Beatles and Abba 8-tracks that I have pleasant memories of, and I can remember getting warm manly feelings for Olivia Newton John. The first thing that I bought with my own money was the 8-track of Queen's Live Killers. What a record that is even today. The raw power of it! Later I got so into Rush that it was an obsession. Today I am all over the map. I still love Led Zeppelin, 70's rock, and any band that can evoke a mood.

In college, I also concentrated in electronic music, not what people think of as electronica today, but really academic music from the likes of Stockhausen and Subotnick. Those formative experiences in creating musique concrete, soundscapes, and atonal music are still a huge part of my alter-ego, the guy who makes the Jellyfish Emperor type stuff. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring tore my head off, and to this day it greatly affects me. Miles Davis is a big influence, too, but you can't hear it in my music.

What are you looking forward to right now?

I want to put together a studio band to help me realize some of my tonal compositions. I also have a new album of scary ambient stuff ready to go. I'm just finishing up the artwork for it. See my personal site, ShaneSanders.com, for demos and general news.

What are your musical goals for the next year?

I need to get better at production, and I need to focus more on letting my music breath. If I could grow melodically, that would be a big help, too. I just need to focus on those things more. I also want to collaborate more, to share the responsibility of creating the music and for finding commercial outlets for it. I'm getting stagnant alone.

What is more important to you as a musician: Theory and methodology, or outcome? Why?

All of it - I care about theory and technique in as much as I can grasp on to it. I make an effort to learn things. Though I will say that the outcome is the utmost thing. I hate relativism in morality, but in music it doesn't matter how you arrive at your finished product. If you've got a great piece of music, it doesn't matter to me if you played it or programmed it. It matters to some people, but not me.

I'm guessing that your musical forays have not made you a millionaire... do you have "real" job?

I am looking for work right now, with little freelance gigs keeping food in my stomach. I typically do graphic design and illustration for a living.

What advice do you have for beginning musicians/artists?

Explore, and don't let people peer-pressure you into excluding things from your listening diet. I also think it is important to jam a lot with others when you are first starting out because you learn how to sell an idea to another person, to get them to see why you want things a certain way. This helps you later on when you have no one around to bounce ideas off of, but you have developed the ability to know why you are approaching things a certain way. Having a good self-dialogue going while composing is essential.