#225 - Urthboy: Exploring the Beats of Change, Music, Identity, and Cultural Evolution.

As I sat down with Tim Levinson, the artist known as Urthboy, I felt the anticipation of unearthing the layers that compose the vibrant tapestry of the music industry. The Managing Director of Elefant Traks and a pivotal figure in Australian Hip-Hop, Tim lays bare his artistic journey, from scribbling poetry in the Blue Mountains as a child, to co-founding music collective  The Herd. Our exchange traverses the resilience required to navigate post-pandemic challenges and the undying optimism for what lies ahead. Brace yourselves for an enlightening discourse on cultural influences, artistic evolution, and a stark glimpse into the commitment that fuels one's creative fire.

As always, there is an unraveling of personal threads. We speak to the soul. I dissect the irony of loneliness amidst hyper-connectivity and the sanctity of human bonds solidified through live events. Tim articulates the sculpting influence of family ties and the quest for maintaining artistic integrity. Together, we reflect on the shifting landscapes of personal identity, parenthood, and how these multifaceted relationships mold an artist's life and work.

Looking to the horizon, Tim and I wade into the future of an industry at the cusp of reinvention, where live music venues grapple with new societal patterns and how cultural tides can impact on the longevity of emerging artists. We wrap up our dialogue with musings on the essence of collaboration in art, the transformative impact of education on growth, and the aspirations to craft a legacy that echoes through mentorship and community enrichment. 

Enjoy,
Shan

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Transcript

Shannon: 0:04

It's almost time. We will be here forever, do you understand?

Tim (Urthboy): 0:20

Hey, it's Shan here. This week I catch up with MC, producer, co-founder of the music label Elephant Tracks, and I'm a surrounding member of the culturally significant Australian hip-hop band, the Heard. It's Tim Levinson, also known as Earth Boy. Tim and I have a long conversation about his life so far. He goes deep on what it was like growing up in the Blue Mountains, which is an area inland of Sydney, new South Wales, australia. He shares about his early days writing poetry as a child and transitioning into music.

Tim (Urthboy): 0:59

We talk about the music industry a little bit and Tim has an underlying optimism with the future of it, despite the vast array of challenges that you know that industry can pose for emerging artists and also you know artists such as himself who have maintained longevity in what would be very challenging. So that was really interesting to get his perspective on that and he speaks really openly and freely. We go on a range of different tangents but ultimately it just comes back down to what it's like going all in on your dream and chasing your passions. And he's super inspiring, very well-spoken, tells a great story and it was an absolute honour. He's lyrics in you know he's solo music and also the band the Heard have always really resonated with me very politically driven, and he talks about that as well and I really feel like the activism that was cultivated in that band really made its mark on Australian culture, especially in the early 2000s. So enjoy getting to know Tim Levinson, aka Earthboy.

Shannon: 2:41

And I didn't even think I was going to be an emcee, I didn't think I was going to be a rapper, I didn't think I was going to be a musician, had no future where I was involved in the music industry. But when I did start marking around with music with friends in you know our bedrooms, I just went well, that's the name that I gave the email and I didn't. You don't think that there's going to be any consequences for it? One thing leads to another. You put out a little song here and there, then you contribute to a compilation, then you do a solo record and it's a bit too late to go back.

Shannon: 3:15

So I mean, I think, rather than it being a way of expressing who I am, I think who I am has somehow given meaning to the name that I gave myself, if that makes any sense. I mean, obviously, earthboy kind of has earthy connotations and being connected to you know, the environment or something. But that's never been part of you know, my motivation for the name. It was just random, but I think that maybe in the way that the unconscious or the subconscious tells you something about yourself, maybe there's something in that too.

Tim (Urthboy): 3:52

Hmm, seems like it's a really interesting time to be a musician in this country and post pandemic and bands trying to recover from not having any gigs for two years, was it?

Shannon: 4:08

Yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 4:09

And now things are opening up again. Can you maybe share your experience with you? Know this opening back up again. Yeah, has it been an easy transition or a difficult one.

Shannon: 4:20

Oh no, it's been ridiculous. No, look, we came out of COVID and it affected everyone in really profound ways. Music industry, no different. But you can't go through something as life changing as that and not have it surprise you in ways that you don't expect, you know. So you go, well, everything shuts for a while. Everyone's going to be really excited to come back and there's going to be a you know is going to be, you know, I guess, like we'll play catch up. That's, I think, what I reckon a lot of the expectations were certainly was mine.

Shannon: 4:59

But you don't really comprehend how it's going to affect kids who have missed formative years in their school, right. You don't really know how it's going to affect people who are maybe 17, 18, 19, 20, who would have gone through all of these rites of passages and a lot of them are music. You know events, gigs, festivals. You take that out of people's lives and then you reemerge and those young people are the key people that really support culture, because that's where life is, had, you know, in social environments, and often music is being played. That, I think, has been one of the really profound things for a lot of musicians, because when you change people's patterns and behaviors that sometimes doesn't come back on a clock, you know. And so, yeah, I think most of the music industry is really suffering, and I think it's not just about coming back from COVID. Also, we're at a change, a really transitional point for technology and the way that people consume music, the way people make music, the barriers to entry, the number of musicians that are out there trying to put a record out it's all collided in this really, you know, massive way for a lot of musicians and people who work in the industry. And so where we're at right now, people don't really know what to do, and I mean, there will always be an expert out there that is drawing on some record that they have, you know, had in their past some achievement and that will become like the precedent that they use as far as the you know foundation of their wisdom.

Shannon: 6:40

This is how it works. I have done this before and so there you go, I'm telling you how it works. Well, all those people are pretty much full of shit now, and the you know the way that culture moves on is because people break new ground and they try new things and they experiment, and somehow there's a new torch that is sort of guiding all of these new generations and new sort of formats of how music is done. And we're at a point right now where that torch has not shone bright enough and everyone's kind of stumbling around in the dark and it affects touring and it affects the industry, affects putting records out, affects everyone. That's why Grim in the Moon is just being canceled.

Shannon: 7:25

That's why a lot of other you know cultural, you know events are kind of stumbling around a bit. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Yes, there's like 300 million people who want to go and see Taylor Swift, but Taylor Swift is an individual, she's from America. This is the thing that has affected Australia pretty profoundly is international acts have come in and taken a huge amount of the money from the touring market and the local artists haven't really had that same, you know, immersive involvement in that process to be able to build those audiences at the same time. So we can't. We've got a real transactional problem with our music industry. That's a big answer to your question, but that's a real one.

Tim (Urthboy): 8:07

It's a great answer. How are we feeling emotionally, Like on a personal level? You've been in the game for a long time and you've seen the patents and the fluctuations correct, Are you stressed?

Shannon: 8:20

Yeah, for sure, I mean it'd be. It'd be a lie not to say that this stuff is pretty anxiety inducing. Because you're responsible for artists, you're responsible for staff, you care about their livelihoods, you wonder about the ability to punt on something. You know, because that's what we do. You know there's a lot of great artists who come out and do something amazing and you think, wow, they've got a future. And then it just never works again, because that there's all sorts of factors mental health, the, the, the why, why that music resonated, why that artist connected it's not always obvious.

Shannon: 9:00

So everything that we do is a bit of a gamble. When we decide that we love something enough that we're just going to go all in on it, and yeah. So when you carry a bit of that responsibility, you also carry the stress when you don't really, you really don't have confidence in your own ability to answer the questions that they have. And I reckon that that's one of the tricky things with with you know, this current environment is that, yeah, you go to bed thinking about it, sort of toss and turn those thoughts kind of knock on your door at 3am and you can't get back to sleep till five. You know, that's just that's part of it and that is also, I guess, part of being in a bit of an older person's position in the music industry now is carrying a bit of that responsibility.

Shannon: 9:44

So there's a stress, but there's also an acceptance, because culture moves and we're not really in control of it. And I think that's the delusional bit is, when you think you're in control of it, you start to have expectations on how everything's going to play out. And it doesn't play out like that and that feels pretty uncomfortable. So I think that there's a certain level of acceptance that technology is going to change things, culture is going to change things, things like COVID are going to come and kick everyone's ass and then we're all sort of going to look around a little bit disorientated wondering what to do next. So yeah, I think I have. I think I'm always kind of fluctuating between stress and anxiety and acceptance and confidence in, in, in. You just got to put one foot in front of the other.

Tim (Urthboy): 10:33

Yes, sir, how old were you when you went all in on the dream? Hmm?

Shannon: 10:40

I never had a musical background. In in a in a way I only liked writing words, graffiti or poetry rhymes, that sort of thing. So that's how I got my in. So I never really thought about this being a pathway for me. Anyway, I think it was probably sometime in the mid 2000s. I'd been involved in music for for years. I had always kind of organized things, even before I really thought about being a musician myself. I I had an instinct that didn't have the intelligence, I didn't really have the, you know the, the, that great super edge drive or ambition, but I had an acquired confidence and I just had an instinct to organize stuff. So I think that led me to work in behind the scenes on the industry stuff, just organizing stuff, gigs, whatever.

Tim (Urthboy): 11:32

And I the same well it was more like the label.

Shannon: 11:35

So so Elephant Tracks began in 1998.

Tim (Urthboy): 11:38

Did that start before the herd? Yeah, oh, you know what, man? I was just assumed that the herd and Elephant's track, elephant Tracks, grew from that. Okay.

Shannon: 11:47

I mean it's the same like a six, one, half a dozen of the other, because Elephant Tracks actually turned into the herd. So a lot of the collective that were involved in volunteering and just you know shit kicking, putting posters up, putting CDRs in plastic trays, taking them to the record store, selling them on consignment, we were collaborating. We were artists first and foremost. So then when it came to you know, a few years down the track, we were like well, let's collaborate a bit closer. The first herd album is just a compilation, but it's called the herd Gotcha and that's that was when the band formed. But really essentially is a compilation.

Shannon: 12:24

When you look at that record, if you go into the liner notes, there's no names, it's just logos. So we, we kind of had this approach to the record where everyone was anonymous. So that's what that's. That's the start of the band. But yeah, after a few years there was a bit more confidence that came up and I was working. I wasn't earning any money really, but that's not the point. That's when I started being like I'm just going to keep on going deeper and deeper.

Tim (Urthboy): 12:53

And organizing, promoting, getting albums happening, yeah. I mean we stick with you, stuck with the original crew in the herd. Never really changed, did it? Well, you had a few co labs here and there.

Shannon: 13:04

Yeah, look, we pretty much did. You know some people came and went. That was an early period with the herd where we were on our second or third record and Byron Tophu, who lives in Newcastle these days he, he went off to Darwin for two years. You know we weren't having band meetings going well we better keep Byron out but he just wasn't there available for gigs or recording some of those records. He was doing some stuff remotely but that's the kind of energy that we had.

Shannon: 13:33

I think that as we got more serious, that changed the course. Like I remember being like you got to take it seriously. If I'm going to sacrifice, you know my other career path or whatnot I need, I need to know that everyone is invested and you're never going to have everyone on the same level of motivations. In a group dynamic, everyone has to play different roles but I was, yeah, as things got more serious that changed a little bit. But yeah, the core crew is really tight. You know we're still. You know people say, oh, is the herd broken up? And we're like, no, we just don't do that many gigs because everyone's really busy. We don't have anyone who's organizing us. So it sounds like why don't you guys do gigs. Those things should happen, naturally. But actually we're just sort of sitting in the background going like we have no, there's no need to put a definitive start and we don't need to define it at all. You know, we haven't put any records out for a while, but we're just, we're just cruising.

Tim (Urthboy): 14:32

Is that because no one in the herd controls the herd?

Shannon: 14:34

No, I mean, it's one of the, it's one of the sayings that that, no, no, no, I was. This is going to sound like a wank, but I we did a podcast for for Elephant Tracks and we interviewed Paul Kelly and he said that exact same line. He said you know one of the things I love about the herd that saying and unpredictable, no one in the herd controls the herd, you know, and I mean, nothing really sums us up better than that. Like we're a disparate group of individuals. None of us are really aligned in any way other than having fairly closely shared ethics, and we were. We came out of activism, we came out of electronic music, we came out of putting your, your, your body out on the street for a protest. Back when protests would be done on all sorts of different levels, like now, it takes a lot to get people out, but back in the nineties and in the early 2000s people were out a little bit more, I reckon, and so we came out of that, and that's where the politics comes from.

Tim (Urthboy): 15:32

And how much did that? How detrimental was that to any type of mainstream success? I say that with like inverted comma quotes.

Shannon: 15:43

I don't know, do you know?

Tim (Urthboy): 15:44

You don't think it did, because, I mean, some of your songs were so politically driven, like that song 70%, 77%. I love that song. I actually listened to it the other day because, like, I seen something that our prime minister did and I just felt so fucking pissed off and then put that song on. I was just like, yeah, this country does need a wake up still. And that song was written how long ago? Well, close to 20 years ago.

Shannon: 16:06

Yeah, yeah, I mean, batler wrote that in 2002, I think. But yeah, it came out in 2003. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean I can't even speculate on it. I reckon after a while, you know, if someone thinks they're going to make a buck out of you, then they're going to want to align with you.

Shannon: 16:26

If it's a major label, if it's anyone else, like, I don't really think that I don't look to politics as an explanation why we weren't more popular, if that makes sense. But at the same time, of course, there's probably going to be a whole bunch of A&Rs out there and executives out there that are like, oh, you know, we don't really want to have put a lot of money into a band that's going to tell a whole section of Australia that they're a pack of cunts. You know, I mean, that's never gone down that well in a capitalist model, so, but that's. You know, what we found when we were writing those songs and sharing it was that there was a large part of Australia that was like, yeah, actually, fuck that, we really care about those issues too, and there's no other artists that are really talking about it. And you know, I look back on that. I don't make that comment just to be spiteful or petty, it's just a fact.

Shannon: 17:22

There was barely any artists that reached a level of kind of presence in the market, touring festivals, radio, that were talking about political stuff, talking about wars, talking about racism, talking about xenophobia, talking about Islamophobia. So I know that we were different and I don't think that you know. I think that in any kind of music environment you want to have people who never touch politics. You know it shouldn't be an obligation, but it's sad if you think that, oh, you got to keep it out of music. It's as if music suddenly is this untouchable part of society that is kind of shielded off or it's got a kind of border around it where there's things you can and can't do, which is real weird. I mean, who would even want that to happen? But when people disagree with your politics, that's of course what they're going to do.

Tim (Urthboy): 18:18

That's what I want to circle back to. You made mention of when the herd decided to get more serious and then you described. Being more serious meant that you're actually, you know, giving up your day job to go in on this, which is a big commitment when you've got bills to pay family, to support rent, etc. So there is a seriousness to that. What I'm curious about is was there ever disgusts amongst the band? If there was a shared goal, to drive it go okay, like we are more serious, we're going all in. What was the? Was there any discussion around what's our shared goal? Was it to sell X amount of albums? Was it to, you know, to make X amount of money? Was it to play every single gig in the world? What was the discussion?

Shannon: 19:07

It's interesting because if I went about it now, that's probably what I'd do. But I don't remember any conversations where we touched on okay, everyone, we're going to do all these different things, but we need to agree on this core focus and I reckon if you're trying to put a group of people together for the pursuit of record or touring or whatever, that's a great idea. You know that's an excellent step to give everyone a place to go back to, and you know these are our values. If we, if we veer off too far, then we can. We can refer back to this and go this is the, this is what we wanted to do, and here we are, over here, so let's just come back. But I reckon that one of the best things about the herd process particularly a lot of artists have their own and a lot of other artists on the label have their own.

Shannon: 20:07

But we will talk heaps and we will when we were writing records. We will talk about politics and we would test each other and we would challenge each other on our perspectives and through that you'd learn. You know, I remember when we did the record Future Shade, we did a song called Red Queen Theory and I didn't even know what the Red Queen Theory was, but we were talking all about the idea of the Red Queen Theory, which is a which really is one of the underpinning kind of philosophies of capitalism. You just got to keep on going faster and faster and faster. And if you, you know there's, if you slow down, you get, you get, you know, surpassed and forgotten. And these, some of these ideas and the way that they applied to geopolitics, you know, international relations, capitalism, all these sorts of things. They're really interesting subject matter to talk about. Like, if you're with a bunch of friends, you're talking about. Whatever you're talking about, maybe you're talking about things that are really important. You go a bit deeper, you have a deeper connection with your friends. Those things are always the way to define real, true, deep friendships. Right, is your ability to kind of have vulnerabilities and not not not be judged. But in a band setting, and even in a friendship setting, it's sometimes interesting to kind of engage with this shit, not on a oh, did you read the news there? That thing happened, but actually go. What does that mean? You know what does the Red Queen theory mean? And I think that's one of the things that particularly mean Kenny, who's the founder of Elephant Tracks. His artist name is Track Suit and he's in the herd as well.

Shannon: 21:51

These are, these are the things you miss, not necessarily playing in front of 10,000 people. You miss sometimes that synergy between band members where you you have the excuse it's almost like a privilege to talk about these things because you've got to do this joint thing together and that's like shared goals in a way, because you're testing each other and you're chatting the dialogues there. It's healthy. You're not just, you're not passing the time. It's not just band ties, it's not just. You know a friend of mine or a step sister of mine.

Shannon: 22:25

She refers to conversations on tier levels. It's not just tier one. You know how you going, what's going on, the sun shining, tough weekend, whatever. Tier two slightly a little bit more in depth. Tier three you're really kind of connecting. Tier four there's almost you know you trust each other implicitly to talk about things that are inherently really vulnerable for you and I think sometimes those things that's not necessarily the band, right, but that conversation and that shared, shared focus of, of a creative goal means that sometimes you get. You get to kind of have more human experiences along the way.

Tim (Urthboy): 23:05

Yes, brother, I love that Tears Mmm, I struggle with tier one and two Like I just. I really, even today, I just had to make some more talk with some new friends and I was just like, oh yeah, yeah, it's raining today. Fuck, it's raining.

Shannon: 23:22

I mean, that's what it is.

Tim (Urthboy): 23:23

Tier one is small talk, that's, you know I know, and like you know what it's you got to. I guess you got to build your way up to things, don't you? But I don't want to sound like pretentious or even precocious by saying that, but I'm just like something I've got to work on personally, maybe.

Shannon: 23:36

I mean, we do, we reinvent ourselves around these tiers, you know. And then there's small talk and they keep us protected. There's a reason why you just don't go any further with. You don't want to go further with someone's parent that you're meeting at pickup. There are, there are reasons why those things are right for their right place, you know. But if that's all of your relationships and you wonder why you feel hollow sometimes, that's, I mean, it's a no brainer. You, you, you, you. Part of our human experience is connecting with other humans and of course that's not they're going to be easy for everyone. And there's, there's reasons why for some people that's really difficult and that's that's understandable too. But at its core, that really, you know, that really kind of helps you make sense of the world.

Tim (Urthboy): 24:21

Bro, and you said you were embarking on starting a podcast as well. Or continue to do the elephant tracks one correct?

Shannon: 24:28

Yeah, well, this is not like yours.

Tim (Urthboy): 24:30

Okay.

Shannon: 24:31

We don't have that long devotion and commitment which I, you know, really, you know it's, it's, it's a real pleasure to come in so deep into your podcast and to to share a moment, because there's so many I'm only one little drop, you know, and but for the thing that we're doing, it's, it's telling the story of elephant tracks over 25 years. So it's, it's, it's a lot of planning and a lot of interviewing before we even think about sharing Gotcha.

Tim (Urthboy): 24:57

Yeah, because that's one thing that's emerged for me over the years of doing it now is the amount of people who have reached out to me because they have become so isolated in their own mind, and the podcast and to be able to be like somewhat of a voyeur into someone else's conversation and listening to people talk about their feelings, their experiences and their journey has been really liberating for them and they're like I'm going to start trying to talk to my friends about my feelings and it's like, yeah, like it's blown away by it actually, and it makes me really sad because I don't think anyone should be living like in any sort of mental or social isolation. The irony is that we live in a more connected world than we ever have and we have more isolated people than we ever have, and it just it's killing me, man and I, and I worry about my kids and I really do.

Shannon: 25:50

Yeah, it's one of the great mysteries of the world, isn't it? You know it's. It's easier to connect than ever before, but we've got this epidemic of loneliness and isolation, that's what it is bro.

Shannon: 26:03

I mean, you know there's there's more tricks to to yeah, to to putting up walls and yeah, I think it definitely comes hits people differently when they get to a certain age and you know one of their mates no longer talks, you know. Or or you know someone you know takes more extreme measures, you know, and everyone sort of sits around and thinks how did that happen? Yet there's a there's there's a there's a real benefit in being able to work out ways to bring people in.

Tim (Urthboy): 26:39

And, like you said, there's a lot of distractions and I'm not wondering if that's part of the reason why people aren't going to more gigs. You know, turning up, showing up, and I was like, oh, I can watch a, I can watch a video of a gig, or I can cut a live stream, or I don't know.

Shannon: 26:55

Yeah, real human experiences are underrated and I think that it's like eating junk food or whatever. You know the short term joy or or hit or high. You know that short term appeal is so compelling and it's so like, you know, when you go to the, to a shop and you're, you're a bit hungry, maybe not even that hungry, but that immediacy, and then the aftermath is like, well, you know, I mean I'll be the worst in the world. Maybe a bit you feel a bit shared, maybe you don't whatever, but you've done something for the short term, when actually our deeper happiness and the longer positivity around our relationships is always comes from a little bit more of a. You know where we discipline ourselves, where we actually put ourselves out there. There's a lot of reasons why we've, we've taught ourselves to remove our, our, our human connection, and I reckon that there's a. You know that that's a, you know that's unfortunate.

Tim (Urthboy): 28:01

It is, bro, it really is. It's funny. I went to a gig in the Haudenosaunee on Wednesday night. I went down and watched Queens of the Stone Edge and I was, and like it was middle of the week, so I had to work the next day and, you know, my friend got me a ticket and I was just like I was having these, like oh, you know, I want to go, like it's such a mission. But I did want to go because I, like you know, listen to them for a while and I went to that gig and, oh man, like just the vibration and the feeling coming out of those speakers and just to see this, they're still so passionate about the music and just completely in their element. I mean, I just left it, you know, and I'm still buzzing days later and you can't, you can't get that from a screen, bro.

Shannon: 28:43

Yeah, yeah, look, I mean it's funny, you know, because I scroll, I sit on that phone and I reckon it's. There's something, there's something about stoicism here, where you enforce little rules around your life that give you a better balance and you start to realize that the thing that that puts you on a bit more of an even keel is sometimes actually not answering to your own immediate needs and your own not needs, but the wants, you know, and that's hard because we've we've got to be on the same page and especially depending on where you've come from, you know, everyone comes to that decision making process from a different place. You know, for some person, putting a bunch of limitations around their own choices is just part of life. It's something that you do every now and again when you fall off the wagon and you are fully capable of, you know, not being impulsive and making smart decisions, but for all sorts of reasons, can't, can't, come to that decision from the same neutral place, right?

Shannon: 29:55

But yeah, there's for me personally, and that's what I guess I want to be like just make clear is this is for me. You know, I don't want to speak for other people, but every time that I'm able to put, put some restrictions on myself and think about what I've, you know, not just indulged in. I come off the back of it always feeling a bit stronger. You know a bit better in myself, but a bit kind of more confident ability to go. Yeah, you know what, if I face some sort of shit, I know that I can deal with it. And you know, for the most part I can deal with most things and most people can like hungover, tired, sleep deprived, whatever. But it's always better to be able to be managing those things and know that you've got the ability to kind of to deal with shit when it comes up. I mean, it's a good, strong place to be.

Tim (Urthboy): 30:45

Yes, sir, it is, I get it. Hey, where'd you grow up?

Shannon: 30:51

I was born out in Campbelltown at Camden Hospital and I spent a few years there. Then I moved elsewhere, Then I moved to the Blue Mountains and the Blue Mountains is where I consider my home.

Tim (Urthboy): 31:03

So they were your, like, your formative years. What teenagers.

Shannon: 31:05

Yeah, so from I was in the mountains when I was about eight or nine, three to about 19.

Tim (Urthboy): 31:10

Wow.

Shannon: 31:10

Yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 31:11

So, you know, I want to get something like a bit of a basic question out of the way, like did you find music, or the music finds you?

Shannon: 31:19

Well, I got into music from writing. So okay, right, Poetry, poetry, yeah, creative writing Rhymes Poetry, not really that much writing like on in a kind of creative writing way.

Tim (Urthboy): 31:32

Yeah, why do you feel like you want to write poetry as a young person?

Shannon: 31:35

I don't know. It's the same reason. I don't fully know what was the, the bond with hip hop and hip hop culture I don't quite work out. There was, I loved it and I got into it as soon as I moved from my John Farnham, what's his name? I can't remember the other artists. I had two main artists that. They were the two first records I bought.

Tim (Urthboy): 31:58

Same dude, John your the voice was my first album ever I brought with my own money.

Shannon: 32:03

Yeah, I was a big fan of the King Jackson. Yeah, first record.

Tim (Urthboy): 32:06

What was your other one? I don't know.

Shannon: 32:11

Get out of my dreams.

Tim (Urthboy): 32:13

Oh yeah, can we listen to the news, dude no.

Shannon: 32:18

No, it's. This is going to be bad, because whoever's listening to me like we know this. Yeah, anyway, this is the first two records.

Tim (Urthboy): 32:27

Billy Ocean.

Shannon: 32:28

Billy Ocean. Thank you, yes, sir, you got there. You say a bit of embarrassment.

Tim (Urthboy): 32:33

I actually in my head. I sung half the song for a click.

Shannon: 32:36

I don't know what appeal, but, but I got into hip-hop culture straight after that. Like that was it for me in a lot of ways, but I was writing poetry at that time, like all. It was like I do not want to be given anyone any illusion of what this was. It was 10 year old, 11 year old boy writing nursery rhymes and rewriting all the lyrics. There was nothing in class. That's what you're doing. That was nothing. A 10. There was nothing. There was no. There was no yeets, there was no Keats, there was just beats. You know, like that was it. It was just.

Shannon: 33:16

It was the sort of thing I would, you know, I would read out to my aunt, who was a missionary, and she would cut me off halfway through. She's going to hate it because she might listen to this, but it is one story that I kind of hold on to is like it was foul, what we're doing. She knew what she was, like this is disgusting, and I was, and she was right. But but no, it was. Um, yeah, that's the sort of shit that I did, and I really loved hip-hop culture at the same time. So that was what exposed me to a lot of political hip-hop too, because back in the late 90s and early sorry, late 80s, early 90s, there was a lot of really Afrocentric hip-hop that was saying some stuff that I that was way over my head, but it opened my eyes, you liked how it felt when you listened to it.

Tim (Urthboy): 34:06

It was just, it was you weren't considering what it was actually saying.

Shannon: 34:10

No, I was, I was, I was, I was grappling with it because they were talking about. They were talking about, you know, black, they were talking about white devils, they were talking about civil rights, they were talking about racism on levels that I had no comprehension of as a young white kid, and that one of the first things that that did for me was start making me wonder what the Australian version of this was, and so I think that's the first time I even, you know, really started to look around at what happened in Australia and colonization and you know, first Nations experience. Obviously, I had it, you know, I was just a kid, but it's what opened my eyes to it, because school didn't.

Tim (Urthboy): 34:56

No, god, no, I mean, I dare say that because I think we're in the same age, right, I think about the education that came in my classroom and, upon reflection, it was sheer propaganda, yeah.

Shannon: 35:10

All the textbooks, yep, all of it, captain Cook, all of it Like. And that's the thing is. Yeah, people get real divided in these culture wars because they're really contesting history. They're saying no, you're trying to encourage a different version of history Actually a lot of Aboriginal people. I just say no, we just want history to be told. You know, we don't want to have Be the version that all Australian kids were brainwashed to believe is the facts and the truth. We just want the real version, because a strong, proud country is not afraid of lying about its past. It's able to accept its flaws and work on them and become a better country as a result. I mean, most people across the divide would probably agree with that fundamentally, but there's still such a denial of what's happening and I reckon hip hop culture was really amazing in the way that it's.

Tim (Urthboy): 36:15

What do you think that denial still exists in our society?

Shannon: 36:18

I think that it upholds power structures now that there's still the same people that essentially pulling strings. So, of course, people in power going to want to hold on to that power and white people, ultimately the ones at the top of the pile. Now, not every white person is going to be sitting from a great height and shitting on people, but of course not. But we also have a, you know, a real vested interest in keeping status quo as it is and yeah, I mean it's bizarre. It means that you have people like Andrew Bolt, you know, tweaking that, the fear and the, the, the, the, the worries about a different version of our society replacing the current one. Rather than just going, no, we can, we could just be fucking honest and genuine with each other and grapple with it, deal with it what does that actually mean? And work it out from there.

Shannon: 37:21

I mean I know I'm simplifying, what am I? I'm a bloody rapper talking about this shit, but I just, I'm always a big advocate for, for being real about what's actually happened, dealing with it genuinely and then moving on, like the connection of people to one another, the treatment of the land, the sustainability of it, the respect of the country, like all of these things. You have to make a choice to say we do not endorse that, like we have to make a conscious choice that any acknowledgement of that is a threat. That is that, absolutely. What is you know what? What? What is the motivation for trying to Paint First Nations traditions, connection to the land rights within that country in anything other than something that we all should collectively be proud about?

Tim (Urthboy): 38:15

Yeah, bro, for sure your parents supportive of your poetry writing and your even as a young child and even when you're writing, maybe stuff that was like as a young child being silly, but maybe a little bit gross.

Shannon: 38:29

Yeah, yeah, I was always lucky. My mom, my old man, left around that same time, like around 10. But, but my mom was always supportive of whatever I did you know, if that was being a musician, she was supportive if that was having dreams of playing sports as some kind of a job or a person.

Shannon: 38:51

Even though there was absolutely no hope, it was passionate. Sports was a massive difference between having any kind of opportunity to be professional. She fully endorsed it. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, you do that, you know. Yeah, she never got in the way of anything.

Tim (Urthboy): 39:05

Have you got fond memories of your childhood with your parents?

Shannon: 39:08

Yeah, mostly, yeah, mostly, yeah. Look, you know, I think having a more complicated relationship with my old man is always just being one of those things that a lot of people have, and you know I've had I go through different phases with him and I think a lot of it. You have to have some level of acceptance with it rather than trying to, you know, hope that your parents will become the version of themselves that you hope, that that they'll be. So, yeah, yeah, look, I mean, I think that sometimes that's that means it's two sided when you, when you as the kid, even if you're an adult, want it to be your version.

Tim (Urthboy): 39:50

Yeah, it was a challenging day for me as an adult, accepting that my parents are flawed humans like everyone else as I am, and that acceptance of it and my role in it. And, yeah, like coming in with an expectation and getting the same result over and over, but you keep putting your hand back in the fire, hoping you'll get a different result.

Tim (Urthboy): 40:11

It took me like most of my life to deal with that, but then my father passed away, you know, and that just I don't get that time back now and it's made me reflect on my part in these things. So that's really interesting. You said that.

Shannon: 40:26

Yeah, the dynamics between family should be simpler, shouldn't they so gnarly?

Tim (Urthboy): 40:31

It's so gnarly.

Shannon: 40:33

I mean, there are things that are simple, transactional issues that become like a web when it comes to family. You know nothing, nothing simple.

Tim (Urthboy): 40:44

You're a father yourself. Now, how have you found that the experiences you had as a child and now influencing or impacting upon your ability to be a parent?

Shannon: 40:57

Yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 40:58

To date?

Shannon: 40:58

No, they get you by surprise.

Shannon: 41:00

I do you know, and it's all good and well to Project externally the kind of parent that you want to be and have that sort of feel like the parent parent that you are, as opposed to the one that you are in presence with your kid yeah, and the time that you spend with them. And, yeah, I think one of probably the most On the edge Elements of that question, or the answer to that question, is the one where you are reconciling the type of role your dad provided to you and hoping that at some point now in the future, in the past whatever, obviously in the past it's gone you won't replicate that, like you won't become that father to your child, you know. And so I think there's a little bit of fear that's associated with that, because obviously you've got, you're an adult, you can make decisions, you take responsibility. You do not allow for that to happen.

Shannon: 42:02

But also life's complicated. You go through stress, you might abuse drugs or alcohol, you might have all sorts of extenuating circumstances, difficulties at work, all sorts of things that make you not the parent that you want to be, yeah, and so I don't know, I think that that's just a work in progress and my yeah, my daughter's always teaching me stuff, and I'm always having to Remember that just by doing most things right doesn't mean that you can settle and just be comfortable, that that's enough. Everything's always is work in progress. I've I've dropped the ball here. I've got to pick it back up. I've got to kind of like I've got to reacquaint myself with my full on responsibility, because that's a priority, like all the other things. I remember when a song told me this from the last connection many years ago and he's got seven kids, maybe eight kids so he's.

Shannon: 42:58

so he, doctor, rapper, producer, does it all, wow. Anyway, he was saying like there are some balls you can drop and some balls will bounce back.

Shannon: 43:06

Yeah, right, and you and family is a boy you can't drop, yes, and jobs are balls that will bounce back in to something. You know these things affect everyone differently. But the priorities and the ability for us to get back to a kind of a clarity there get back to the center of what you should be doing and I think that I try my best and I also think for a lot of parents out there, like you're gonna, you're gonna make mistakes and I think that if you've got love and you've got protection, then all those other little mistakes are going to kind of fall by the wayside. Just don't fuck up those, those basic ones.

Tim (Urthboy): 43:42

And if you do fuck them up, just go fix them and go back to 100% and like I think parenting guilt is a real thing and you can't let it that affect you moving forward. That's the big thing I've learnt till it's like, yeah, I'll make a mistake, but I actually need to own the mistake. Show the children that I own the mistake and then move on from it. I find it's when you avoid it and go. It just seems like it's snowballs.

Shannon: 44:06

That's some bandit shit right there. Man, what do you mean? I'm a blueie.

Tim (Urthboy): 44:11

Oh, is that what he says? Oh, no, I didn't watch blueie, you're missing out.

Shannon: 44:14

No, like I mean, he's a good role model for dads. Obviously he's referred to a lot, but you know it's. It is one of those things you can actually admit mistakes to your kids.

Tim (Urthboy): 44:25

Does bandit advocate for that?

Shannon: 44:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no shit.

Tim (Urthboy): 44:28

That's so right.

Shannon: 44:29

I mean, it's one of those things where you know, you know when you kind of you've messed up, you know like there's there's a difference between and it's not even a catastrophic mess up. It's just sometimes maybe you've talked too firmly to your kid and you know, sometimes you think, well, that's cool, this is just discipline. Or there's other times which is like, well, yes, but there's going to be consequences for that. Your kid is learning all the time and they're they're bringing their learning what they can and can't do around you and you can never be perfect with that. That's fine, but it's also something that means that it's not just for them to do all the learning, it's not just for them to grow up, it's also you got to grow up and learn to and it's a good place to be. Yeah, dude.

Tim (Urthboy): 45:13

It's so true and I mean, and you sort of mentioned and it's been such a common theme on the podcast People relaying the fact that maybe their father left the family and what happened to me. You know, and I don't know you the details of your situation and you obviously don't need to share that, but what the point I want to make is that it is such a gnarly responsibility, you know, because I always wonder, like why is it so common for the dad to bail? And I think it's because a lot of dudes are really struggling to man up to how big this responsibility is. And you set it perfectly like kids always learning, and that in itself, just being in their presence can be sometimes really mentally exhausting and burden and feel like a burden.

Shannon: 45:53

Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of men have got A lot of other things that are going on inside their heads and once again comes back to the ability to keep a healthy, like you know, mental space is to be able to Not just become a mess when things get hard. Yeah, and that's not simple, and wouldn't want to talk as if I know how that plays out for everyone, but that's, you know, it does get hard and for women, you know, quite often they don't have a choice. You know, often the kids end up with the mom and the mom's the one who really shoulders it. Certainly in my family and certainly didn't.

Shannon: 46:40

A lot of families that I know, and not every family, but as a lot like the majority, women are the ones who are left holding the weight and the responsibility. Men do have a little bit more of an ability to just go fuck it. I can't, this is too much. But I reckon those men suffer because they're missing out on on what is really meaningful in life. So it is a decision that can be made, but it's not necessarily in their genuine interest, for sure.

Tim (Urthboy): 47:06

Yeah, women, women give up their bodies, but their bodies are never really the same after childbirth. It takes such a toll on their bodies we talk about I talk about that a lot, actually like, because us men will never really understand that as well. Yeah, hey, who would you? Who would you describe over the years in your music journey is like some of your big hip hop influences.

Shannon: 47:29

I'm so curious big hip hop influences. Fun enough, yeah, I mean, do you have?

Tim (Urthboy): 47:37

any stand out.

Shannon: 47:38

There's been a few things that have happened along the way. Some are innocent, some have been like long term relationships that have enriched me, you know. Yeah, and there's one relatively innocent one that happened early on it would have been late 90s and this older hip hop artist his name is Kiro. He, he was an influential hip hop artist in the 90s and I, as I was just starting to find my feet, he had a bit more. He certainly had a lot more cultural authority and respect in the hip hop community and I remember one time I just did a, did a song on stage, and he pulled me aside and said look, you've got what it takes. You can do this. You should keep on doing this.

Shannon: 48:21

Yeah and I reckon that one single comment and that's what I mean by innocent it wasn't like this guy was mentoring me for for years and putting all this time. We were just, we were working together, for sure on little things here and there, but the innocence of that question, of that statement, yeah right.

Shannon: 48:37

Was like more powerful than anything else, because that doesn't. That didn't happen. I didn't have any mentors, so most of the relationships that I had were peers, but that gave me fuel. That really. I mean that was I ate on that like that. I lived on that one comment for a long time. It gave me confidence. And, yeah, I've had other relationships. I would say someone like how, who used to be in a group called coolism and now is involved in lots of triple J stuff and runs his own label. He's interesting because we have really different versions of our experiences. Hip hop artists.

Tim (Urthboy): 49:22

Yeah.

Shannon: 49:22

But he's ended up a little bit closer to mine in that he, you know, runs a label and is really an influential figure in the hip hop community. Years he's paid his dues. You know, it's interesting the way that that working relationship and that that mutual respect grows and evolves over the years. I definitely think some of the elephant tracks people were really influential for me in the early days in so far as showing me what drive and ambition meant to them and making it make sense for myself, because I had this other in a drive to myself. When it comes to broader hip hop artists, yeah, I'd say solo from horror shows always become, has always been, you know, a person who I can really genuinely connect. You know, for people who are fans of horror show, there's a real dedication from their fan base to their music and I think it's partly because he's a real deep character and he has a lot of.

Shannon: 50:29

You know, he would describe himself as an overthinker and I've always told him and I'm I'm horror shows manager or have been horror shows manager, so I have a responsibility of mentoring them and that's one of my focus points at my work is to make the right decisions for them, with them, you know, and he's a listener and he's overthinking, I've told him, is also his superpower, which also goes back to his lyric in one of his songs, which is, you know, I think greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, and nothing is true than that. Every single thing that we do well has some sort of Achilles deal that is related to that, that brings us down. And there's this, there is this, you know, balance that is achieved when you can draw on the strength of that, but also understand that you're vulnerable to that.

Tim (Urthboy): 51:24

And so how have you, how do you balance that? Personally, like I had, you balance your artistic career with your commitment to things like what seems to have a commitment to social change. I mean, I watched you Perform at a two day environmentalism protest, the rising tide in a two day blockade. So how do you balance that? What are your strategies so that the, like you said you use the term Achilles heel of your strengths?

Shannon: 51:55

Have you thought about it much? Or sometimes I think I think I think other times you just got to be your own self. You know, and Things that are touch on political issues are important to me. I mean, I might be wrong or I might be right, or I might be somewhere in between. Either way, they're important to me, like the same way that Going getting surfboard and going out into the water is important to somebody else. These things I can't remove from my thinking process, and my thinking process is my creative process and you don't care if that's that's polarizing Parts of your audience.

Shannon: 52:30

I think that there's a dialogue that is ideal, where you can talk about things that people are going to disagree with, but you don't have to always come from a place of hostility and conflict. I think that there is an ability to have a conversation with people, even if they disagree.

Tim (Urthboy): 52:50

Oh my God, so many people don't understand that.

Shannon: 52:52

I reckon as I've grown older, I've Can't become more aware of how wrong I've been in the past. Not wrong in a big way like oh gee, I was racist when I was younger. Now I was never that. I always really those things made sense to me. But Just getting issues wrong, communicating them wrong, coming on too strong, being too arrogant in that I'm right, or that this is important and you got to listen to me, I think that I've Soften on those things.

Shannon: 53:21

I think there are things that I'm like nah, at some point you just got to call it as you see it and if that's wrong, it's wrong. But I don't think, you know, I could lose too much of my audience by acknowledging this fundamentally true part of my personality. Like I think that's what we do as musicians, because that's a strength as well. Yeah, yeah, look, we musicians for the most part. Once you become professional and you know where the money is, then you iron out all the edges. I mean I know you look at most musicians in Australia and you look at their social media, and I could invite you to do that anyone listening to go and I mean you're not going to do this. I know you're not going to do this but, like, if you look at a hundred different artists and you look at their entire feed, you will see one really common thing that comes up and that is that there is very little Polarizing opinions on things. Sometimes with certain artists they might come out with some things from time to time, but you become accustomed to trying to please that middle, because the middle is the customers. And I mean I don't mean that, like, I'm not being disparaging. I think it's a survival mechanism because we don't have security in our work, we don't have a guarantee, there is no food that is on our plate tomorrow night, like we don't have superannuation, we don't have an employer, we don't have salaries, they do not exist to all the artists. So I'm not begrudging the majority of artists for finding that palatable middle ground on a lot of things and being fearful of ruffling feathers like that is understandable, but that's not me and I've definitely made decisions over the years. Or I'm not going to talk about that or I won't make a post because I know that my comment section will just be flooded with racist. For example, adam Goodge even mentioned his name and it brings out all these rednecks to the yard like it is just you know, you know things after a while.

Shannon: 55:29

This is going to be stress for me, and I reckon that's what everyone who's in a position of privilege, where you have an audience or you have a platform or something, has to reconcile with that. What are you going to do? What are you going to do with it? Well, there's no rule that says you got to do anything with it other than make money, live a happy life or whatever like at some point. It's not for me to sit there and, you know, throw stones at those people, because everyone's different.

Shannon: 55:55

But there's also that thing we're only on this bloody rock for 80 years as a musician. If you're lucky, you might have five years in the sun, if you're lucky and that's if you're lucky than the rest of you just got to like be passionate about it, know why you do it, you know and why you love it. And it's not just about making money, it's not just about pleasing as many people as you can, because ultimately, you've got to you, they've got to have a positive association with you and you got a tour on right. So I think that there's there's every artist can have a you know question and so around what they do with their, their voice and who they are and how they're true to it. I think it's a sad thing if these things are really important to you and you're so called intellectual, but you refrain from it. Like you iron those things out.

Shannon: 56:48

I feel like that's like fuck man. Art is part of social change. Art is part of how we have a public conversation about Everything. You know, politicians and media are the ones who generally drive the meaning that happens in our society. This is what we're going to legislate on. This is the thing that's going to keep the country going and here's the way that we're going to perceive all these things. Who else gets to have a say apart from, like you know, people chime in on social media? Art is a central part of the way that the whole fucking society moves the cogs in the wheels how we all like.

Shannon: 57:22

The beauty of music that I love is that you can, you can. You don't have to kind of know all the facts and be like oh, I've got a political song. Sometimes it's feeling. There's no journalist, there's no politician, for the most part from like being inspiring or whatever. There's no other form that can communicate a message in the same way that music does, because it's Feeling it. You know, it's like that, saying that I'm going to butcher now, which is like you can, you can.

Shannon: 57:53

You know, people can forget all of the messages and what you said, but if you can leave them with a feeling, they will remember, you know, and feeling. Sometimes it's like it's not just words, it's music, is the way that the, the chords relate to the melody, the voice. All these things can help Change people's not even change people's opinion, but like and that's one big thing for me is like making music or making being involved in social changes, about changing people's minds, necessarily sometimes just about Giving them like a buffer or a bit of energy, or like pushing it along a little bit, or even just reminding them that they're not alone. And like. That's one of the great things about music is being able to remind people that they're not alone.

Tim (Urthboy): 58:40

It's really good. I love that. Do you ever consider your legacy?

Shannon: 58:45

Not really, no, because.

Tim (Urthboy): 58:47

I just I ask that because it kind of ties into what you're just everything you're just saying. Then it's like for those people that do take the middle ground out of safety, you know, what do you really want to be remembered for? Do you want to be remembered for that, or do you want to be remembered for someone that went?

Shannon: 59:04

hey, this is what I believe and this is what I feel, and I'm going to say it stand up, but it's a scary place to be for so many reasons fully, yeah, and you know what, if I'm honest for both good and bad sides of any kind of position, right, yeah, because people who are taking right wing positions on things become targets as well, absolutely, and that's just like taking a left wing position on something you know. I mean, obviously they're not the same, but they still upset people. Yeah, you know the same polarizing here, I think I don't, I don't think about how I'm going to be remembered. It's not something that I mean. I know it all, because you want to be like how I want to be remembered.

Tim (Urthboy): 59:50

Let me reframe it. How would you want to be as of like today? You know, considering, you know, your accolades and your accomplishments. Yeah, look what would be the one that you'd most prefer.

Shannon: 1:00:03

I think that it would be that I served the people around me right, that that it wasn't just like. I think that part of my own motivation is self driven, like it's self invested, it's my own career. But really the thing that makes what we are involved in meaningful is that the platforms that we can help provide to a lot of young artists and other artists around us. So that's serving the community and making it better, or hopefully making it better than when you came into it. So that's, I mean, it sounds like it's right. It is a little bit, you know. I think that those things are deeper than just I want to. I want to make records itself.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:00:58

Yeah, for sure. How many artists do you sign under elephant tracks at the moment?

Shannon: 1:01:04

Is that a tough question? Yeah, I never know, because some artists are inactive. Some artists have, you know, have left. Some artists are still putting records out. I don't know, it's always around 10 or 15.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:01:16

Yeah, okay, oh, that's cool. That's cool, and you like the mentorship aspect of it?

Shannon: 1:01:20

Oh yeah, I love it. I love it because I never got that and I think that it's one of those. I just remember the power of that one artist giving me a bit of love. Yeah, man, and I was like fuck, if that was all I needed. I didn't really need all the technical advice, I just needed to be told that I can do it and it's okay. I mean, that's that comes from a place of insecurity and I need someone else to tell you that you, what you're doing, is okay, but we're fucking humans, we're insecure. You know everyone's insecure.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:01:52

Dude, you've played so many rad festivals over the years. You know big day outs, dude, and like, can you just tell me, like a standout festival or concert man, that we just had a massive crowd? Because I mean, like a big day out, for example, you're going to acquire a huge crowd just because it's already there. So I don't know what's what's a standout? You've got to have a standout moment.

Shannon: 1:02:14

It's funny, those festivals. They all look like everything's great all the time, do they?

Tim (Urthboy): 1:02:18

Yeah, yeah and you're right, I've had some great times.

Shannon: 1:02:21

Yeah, yeah, no same. I mean music festivals that they exist as their own version of some. You know on steroids gig and I love it, the culture of it's great, but you do have pressure as an artist, like the whole time before it. Will they come? Will they come? Will they come? Artists like the fans all kind of clear up from the stage, Go to the next gig. You sit there and the anxiety is just roaring around your stomach. The butterflies are going nuts because you just like there's so many people here. Am I just about to face the greatest, most humiliating failure of my life? I reckon a lot of musicians are thinking that, as before the stage, and quite often by the time you're one song in this, 5,000 people.

Shannon: 1:03:06

You're like, wow, I'm just on the high. That is so out of whack with every any rational version of my life right now, because you're on an adrenaline rush. That's like this is I am the greatest, you know. You have that feeling for fucking one hour and then you have to reconcile that with like, oh, actually I am not the greatest the next morning.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:03:30

You get a full come down.

Shannon: 1:03:31

Oh, fully, every, every gig.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:03:33

Yeah, okay, because what goes up must come down, exactly yeah. Not a lot of people experience that. I mean. Most people do not experience what you felt.

Shannon: 1:03:40

Yeah, it's because it's not real and you accept that. Yeah, yeah, it's totally not real.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:03:45

So it's real.

Shannon: 1:03:47

It's, it's, it's okay. So there's you really at the gig. The crowd are really yelling. What goes on in your mind is not real and it's because we're not supposed to, we're not supposed to have that as a way of living, like we're not supposed to be filled with such a massive level of adoration that you create an egotistical like. You know this. This is got a you up on a great height. The ego is telling you that that this is a version of life that is sustainable. It's nothing sustainable at all about it at all. Like, one half an hour after the gig, there's no one there.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:04:28

You're by yourself how many artists get caught up in that. They get a taste of. It must be like heroin or something it must be so addictive. Everyone, everyone does and how did, and and and why didn't it catch up with you then?

Shannon: 1:04:41

It's unreasonable, of course it did. It's unreasonable to think that you can be put through that experience as a human being and not be thrown around by it, and that's the best way to describe it. You get thrown around by it, which is also why musicians and artists, especially touring artists, have such massive, you know, substance abuse problems and it's not every artist, of course, but that's one of the biggest challenges. You take all the routine out of your life, you put them into lots of transient environments, you throw the emotional rollercoaster, you throw them on the emotional rollercoaster and then they have to reconcile things like going back home to maybe their partner or their family on a Monday and someone's like you haven't done this job and you have to kind of reconcile how that what's real and what's not. And what's real is that relationship that you have at home.

Shannon: 1:05:39

What's not is whatever egotistical, like you know firework that you allowed yourself to be, you know cast off into the stratosphere with Because that's amazing, if you can just let it be what it is, because you're right and that's the funny thing about it. It is real, but the it's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. I mean, that's the fundamental point of it. It's not sustainable.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:06:03

It's just funny, Like you mentioned, like the fear you have, like in the lead up do you still get that.

Shannon: 1:06:08

Sometimes Even on the micro level. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you don't want to be humiliated.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:06:12

So it's kind of like. It's like hard work, a bit of anxiety, fear, euphoria, depression.

Shannon: 1:06:19

Yeah well, it can Well not depression but come down, yeah, to come down. And sometimes that is depression. But yeah, like trying to be like oh, I am this person. Oh, wait, no, I'm not. Wait, I'm this person, no, I'm not. That can throw you around for sure. One of the things I loved most on the road was the playing poker at about 1 am each night with the herd Doing that like the euphoria is going, like the gig itself. There's nothing higher than that.

Shannon: 1:06:49

But just the calm, the relief of just being with your friends. Those were always times that I looked forward to most Like you'd done the job.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:06:57

How old were you, roughly, when you played your first gig to a large audience? Maybe over a few thousand?

Shannon: 1:07:04

Probably like 25. I was a late bloomer.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:07:08

Oh, you call that late. I guess a little bit late.

Shannon: 1:07:10

Yeah, yeah, look, you asked me before what was the actual gig and I never even answered you. I'd say one of the gigs Sorry, I'll just do it while we're chatting For a while there you'd put out songs that get played by radio and you'd feel that energy build and that exchange as a song would go from people not knowing it to being able to remember the lyrics. And the first few gigs we get to perform at live are like nothing else. And I remember we did I was only 19, the cover on Like A Version and we did the Big Day Out the year after.

Shannon: 1:07:55

I remember I think we did the Boiler Room, but we played on these stages and some of these songs I mean it was the same, for I was only 19, is to songs like the King is Dead, those moments that the crowd are so loud and they're singing and then sometimes like the song would finish and the crowd would just be clapping and screaming for minutes and those minutes felt like hours and you're sort of looking around at the band and you're all smiling. You don't know what to do with this feeling of it's intoxicating. And so, yeah, like we did Big Day Out Run where we played in Gold Coast, it was like that in Adelaide, it was like that in Sydney, it was like that. Those stages were amazing. I mean, it's 10,000 on those stages and you're just looking out in raptures.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:08:48

But as a 25 year old did you have your periods of going wayward.

Shannon: 1:08:52

Oh yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:08:53

Just maybe like burning yourself out with too much partying in between.

Shannon: 1:08:56

Oh yeah, yeah. So I was working on Elephant Tracks, I was running the label, I was managing some artists, that kind of quasi managing. I wasn't experienced enough to do it, but I was sort of doing it. What would happen is that we were on a cycle of putting a herd record out, then an earth boy record out, then a herd record out, then an earth boy record out, and so it was almost like constantly touring, and the only reason I wouldn't be touring an earth boy record is because the herd jumped in and their touring took priority over my own touring Bigger group. You know that was the main project, and so what that life looked like was working Monday to Friday or Monday to Thursday, touring Thursday to Sunday.

Shannon: 1:09:41

And if you're doing a two month tour, that's two months of seven days a week, and then you kind of come back and crash and then you sort of get back in it and do it again. Of course it's just constant burnout. And what happens, I guess, when you're depleted of energy? You make bad decisions. You're eating bad, you're staying up late, you're smoking weed, you're drinking booze. You know you're doing things that feel like they are just to keep you going. You know they're just calm things. They're just like I'm so tired. Oh wow, that beer tastes so good. I'm kind of back, you know, and it just builds and builds and builds.

Shannon: 1:10:14

Yeah, I just continuously. You know, was was like on the cusp of burning out, but at the same time the workload was not really an issue.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:10:24

Okay.

Shannon: 1:10:24

Because the workload was inspiring. I loved it. It was what I was passionate about. Yeah, I was really into it. You can do a lot of extra work if you love what you're doing.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:10:35

Yes, brother, yes, I was like oh, dude, I love that that's so true. Hey, I want to talk about your album, the Signal, your solo album, you know, like would you say it's kind of exploring the impact of technology on society. Is that the basic premise of it? I?

Shannon: 1:10:53

don't know, I don't know, not really. I mean maybe, maybe on some songs.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:10:58

Yeah.

Shannon: 1:11:00

Those things are kind of weaved in and out of my mind.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:11:02

But yeah, like I don't know, it just feels like a lot of your music is like addressing contemporary issues. Yeah, I think that must be challenging to stay relevant, like is that, yeah, or you're not thinking that deeply about it.

Shannon: 1:11:16

Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, as I get older, you're wondering how to be true to yourself, because, yeah, it's a young person's game, and it is. And I don't say that because I'm an ageist, because I am older. I say it because that's where the current is, that's where the middle of the current is and that's what's going quick, okay, but there's all space for older artists as well, because there's older people.

Shannon: 1:11:46

You know, older people are not as enamored by the stories that are 18-year-olds telling, right, and why would they? I mean, obviously, music is music and if it's a great song, it's a great song, and 18-year-olds can make great music for 80-year-olds. There's no borders there, right? But at the same time, a lot of the time, if you're 50 years old, you want to hear some 50-year-old telling you what life is like. You know, because that's what you resonate with Gotcha. I mean, I don't want to even want to say this stuff as if there's rules, whatever, but there should be space for everyone. And for me there is relevance, for sure, but it's like an accountability to my own creativity. It's not relevant to some 24-year-old who's actually a giggo.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:12:33

You really stick about that. For sure, for sure, you're not hanging on to the past because I've had a. Yeah, one of my last guests recently was talking about that. Yeah. Just a guest I mean you personally you could easily get stuck in the past.

Shannon: 1:12:43

you know that, don't you yeah, and I reckon we all do.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:12:47

Hang on a bit too long to the past.

Shannon: 1:12:49

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's one person's perception of that is going to be different to your perception of it, right, and there are going to be moments where you're nostalgic about. I mean, if you're a bit older, you're probably nostalgic for when you had more hair. Why didn't I do this when I was in my 20s? I definitely look at my entire 20s and all the records we put out. I don't ever think I cut my hair for any photos or anything. You know, I was always a bit shaggy and I look back and I'm like what the fuck was I thinking? Like I'm an artist, there's a time and a place, and I look at a lot of younger artists being a lot more self-conscious now.

Shannon: 1:13:25

I think you know that's not. It's not something that I regret, but I also look at these old photos like I'm not in a grunge band. You know, like there's something good about dressing up and being all you know leaning in. So I don't think it's so much about trying to be relevant to people, to the version of yourself that you're not. I think it's like it truly is about being accountable to your creativity and not just resting on your laurels, not just doing the same thing over and over again. It's like how do you challenge yourself, how do you get to a new place, how do you embrace some discomfort that might break open a new thing? And it's harder to do that as you get older and you've got less time that you can dedicate to it, so of course that's going to be a massive compromise. I think it's more about just finding new ways to try and break some sort of new ground for your own self personally.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:14:20

Yes, and I also believe that Australian hip hop acts always seem to be quite gritty, maybe even, you know, a little bit grungy. It's not like a lot of Australian hip hop artists grew up in the streets of LA, on New York, so they don't have that fresh vibe like as fresh in my opinion. So I think that grittiness kind of really suited the herd. You know, where do you reckon the herd fits into the history of Australian music? Just yeah, okay, again, amongst me and some of my friends we feel like you're quite significant, especially for our age range, like early 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s. Really that music is part of our growing up journey in formative years. Do you ever think about that?

Shannon: 1:15:08

Yeah, it's hard to understand where the herd fits into the bigger picture, because we had a real period between 2000 and, say, one to two and 2012, where we were really active and we. I reckon if you look at the catalogue of music that we wrote, you'd find a lot of observations about what life was really like then. It wasn't just a bunch of love songs. We never did one single love song. So what made up our songwriting was talking about the sounds and smells of the Australia that we knew.

Shannon: 1:15:50

That's like little towns that are having a bypass being built and what's going to happen to that town. That's some sort of observation of Australian diggers before they leave for some war zone. That's an environmental song, a song that touches on this kind of bubbling, simmering, boiling pace that we're moving towards the destruction of the planet around us. There's a lot of criticism, there's a lot of celebration, there's a lot of observation, there's a lot of who we really were. So I reckon if you look at the Herds catalogue, you might not. It doesn't sit in the realm of hit makers and real classic Australian bands, but I reckon there's not one other band that's like us.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:16:47

I agree. Were you good at school as a kid and through high school and stuff? No, not at all. Why not? I failed what do you mean you?

Shannon: 1:16:55

failed.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:16:56

I failed just the T oh yeah, because that used to be called a T. That's not a T.

Shannon: 1:17:01

Yeah, whatever, a-tar or not, All of us, our generation was just like whatever it is now.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:17:08

What was high school like for you?

Shannon: 1:17:10

Just skating, actually Really. Yeah, skating and playing sport, but really fucking around. I had a heap of depression when I was about 16, 17, and when I was 18 or 17, 2018, that was all the big year 12, the tests and everything. I was rebuilding myself steam then. So I was fucking around in class, I was wagging and I was jigging classes. I was going and we had a crew that was mainly skating and also had guys that I went out tagging with, so it wasn't a whole lot of schoolwork and a lot of my year 12 was spent skating with a bunch of my friends up in the mountains.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:17:55

Has there been any academia since?

Shannon: 1:17:58

Yeah, I kind of and this is an interesting thing, I was talking to some friends about it last night I've had a few different interventions in a way by people, usually women, that have, I think, changed the course of my life a little bit. So this is going to sound funny, but the first girlfriend that I had at that time was also a little bit more conservative than me and her influence on me kind of created a little bit more ambition in what I could do and she played a role in socializing me and I mean I was already social, I mean I didn't need help, but her role was to kind of start to be a good influence in a way, just show a bit more discipline drive. She was much more academically focused than me. So I look back on that relationship as being a way of settling what I was in at that time and I look on it positively. I'm not like, oh, I really need someone to sort me out. I wasn't like that at all. It was just that I can acknowledge that it had a positive impact on me.

Shannon: 1:19:14

So, yeah, that got me going to TAFE and I went and started in TAFE and I got into uni. Then I finished the uni degree didn't do anything at all with the uni degree because it was public relations and advertising, and I started running or started working on elephant tracks and I got. Honestly, I've been working there ever since, yeah followed the dream, followed the passion.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:19:35

Hmm, because I mean, I sort of feel the same about my degree, although it is very specific to what I do now, but I didn't go to university until I was 24, 25, you know, I had that period of time and just going like lost what am I doing with my life?

Tim (Urthboy): 1:19:51

But very integral to my personal development as well. I don't regret it and I feel like it doesn't matter what your study is. Almost I feel like at that level it is really assisting with the depth of analysis you go into things and it does take you to another level with your writing and the way you critically think and I think it really resonates in your storytelling and your songwriting. You know, I mean, do you keep up with any literature of any sorts? Because, like I mean again, the reason I'm saying these things is because I feel and I can tell you're very well spoken, your lyrics are very intelligent. Do you still read literature and stuff like that?

Shannon: 1:20:31

Yeah, I feel torn about having intelligent lyrics, you know. Because a lot of music that I love is not intelligent. It's like emotionally intelligent right as opposed to being clever. I think sometimes clever songwriting is so overrated, you know.

Shannon: 1:20:50

You don't need to have a clever bunch of words that sound smart, you know, because that's nothing compared to the value of feeling. So get back to that feeling thing. If you know how to channel feeling, that is like power, for sure, and that is that's amazing. If you can be smart enough to communicate an idea in a song, that's okay. That's good, you know, and I think that that's sometimes the area that I'm better at. But I admire and I'm envious of feeling. That's what I'm always looking for now, yeah yeah, yeah, I did not expect that response.

Shannon: 1:21:29

So true. Yeah, look, spoken well. Yeah, sometimes I mean I ramble a lot, but I reckon sometimes the higher education or being committed to something, it's just another way of instilling a bit more self-worth.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:21:48

And as an educator myself, I want to jump in and say like doesn't necessarily mean university is the pathway. I think a lot of people feel like that. They have to do it and in a lot of ways our country traps people in that system financially and I think it's disgusting. But you can higher educate yourself by other means and independently and you're not dumb if you don't achieve access to it Like they promote through the HSC. You know, I see so many young people going through our public system and not meeting the outcomes that were prescribed by the government and they're not getting this result that's going to give them access to higher education and just left literally believing they're dumb and then, knock on effect, affects their self-confidence for years and holds them back and it's really. It's quite upsetting and devastating, you know so. I know for me it took me. I was one of those people.

Shannon: 1:22:52

Yeah, yeah, anyway. Well, I reckon I've been affected in the same way you think so, in that I failed school. I was never academically that successful.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:23:02

Did you feel like a failure?

Shannon: 1:23:05

Yeah, I did feel like a failure for a while there. I just felt like that wasn't for me. I felt like that was for other smart people, gotcha. But of course, going through life now I also came off the back of it with a bit of public profile and my artistic career meant that sometimes my old school friends, you know, congratulations, you're one of the ones that got out that's a comment that I get a lot.

Shannon: 1:23:30

You got out of the mountains, you know, because most of our year failed and there was not an expectation of academic excellence at our school. That was not instilled in us. There was no expectation on putting on the kids, so naturally we didn't think that we had a future there. So I reckon that you know when you're having those conversations, you know it's ridiculous, you know that you never got out of anything, but in their eyes that's something that there's a bit of pride in the perception of that happening, and so you don't want to take the piss and tell people that they're wrong.

Shannon: 1:24:03

But at the same time you know in your own world you got your own unhappiness. You got bills you got to pay. You're struggling with different things. But also when I think about you know that idea of coming out of a place, or, you know, I don't look back and go, oh right, okay, so you really do need to be a pretty successful kind of academic in order to have a successful life. Like that's not a. Those two things are really like they're not connected in the ways that particularly young people are led to believe or that you know, they we walk out of school with. So, yeah, I don't really. You know, I don't really think about my academic background as being that important.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:24:48

It's nice to hear. Yeah, I think too much importance is hung up, is put onto it.

Shannon: 1:24:55

It's good. Well, you know, the NAPLAN. Is that the NAPLAN? Yeah, the test that they give kids.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:24:59

Yeah, you're seven and nine. Yeah, mike, and then in the primary school as well.

Shannon: 1:25:03

Primary school. Yeah, my daughter did it, I think last year right.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:25:06

How old is she? If you know what I'm asking?

Shannon: 1:25:08

I almost 11 and you know what I talk to my partner about.

Shannon: 1:25:14

It like where do we do, we get them and I don't really care. I've always tried to remember don't worry too much about these things. But as a parent it's different. Turn over suddenly you want to make sure that you kids going okay right, these are things that are natural. You and every parents, different part. But I've not looked at that now plan result because I don't want to. I don't even get caught up in that world of going cool. My kids kind of like she's taking all these boxes is working out. I just don't want to put that as like a. I know I'm calm because of these results reflecting my hopes for my kid partners. Different. She's like great is good, you know, and I'm not judging her at all, I'm just I don't. I don't want to look at those results because I want to just sort of see the kids happy. She's inspired by things we can't moving in good directions calls yeah, I'm definitely conflicted about it.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:26:06

I mean, I do understand what they're trying to do with it, identifying strengths and weaknesses to help them progress and improve how they differentiate their kids, learning so they can support them better. But my experience just get hung up on the number, the grade, then I'm not going deeper than that. I got my kids at this level. Yeah, he's or he or she, or that. They are, just that's what they're a C grade student and I. What freaks me out is that the student thinks that that and then they're gonna have C grade dreams yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:26:44

And then intelligence is so much more than that and that's why I just believe, like every individual possesses very variety of strength and weaknesses and we just need to Nurture the individual, build them up as much as possible. I think school should be a place for building the individual up and building their confidence up as high as possible yeah, connecting with people connection relationships it's really true.

Shannon: 1:27:09

I mean, I gotta be real clear about that and I'm sorry in that. Okay, I don't, I don't know what I'm talking about. You know, I gotta acknowledge that, like maybe I should go and check them and just sort of be aware of them. But this is connected to who I am as a person, like when I grew up, that was not something that I ever wanted to define me. I'm doing well in school. So therefore you know that that's not something that for me, as a parent, I'm. I'm.

Shannon: 1:27:38

It may be the you know, this one of those kind of psychological things about your own self.

Shannon: 1:27:44

I awareness that Manifest is like just not even gonna worry about that, that's just my shit around that.

Shannon: 1:27:51

But I do remember a good mate one time talking about and you know he's wise fella and he was talking about how people come from all sorts of different disadvantage and some people come from great privilege and the world is full of a million different problems and there is a different million solutions for those problems and the people that come from all sorts of different versions of privilege or disadvantage are all uniquely, whether by DNA or by nurturing, built to be able to solve different problems and there is a space for everyone and if you've gotten a really difficult upbringing where you do not have any of the comforts and you are psychologically scarred for life and how it feels like a sentence, you're still a person that is gonna just tick differently to that person next to you and there is a space for you specifically somewhere in the world and you know I think it's a really good thing to come back to, because it's no matter how hard.

Shannon: 1:28:58

Things are all good. You know it doesn't make you any better than another person to be able to solve a particular thing. Just gotta find it.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:29:08

Yeah, like you have value and purpose and the way things happen for you unique and someone out there needs to actually utilize it or hear the way it happened for you so they can identify.

Shannon: 1:29:22

Yeah, you got that lived experience. That means that even without all of the intellectual box ticking that comes with your upbringing, your better placed to know how to solve that problem and then add it into the actual bloody rich person you know. Like you are, like you have the advantage.

Shannon: 1:29:44

Who said that, well, I'm gonna, I don't, I don't have to tell us I'm paraphrasing because you know I'm sort of embellishing and making it make sense for me but it was I'm pretty sure it was Kenny Kenny, severe founder of elephant tracks, one of my best mates right, dude, you've collabed a lot over the years.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:30:03

Who would say I'm with some significant artists like who would you say was one of the Most? I guess I'll rephrase the question I don't want to like, I don't want you to like Single anyone out, but I mean, how do you, these collaboration, collaborations, improve you as an artist?

Shannon: 1:30:27

I collaborate because I'm limited. I collaborate because I don't have that many skills. Okay, collaborations, allow me to that's humble nah, it's just true.

Shannon: 1:30:38

I collaborate cause I can't sing that well. I collaborate cause I can't really produce music To a level that would be good enough. I chose a long time because I wrote a bunch of beats in the hood, but I chose a long time ago I just not gonna even go there Because I wanted to focus more on on, you know, my songwriting, my lyrics. But yeah, the collaborations give me an opportunity to draw on strengths of others and you do that for Too long and it becomes frustrating because he becomes stifled, cause everything becomes committee based. You know everyone's making decisions. You can't take control, so sometimes you go back to just sort of more singular creative vision. And that always takes me back to working with people. I think that in my solo career probably more often Tended to control things and bring people in and invite them, but sometimes I've really had a very open book on collaborations and they've just come in and done stuff yeah but even I would say where I've written the lyrics and brought someone in.

Shannon: 1:31:45

You know that's the other understanding of songwriting to me is that I that I learned later on in my career is that there is an ego hit from writing everything but just the voice alone and the transcendent, transcendent, transcendent way that a voice can change some lyrics or like one lyric to being to make me feel this to another thing, which is like Like you know a relation, or you know it speaks to you in a way that that is impossible to sum up in just like words, that the voice can do that, and so sometimes it's like the collaboration is, it's more about the fact that there's this transcendent presence on the song that is lifted into this whole other place. I could never have taken it.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:32:34

Oh right, so glad I asked you that question. And look, without overlooking anyone and I'm and I know each one is a unique experience but like, can you highlight some like Remarkable collaboration experiences of you've had, would you mind?

Shannon: 1:32:48

yeah, I think that one of them has been with. You know, it's not like you're Paul Kelly's or Kira peruse, of those types of artists like even Samper the great was amazing because she's just great, right. But but Pip Norman is a producer that I was lucky enough to stumble into his orbit very early on in the herds touring. He was in a group called TZU.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:33:14

And TZU.

Shannon: 1:33:15

Yep, and that was not really by design, but we just sort of fell into. He's written on every single record of mine now and he has this emotional intelligence and his understanding of the craft. He can be like a music whisperer, but he also has very technical abilities. But the collaborations with him have taught me so much about life. Okay, he also is the. He has that uncanny ability which happens in the studio where it looks just like a normal singer's in front of the microphone.

Shannon: 1:33:46

But what's actually happening in that moment is that there is a high wire act and it's the vocalist, is is is balancing on that high wire of confidence and and and not knowing and just feeling like they can't do it, you know, and so that can be like, oh no, I can't do that. Take the way it's supposed to be and that thing Sometimes it's, it's like it's it could go at any moment. He's one of those people that is able to read that that room and say to the artist, that thing that understands what they're going through and just brings them down off that high wire a bit, and I reckon over the years I've done that a bunch of times just like you, just feel like it's the hardest thing in the world, but all you do is just put in a verse down like there's nothing hard about it, but you just care about it.

Shannon: 1:34:42

So interesting yeah so he's a he's a really amazing collaborator sounds like it.

Shannon: 1:34:47

Yeah, I think, if it comes down to you know the guest vocalist and stuff, I yeah, I mean, I really loved working on long, loud hours with birdie black man, because that song is an interesting one in that I got her into the studio for his other song, rushing through me on this record I put out in 2016. And just at the end of the session we said we got this other song on the hour hours. I was doing all the vocals Would you be up for doing some backing vocals? And she, she was like yeah, yeah, sure, all right, yep, cool.

Shannon: 1:35:22

And she, she's just like someone I really love as a person, but also as a collaborator. She's an incredible collaborator, artistic, mind, you know, and her old man is a famous Australian artist. And I wonder, like I, sometimes I'm like you're, you've been around art your whole life, so this is, this is you as a person. I haven't been around art all my life, but we connect on a level of of like these things matter to us, you know. So I'm like I love the way that she thinks.

Shannon: 1:35:52

Anyway, she just dropped those vocals, just put them down, and you can't imagine that song without her, because the tone that she has and that song was. There was a perfect example of the way that a vocalist can make a song become transcendent from what it was before. And you know that that was always amazing because you know she was only doing backing vocals. But everyone's like she's the entire song. In a lot of ways the entire song. But you know what I mean like she's, that's, the emotional rush of the song is when she comes in. So good, so good. So what do you reckon?

Tim (Urthboy): 1:36:26

is next for you from here.

Shannon: 1:36:31

Is this a big one? Yeah, look, there's a lot of, there's a lot of. It's a time of change. There's a lot of change going on, feel it. Yeah, it's dramatic, it's affecting everyone in an artistic sense, but I'm sure it's affecting people in a broader sense too. And, yeah, I'm kind of, I'm excited I think I've been running elephant tracks for 20, 22 years amazing and we, through that time, have left a. I know we've left a legacy.

Shannon: 1:36:58

And you know I'm doing a podcast at the moment where we're interviewing a whole bunch of people and talking about what that means to people. And it's, it's emotional because you realize that, you know, everyone's too busy to reflect on it as it's happening, but when you stop and look at it, you realize you've, you know, meant something to a bunch of different people, whether they be artists or audiences. And I am looking forward to taking a deep breath and not being on that, that, that that constant and relentless, you know, that that quest to put food on the table the next night, you know. And so just taking a bit of a breather from that's what I'm looking forward to. But I'm still, you know, really excited by art in general and music in general and how to kind of conquer the great problems that have been thrust upon us.

Shannon: 1:37:52

With this. Technological changes, with changes to the way people listen to music and the patterns and the habits of people, there's a huge amount of problems to solve for people who love the value of music. There's a lot of stuff that and it's not necessarily my problem to solve either. I think a lot of young people are going to come up with the solutions for it, but but I would love to support them.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:38:17

Yeah, I mean, like I don't know if you want to, I don't know if I want to go down this, this trajectory, but no, I am curious. I mean I did write this down actually because I was curious to talk about your feelings, like on streaming platforms and and actually you know this modern era of music consumption. Okay, I pay for a Spotify subscription.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:38:39

Yep, I'm not buying albums anymore, I mean, I don't want to sound ignorant either. I'm really not from a music industry background, so I'm just coming from like average Joe perspective who's just an appreciator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I don't know, like okay, okay, what would you say to the average consumer? If they want to keep supporting music industry, and especially local music, you know, what would you suggest to them as the best method for doing so?

Shannon: 1:39:09

Go out to gigs.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:39:10

Okay, there it is.

Shannon: 1:39:12

I reckon, supporting in that way. I know that there's a lot of band aid solutions, you know, go by the record or whatnot, but you've listened to streaming services because it's convenient, and nothing that any artist says to try, and you know, change your mind is going to change that fundamental convenience in your life. I'm the same, we all do it, and the reason it's so popular is because it's so great for us to be able to access this music. Does it actually broaden your musical horizons? I think that's one of the surprising things about having access to everything. You think that it's going to make you listen to more of a wide variety or be exposed to new stuff.

Shannon: 1:39:56

The opposite happens Exactly, and that's one of the things that is plaguing our industry at the moment. That we need to work out is like what does it even? I mean not even that we care. I care that much about charts, but what does it mean for the charts when there's 14 Taylor Swift albums in there or sorry songs in there, and Fleetwood Mac has four songs because you know it went viral and some ad campaign, what, what, what value is there to the replenishment of culture if these things, if these things were supposed to open everything up, have a have a complete opposite effect. So I'm not going to sit here and tell people that they should buy more records or whatnot, because I don't believe that those things are genuine solutions to a problem when that problem sort of has been solved by by streaming.

Shannon: 1:40:44

But there is things that has to happen. There's, there's policy changes that mean that if we've got a totally backwards reflection of what's popular music, so it's just all old catalog records from the 70s and this, that and the other Well, do we care about new artists coming through? Like there's no future to the music industry if you don't continuously replenish. It's like a football team. You know what's the point of having all these veterans there and just continuing to play because they've got name recognition? That doesn't happen. You've got to bring in new blood, then they get a name, then they become your favorite player. Like that it happens naturally in sports. It doesn't happen naturally in music.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:41:29

But how does the new blood get exposed?

Shannon: 1:41:31

Well, this is that these are the problems that need to be solved is like if, if, if we just measure the most popular things will have to accept that people's the way that streaming services have changed people's listening habits and maybe it hasn't changed. People's listening habits were just more privy to it now. Like, maybe you always just listen to Fleetwood Mac, but now it's being measured because you listen to it on Spotify or listen to an Apple or whatever. So these are the things we have to as an industry or as people who are behind the scenes, who are in positions of power. They have to kind of work out. Well, if it's important that we, that we find a new way for a new, new castle artist to come through and have a pathway, well, we've got to, we've got to address that.

Shannon: 1:42:11

So I think that there is a part of everyone's involvement in culture. That that's. That's part of it. But if you create, if you create the, the main channels for how you listen to music or and this then the genuine, genuinely so good for the consumer, then the answer isn't going. You should be wrong for doing that. There should be just better and more creative and innovative ways to make sure that culture continues to have a relevance and it keeps moving and keeps reflecting people. Otherwise, all we're going to have is monoculture. All we're going to have is just Taylor Swift records and old classic records and nothing and nothing will genuinely reflect who we really are. And it doesn't have to be popular in order for that to happen, but it has to exist and you have to have a way to find it.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:43:01

Yeah, and it's taking element of investigation away. These streaming service algorithms are creating echo chambers. Oh yeah, you know that I mean, again, I'm coming from a completely uneducated, but this is observational and yeah, like I see, the suggestions I get and it's the same genre is all close to what I was always, but then, because you have these massive artists as the ones you've mentioned, well, because they become like the golden goose, they keep, they'll still insert that into your suggestions, because it's is, that is the truth to what I'm saying. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Shannon: 1:43:33

You know, I think it's be careful what you wish for, because on a level, you'll get people who deal with this on a real shallow level and they'll be like, yeah, well, if it's popular, that's what it should be. You know that's what people want and you go okay, cool, I think there's more control there. No, I mean that the way that the algorithms of the streaming platforms work and the fact that they need to keep on getting paying subscribers means that they can't just sit there and be acting out a principle. They're not sitting there thinking what's an important kind of way for us to play a role in the cultural policy of a country? What is the best way that we can support culture to exist and thrive right and be a living, breathing thing?

Shannon: 1:44:15

That's one thing, and other things how do you make a buck? How do you keep the business going? Those two things are fucking different priorities, right, and so you know you can never kind of rely on private sector or businesses to be making the holistic decisions. They only have to be seen to be sorted like just doing enough, and I think we would. It's a rare time right now where you've come up against like this, this, this time where all these things were supposed to answer all those problems and they actually haven't. And so if it's important to To find the next Paul Kelly, or find the next hilltop hoods or water umpy band or whatever, then you're gonna have to deal with this at some point.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:45:00

Be easy to get jaded yeah for sure you don't seem jaded. I feel like you could be jaded if you wanted to be.

Shannon: 1:45:08

I've spent probably last 10, 15 years actively pushing against being jaded because, like one hand, one part of being jaded is being entitled to being your way right, that's really what it is is being this is not working the way it should be. I give I'm entitled for this to be working better for me. So I'm really pissed off and I'm I'm feeling like I have not Um being served enough for my fucking own personal sense of entitlement. That's what. That is 100%. So when you jaded, there's a little bit of I'm looking at sadness going on and and and.

Shannon: 1:45:42

Jaded is also part of the unfairness of systems and so you feel, and you feel like you, there's no, you are powerless to change it. So therefore, you just give up your your bit jaded. So sorry, I don't want to paint everyone who's jaded has been so that's 100% not true, but that that is part of entitlement and so, yeah, I've always tried to to. I think part of it is also just going well, these things are happening. So we're not trying to just complain about the fact that they're happening. Where's the constructive part of this? You know, and sometimes you're going to fluctuate with the level of energy you have for that problem and other times you're like yeah, come on, let's go, let's go, let's get it.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:46:25

You love creativity, music that much. That's what's motivating you to Try to evolve with it. And a draw evolve with the, I guess, the more political aspect of it yeah, definitely that's all out of their.

Shannon: 1:46:41

All variables is so far out of my control that I that's 100% where I think there's so much room to move.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:46:47

But are these the conversations you're having with some of the artists that you sign?

Shannon: 1:46:51

yeah, sometimes I mean, I think there are. It's like the classic thing. Like I went to the areas a whole bunch of times until thinking that the whole thing was a sham. I don't think there is a sham for anyone in the industry that is listening. However, my own expectations of that event became more realistic over time, and so I would try and instill what my learnings were with younger artists, including that if you have invested all of the Purpose of your creative self into a shiny metal, don't be surprised that when you get that shiny metal, it's not what you think it is. And so, therefore, maybe the purpose of your creative being was always a stitch up if you, you know, had to be validated by awards.

Shannon: 1:47:45

Awards are just, they, just. They can never sum up the meaning of art. You know, this is a it's. It's crazy to think this is a competition. Like you can. You can have a competition where you run A hundred meters against somebody else. Course we, you know you've done heaps of training. You can measure that. You can't measure two songs. You can just measure how, like what, what's most popular or not, or who has the most votes. If you got a lot of votes in the hat, you probably gonna have a higher chance of winning.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:48:13

Who's voting? That's the thing to you for sure.

Shannon: 1:48:16

So I am, you know, I think that I'm. Yeah, those, those things are harder to explain to a young artist. Yeah, I can sit there and go you know what this isn't what you think it is and then sit down, go, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:48:30

We really want to go to the areas we really want to put a positive spin on it. If you like, the areas are Still a good way to celebrate culture.

Shannon: 1:48:38

Yeah, for sure they have a role. Yeah, they definitely have a role in an industry sense and they're kind of marketing and getting back to explain that to a younger artist. It's not for me to tell him that it's wrong to to hold An award ceremony up as an aspirational part of their career, because that can be really motivating, and it's not for me to sit there and go. I've done, it's not what you think it is, so don't worry about it. They have to go through it and learn themselves. Yeah, and you have to accept that. To that you may be right, but it's. But it's not right for them to listen to you okay, so good, so you're excited about the future, oh, yeah, you're excited yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:49:15

I'm so glad to hear it. To be honest, when I thought about it I thought I was wondering if you'd come here with like A lot of just negativity around the industry, because I can see like it's, it's tricky.

Shannon: 1:49:31

Negative and being realistic. I think that a lot of time our industry is toxic confidence, you know, it's confidence at all costs. It's always projecting success, and anything less than that is giving in, because if anyone else sees that Lack of success, then they're certainly not going to give you an opportunity. So you've got to continuously be like yes, I'm so successful, you have to work with me, you have to give me these offers, can't ever tell you that I'm not doing well, and that's really unhealthy. So being able to be honest about that, it's different from being negative, and I think that I definitely have moments of feeling pretty fucking negative, to be honest.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:50:09

I guess the good news is you can always fall back on your AFL career.

Shannon: 1:50:14

I mean, you know, playing non competitive AFL footy as a mid 40s person is, you know it's already dangerous enough.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:50:23

And how are you tell everyone? How are you when it started?

Shannon: 1:50:25

I was like mid 30s, I was like 36 when I first started kicker footy.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:50:28

I was like why, what? What prompted that decision? Cause, like it's, it's a pretty dangerous sport, injury wise for someone in their mid 30s, early 40s.

Shannon: 1:50:35

Yeah, funnily enough, the reason I started playing AFL was this Perth rapper called Hunter. Now he he was a really pretty inclusive but hardcore rapper from from WA, part of the Celebilex crew, and he was always really embracing of the herd and really loved what we did, loved 77%, and he was one of the few staunch rappers that was really like fully enthusiastic about us, fully connected with us, was a really good guy, never forgot it. He contracted cancer and he passed away. You know well before his time pretty tragic, but there was a football game that was held to raise money for, for canteen and, I guess, to support the family, and that was the first real game of AFL I played.

Shannon: 1:51:25

I kicked the 40, like a soccer player. I shanked everything, had no idea about technique, but it opened a door and so, funnily enough, I love playing AFL now, like I love it, I play it with multiple teams, just whoever will take me for training sessions. I built some really good friendships off the back of it. I've learned a lot, and I've learned a lot cause it's really humbling trying to learn such a physical sport when you passed your physical peak. So it's not about winning. For me it's more about like I just want to play as many minutes as I can before my body gives up on me. That's literally what I'm doing and, yeah, I love, I love it. And I trace it all back to Hunter.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:52:07

Rad man that I didn't again. That's such a rad backstory and I think too, cause I'm in the same phase with skateboarding, Like I've been doing it my whole life. But it's dangerous and you can get hurt easy, you know, late 40s. But I'm just kind of like I'm just going to push this for as long as I can, cause if I stop now I'll never restart and I guarantee that's the same with you. If AFL the same the day you stop, you're never, you're not going to restart in your 40s. It's a yeah, you know and so, but what it does with me, it prompts me to live better in other aspects of my life. It makes me go to bed earlier, it makes me drink more water.

Shannon: 1:52:44

It makes me eat better.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:52:45

I mean I don't drink, I haven't drunk alcohol for 11 years, but I'll do drugs, but so it's, it's prompted me and inspiring me. So it's like, yeah, like you know, and like I've hit this phase in my late 40s of like more inspired than ever. And you know, and my angle and my approach to it is different. So, and I can relate to what you're saying with AFL.

Shannon: 1:53:08

I get that totally. I mean, there's a social group that I played with.

Shannon: 1:53:11

They really were important for teaching me the game and teaching me the techniques and they just do circle work, which is just running around a field kicking the ball to each other, handballing, marking, learning, and it was.

Shannon: 1:53:24

It was a really great environment, met a lot of friends from it, but they at one point went from 10 am on a Sunday morning to 9 am, and so, yeah, you find yourself changing a little bit about what you're doing on Saturday nights, cause then you start taking it more seriously. That's not winning, that's not kicking goals, but that's just like personal improvement. And then you start noticing how much harder it is if you've had a night on the pierce or something. And so then you start thinking, like on a Saturday night, oh, I don't want to, not, I don't want to have compromise on a like, on a hard lead. You know, I want to be able to run and take that mark. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. And also another one that I thought of you're relating to. What you're saying is like I was saying that I skated when I was a kid, right, and one of the skateboarders that was part of our crew is Dustin Dolan.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:54:13

I was going to say he's from Blue Mountains. I was actually going to bring it up. I thought, oh no you remember Dustin?

Shannon: 1:54:18

Yeah, I mean I've, I've, I don't I haven't maintained a close friendship with him over the years but I've seen him a bunch of times Like he's really good mates with. I'm dubs from Hermitude and I manage Hermitude. So you know, when we've been in the States doing different business or touring there, you know Dustin will give dubs a call and he'll talk, he'll be telling some story. You know like he'll be on the phone to dubs and sit in there saying, oh yeah, monk Rodinson's at the house, come over. You know it's another world, right?

Shannon: 1:54:50

But Dustin has like to get dedicated himself to his sport on a level that not like the common person doesn't understand, like we're talking concussions in his forties, like throwing his body around, and on a level that's like reckless. On another it's. You know if you, if you remove the recklessness from it, you just you see the absolute dedication to a life's work, even if that looks a little bit psychotic, and you know doing things to your body that you should not be doing at that age. And you know he's, you know that's what he. He's dedicated his entire life to that thing. And you know I don't.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:55:35

Are you aware of how culturally he's significant? He used to skateboarding globally?

Shannon: 1:55:40

Yeah, yeah, I am. He's from the Blue Mountains.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:55:42

He has because it was more than just his amazing ability on a skateboard, but I mean the way he marketed himself and unconsciously marketed himself by being as real as you can be, just literally being himself. And I really actually love you to listen to his podcast. He did with this skateboarding podcast called the Nine Club and you'd find it's based in America but it's literally two hours of him talking about his life growing up and most of it is about his experiences in the Blue Mountains and I didn't realize how gnarly the Blue Mountains were in terms of like it sounds like a pretty. It was a pretty tough place, pretty raw actually.

Shannon: 1:56:22

It's funny. It's a weird mix, Is it yeah?

Tim (Urthboy): 1:56:25

And in the era that he was there, you know nineties and stuff, so you might find some identification.

Shannon: 1:56:32

Yeah, I mean we used to just skate at the council chambers and you know and you remember Dustin as a little kid oh yeah, yeah for sure, because he was a few years younger than us and the thing that happened then we had a few good skaters not pro skaters, but good skaters and Dustin was one of them. But Dustin was the youngest and he was really little, so the things that he was doing looked phenomenal because he was so small. And you know, I remember when he played the Big Day Out I think it was the first year Silverchair played the Big Day Out- right, yeah, I was there.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:57:04

Yeah, amazing one.

Shannon: 1:57:06

And I remember being in the crowd and you know everyone was just freaking out who's that?

Tim (Urthboy): 1:57:11

little kid. He was skating in the street course at the back of West Silverchair, playing outside the SCG.

Shannon: 1:57:16

Yeah, and he was doing crazy things. Now, at that stage it was, he was a good skater and he's obviously had this appeal, but there's something obviously so much greater about what he had within him Because you don't just go overseas by yourself and swim, you know, that is a scary way to live your life is to dive in fully, in the deep end, and it's clear that his personality he's a and, once again, like you know, I hung out. I have my formative teenage years hanging out with him. I'm not Dustin's best friend, so I feel like I'm not the person to talk about this and I don't feel right to talk about it. That's cool, but from a distance, I think he's one of those people that brings people together and I think there's something charismatic about his personality that makes people maybe not want to do it but just do it, and I think that probably is some element of why he's become such a, you know, such a widely reputed and celebrated skater.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:58:23

Yeah, and it ties in with what you were saying earlier. I mean, he's actually not a naturally gifted skateboarder. He wasn't gifted some X-factor talent. He just was obsessed and skated from feel and then had to be creative in his approach and the tricks that he did to match his ability, and then that created this unique approach.

Shannon: 1:58:49

Yeah, and I know that crew that we had skating Like there was no fucking frills, like there was no fancy you know people with backgrounds that you know like parents are building them nice facilities or there was like advantages. It was just like there was just working class shit like jigging class, drinking cheap wine and just thrashing like just going hardcore. That was, that was. I'm not surprised that there was this tenacity that he had to come out of that space.

Shannon: 1:59:21

And I reckon, most of the skaters were all older than him in our crew as well. That's probably a factor.

Tim (Urthboy): 1:59:26

Yeah, yeah, like when I heard the stories about the Blue Mountains I was like, yeah, like, I guess you know it talks about you know his big massive drinking culture and quite violent and drug problems, like a lot of all those social issues that seem to happen in these the outskirts and the rural areas.

Shannon: 1:59:42

Yeah Well, I was talking to a friend last night about this, like in, when we were going up it was like mid nineties and there was alcohol. It was all goon, that's what it was, and mushy. And mushy yeah, and it was also, you know there was a fair bit of weed around, but it was after that time that the heroin came in, and a lot. There was a lot of IDs and now a lot of people lost.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:00:04

And then we kind of missed the, the ice stuff.

Shannon: 2:00:06

Yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:00:07

Yeah, even after that.

Shannon: 2:00:08

Yeah, interesting, but the mountains seem to have been pretty. You know, held to ransom by heroin for a while.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:00:14

The thing is like that combination of like low employment opportunities, not the money boredom.

Shannon: 2:00:21

Yeah, Like I said, like in our school, like you know, there was no expectations of us up there. So when I said the mountains is a weird mix, there's a lot of wealthy people up there.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:00:30

Yeah.

Shannon: 2:00:31

And there's a. It's a real white, you know, is it? There was. There was a small Asian population, but it was really. You know, it really felt like a pretty white place. In retrospect. Of course, as a kid you don't really think about these things till you move out and you're like what the hell was it? Where am I now? In Campsy or, or you know, bankstown or something like this is real different, but but the mountains were like that. But at the same time there was a lot of real working class and there was a real under, like a dark undercurrent in the mountains, for sure.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:01:02

Yeah.

Shannon: 2:01:03

And there's all these hippies as well. So it's a weird mix.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:01:07

I mean aesthetically and geographically. It's so beautiful man.

Shannon: 2:01:10

Beautiful.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:01:11

Sane.

Shannon: 2:01:12

Still, I still consider it my home, even though I haven't lived there since 1999.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:01:17

Well, I ended up in Cameltown.

Shannon: 2:01:19

Sorry, that was where I was born.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:01:20

The born in Cameltown, blue Mountains, sydney, and now Now a lovely cool country.

Shannon: 2:01:26

A lovely cool country yeah, I'm up here in Newcastle.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:01:28

Can you see yourself staying for a long time?

Shannon: 2:01:30

Well, the funny thing about being here is that I've never thought that I could have a future where I was on the coast. I don't know why I've never been on the coast, but I love it. I love the sun. There's white skin. I have to take care of it, but, yeah, I was a lifetime again burnt, but there's something about it that's really alluring for me. It's really so. The idea of learning how to surf and being near the water is still this sort of version of myself that I didn't think I could have, so I'm pretty excited about it. I love it up here and I look. Newie's always been real good to me. Anyway, like ever since we started touring, newcastle's always sort of been a second home.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:02:09

Interesting Is that because there is a strong music scene up here.

Shannon: 2:02:12

Yeah, I don't know. The Newie took to the herd like nothing else. Yeah, I do, far out I don't know what it was, but we used to pack shows out here and the crowd would be absolutely up for it.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:02:23

What venues Pubs Like the.

Shannon: 2:02:26

Leagues Club, the like we played sometimes. We played the Metro in Sydney which was like a thousand people, eleven hundred, and you come up to Newie we played like fourteen hundred people. But it was the cambo, it was the star.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:02:40

That came to Jota.

Shannon: 2:02:41

Yeah, it was the uni, the bar on the hill, like there was a. We kind of did all these venues in Newcastle. It was just something about this place Like they just really can, we connected with them, they connected with us.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:02:54

I'm like I'm finding it a really interesting place, like there's something in the water up here, like again, I'm coming from the skateboarding angle. So many amazing skaters up here.

Shannon: 2:03:03

Yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:03:03

I mean it's and it's not really a big city with heaps of like skate spots and in fact in terms of skate parks it's got like nothing that great, although they are building one on the main beach. That's not finished. And then, yeah, like music musicians that are meeting just really passionate, and, because I work at a performing arts high school, a lot of the people that are involved in the local music scene, and one guy was telling me like, per capita of population, this place has more live music venues than any other city in Australia. Like, granted, you know they're probably nurturing, but like it's like the bars and the venues here want to support live music as much as possible, whereas seeing why that's happening less and less in Sydney especially and I mean, I'm old enough to remember the advent of poker machines and all of a sudden, like pubs stop, stop getting live music and putting the poker machines in and stuff like that.

Shannon: 2:03:55

I read the other day that Australia I think New South Wales has, you know, like point zero, zero three of the world's population. Now that I know I'm getting this wrong, but as 37 percent of the world's poker machines 37 percent for a population of 24, 25 million Now. I'm going to.

Shannon: 2:04:16

I'm going to probably put my hand up and say that I probably got those facts wrong. But irrespective of the exacts, it's so disproportionate. Sydney's a Sydney's a weird city. You think that it's all modern, but actually like there'll be things like the lockdown laws, the lockout laws sorry, yeah, that was in 2013 or 12.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:04:36

Yeah.

Shannon: 2:04:36

That have eerie resemblance to, you know, like the rum core and like things that happen in like 1800s. You know there is aspects of the way that Sydney approaches culture and alcohol and like late night, late night activities in general, that that make you realize that time time is pretty closely connected, despite, you know, sometimes feeling like it's a million miles away.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:05:00

I think it's those colonial themes still deeply ingrained.

Shannon: 2:05:03

Oh, yeah, for sure. And also the conservative nature of trying to control people, and control people who have, who have a drink or having a party outside of ours.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:05:12

And that's what I think like they control and it's like treat us like babies or treat us like adolescents and then we like it's like. It's like it promotes more of that behavior, Whereas like I was in Spain and like Barcelona, and it's like people drinking on the street and I'm like with glass bottles and I'm like, oh my God, he's drinking like a beer just openly on the street and like yeah, yeah, and it's because they don't behave like that it's not their culture, they would never think about like glassing someone in the face.

Shannon: 2:05:41

Yeah, we have a problem with alcohol and violence in this country. That's different. It's not the same everywhere. And then in England and place like that, yeah, sure, it comes up and like all those countries have their own problems. It's like not, there's no one way of looking at, oh, they've got it all worked out. But I tell you what, when it comes to alcohol and violence, a lot of those countries do have a fucking worked out and they do have the ability to have a drink and not start going. Hang on, what are you looking at? You know, this sort of male aggression that comes out with alcohol is a problem that we have and it's not normal it you don't have to have violence associated with. You know, being tipsy, it's not actually just one. Those two things are directly linked.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:06:23

Yeah.

Shannon: 2:06:23

It's a cultural thing.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:06:24

I think it is. I think there's been a cultural shift away from alcohol. I'm meeting a lot of young people who aren't into drinking. I was like that's different to me.

Shannon: 2:06:32

Definitely yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:06:33

It's really interesting, again, relating it to skateboarding, I see young skaters, early 20s, and they're like clean living. I'm like that was so different. Yeah, yeah, I was like I had to smoke like five kinds before I go skating and then while I'm skating, drink a long neck and put it back. Yeah, just like that. I was like I'm into it. Yeah, they do vape, which I find weird.

Shannon: 2:06:53

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just it's a funny thing because you know they'd have their own version of problematic behavior, but it's the same. But yeah, like it's funny. I was reading some comment the other day saying if you drink too close to sleep, it's always going to damage your sleep. Like your ability to have good sleep is always going to be affected by how much alcohol you have and the proximity of when you have it to when you go to sleep. Gotcha and I was thinking when have I had that language? When I was, no one was sitting there. It's described like it's not a health thing, that's just a sleeping thing. Sleeping is a health thing, of course, but, like a lot of the stuff that we deal with now and the way that young people are kind of thinking about alcohol is because there's been a lot more language created around it that's actually gives you motivating, motivates you to make decisions, as opposed to guilt, as it's a way you shouldn't do it.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:07:44

You know right.

Shannon: 2:07:45

Like it's like oh, I actually, you know, I'm sort of like weighing up the pros and cons of this in a different way than if you were just saying you shouldn't do that, it's bad for you.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:07:56

Yeah, I mean you've been around bars and not in clubs. So much your life. You would have probably seen an evolution of the change in the behavior of the crowds and stuff like that man. It's crazy.

Shannon: 2:08:08

Yeah, yeah, I reckon I mean it's. I mean for me it's because I'm getting older, so the audience is getting older. You're getting more comments about like got to go home because the babysitter is kind of like knocking off you know. I don't know if that's what you mean, but that's definitely become a bit more clear.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:08:26

You've seen that too.

Shannon: 2:08:29

But no, you're right, like people are drinking less. Yeah, and you know what that actually has. A weird problem for music too, because a lot of music a lot of the structural kind of the scaffolding around.

Shannon: 2:08:40

How music exists is like in bars, where they make their money off alcohol. Yeah, people are buying, they say alcohol. The business doesn't have as obvious way of turning a buck, so that affects the way that venues approach music. So, yet again, it's not a red light but it's a problem. It's got to be solved. Okay, well, if the culture of how you see live music and you socialize with friends is changing, how do we adapt to that?

Tim (Urthboy): 2:09:08

Good point. Yeah, I mean I noticed that the Queens of the Stone Age the other night which is like the first big gig I've been to since lockdown's really and yeah, that was just very tame. I don't know if it's because of the age range of people there, but even like, when they started playing some of their heavier sort of more upbeat, up-tempo songs and right in the front of the crowd they were starting to like move around more and whatever Josh Homme, even between songs, is like hey, just go easy, Don't bump into the ladies, Like you know anyway at least around it's been so epic I might start winding it up.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:09:44

But you know is there anything you want to end on? Is there any causes that you want to advocate for or just finish up on, or no, no causes.

Shannon: 2:09:52

I'm just yeah appreciative for the chat. Good to have a chat about things that, yeah, you know, touch on music, but also you know, the deeper part of our, of the way that we connect and, you know, I guess, like things that are important.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:10:07

Yes, likewise and like, do you mind if I share your real name with the audience? Sure, yeah, so Tim Levinson.

Shannon: 2:10:12

That's it, yeah.

Tim (Urthboy): 2:10:14

So good, all right, mr Tim Levinson, everyone, ryan 하는iyorum, sakai, really see you, and cięx.