On Sounding Like Sharks and Minnows

Yesterday,  I recalled a conversation I had in the distant past. I don’t remember what spurred the vivid recollection, but it was as if iI nhabited that memory for a while. Call it a sort of non-mystical out-of-body experience, if you’d like. It was long ago, and  I stood on the balcony of my friend Joe’s condo, at least a dozen stories up, looking out over Clairmont Road near Emory University. It was a couple days before Thanksgiving, and we smoked cigarettes in the cold. It was always fun talking to Joe. He was a playful artist and teacher, and that night our conversation wound from the possibility of an afterlife to The Sopranos to our love lives to upholstery (seriously). At some point, he pretended to be an interviewer, and he asked me to describe my band. “Take your time,” he said.

I had been asked that question many times before, and I had settled on the answer: “a really loud pop band.” A pretty apt description. But I really thought about it that night, and I remember telling Joe this: “We’re a cover band who plays our own songs.”

Less than two years into the Sharks’ existence, what I said felt true. We listened to and metabolized so much music, and it was hard to shake off the thrill of those songs as listeners. For me, almost invariably, most songs began with some sort of lyrical concept and an attempt to write musical homages. “My Bird Sings,” which is at this moment our most streamed song, began as an attempt to write a Boy-era U2 song. It sounds nothing like that. “Bonventure,” one of my favorites, began with a guitar melody line that I fashioned after the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses.” Very little resemblance there. “Consummation” was modeled after mid-period Wire. You’d never know it. 

But even those failures were auspicious. And looking back, I’m glad we failed. In the attempt to write like other musicians, we forged an identity. We began to sound like Sharks and Minnows. 

I could probably continue to call Sharks and Minnows a “really loud pop band” for the sake of brevity, but the description applies in only the palest sense. When the “Stay Lost” ep drops in a couple of weeks, you will hear more failed homages. Perhaps later I’ll write about some of the individual songs, but for now, we plan to luxuriate in our failures.

Thank you for listening to our music. We have a lot of plans for the next 12 months, and you are very welcome to join us as we fail with great pride.s.

Sharks and Minnows- Live at the Echo Lounge, East Atlanta, 200?