One of the first shows I saw was a
Black Sabbath cover band followed by a
girl with a acoustic guitar
Followed by like another death metal band
And I loved it and that's something that I thought that was so great about Salt Lake was that that could exist here
My name is Andrew Shaw. I have lived in Salt Lake for 10 years and I'm a musician in town
I work my day job is at the Salt Lake City Public Library where I do communications and marketing
So for me and playing music is you know writing songs. I
I I play guitar and I sing and I also play lots of other instruments keyboards and horns and percussion and I
Play the bode saw I try to you know, I like kind of connecting with lots of different ways of making sounds. I
Was drawn I was drawn to music or whatever
We always had a piano in the house and my grandparents had a piano in their house
And that was you know something I was interested in my dad was a piano player and
Okay, my mom he played cornet in high school and my mom played clarinet in high school
And so it you know like they had some foundation of music
And then I think they just saw the music is valuable to teach a child and so they got me into piano lessons and I
Did piano lessons all up through my junior year of high school. So that was like ten years of piano lessons and then
Yeah, I just kind of I think that kind of
it just started it my dad just had like a crappy old guitar and a case and I
figured out how to tune it and
And so I started with that when I was like 15 and so I think I just kept finding these other things and it was
Available to me and it was encouraged and people
Said that I was good at it, which makes you feel like maybe I can keep doing that then and
So
Yeah, I think it was I think was a lot of that and then just I mean at some point. It's just it's just in your blood like I
Just can't I just can't not do it, you know
So my main band right now is called color animal
It's a band that I'm the front man for a play guitar and I sing and I do the main song writing on it
It's a pretty straightforward four-piece rock-and-roll band
two guitars bass and drums it's
made up of
Some friends of mine that we just liked hanging out net or that I wanted to spend more time with even just people that
I thought were kind of fun and I wanted this to be like a fun
Thing and I try to make the music fun and really accessible
As I write the the music part for it
I try to write it as immediately as possible, so I don't try to labor over
Writing the music for it
And so the songs end up
They're kind of in a surf rock garage rock vein
Something that might make you think of the summertime
Hopefully
What's in the the first album that we have out which is called vision lies
It was kind of my first
attempt to get back into rock music because I've been playing quiet folk music solo for so long and I
realized that I kind of become
If anybody knew me and Salt Lake they knew me as like this quiet musician and I wanted to
Start playing rock music
So I just quickly wrote some rock songs that were like again like kind of immediate rock songs and put this band together and came
Out with the album and we tried to do that pretty quickly
So albino father is kind of like the other side of that coin for me
Which I really love as well like leading color animal is great, and I and I love it, but it's you know it
It seems to be more the project that I'm propelling and that I'm doing the marketing for it, and I'm you know
Like I'm writing the Facebook page. I'm booking the shows. I'm trying to keep up
relationships with all these other bands in town to try to continue to make shows and
Writing all the songs and so albino father. I played bass in which is the first band that I've just played bass and bass is
Super fun because you're playing one note at a time
It's opposed to chords or soloing or any of that stuff. I wouldn't say it's easy. It's but it because it's
You can do so much and you can also like do way too much and so trying to learn how to edit and
I think that's something that I do pretty good at. Yeah
Matt Honest is the frontman he plays guitar and sings an albino father and
He and
BJ Gordon and Chris Green the guitar player and the
Drummer have been playing in bands together just for eons. I mean they grew up together and
So I'm kind of the outsider of the the group poking my nose in there, but
Yeah, so so Matt as the frontman is writing the bulk of this song and then he'll
Bring it to us in the same way that I bring a song to color animal or sometimes he'll just bring an idea and we'll start to
vamp on it and it's a little bit more of a
Groovy band, you know, it's like psychedelic and
So sometimes just one part that goes over and over and over is the song and sometimes we go
Okay, well then what should happen here and we do start to work out songs as a group
but
Yeah, I like that my part and it isn't necessarily to bring the initial idea but is to
figure out how to
Improve on it or how to make it sparkle. That's kind of I like that
That part in a band
I was previously in a band called Calico that
had decent success in Salt Lake and
I
came in as the fifth member and
I really was like the sparkle guy. It was kind of fun that I didn't I didn't
I didn't do anything that would seem to central to this song
but then what I I felt like my whole point of that of
Being in Calico was to figure out how to elevate each song and so that's when I played both song
I played percussion and I played pump organ and I was in like melodica and I was able to
Listen to what the other four members of the band were doing and then be like, okay
What sort of thing can I do with a trumpet or a chain or what?
when Calico you did went on two little tiny tours and
When you said house show the first one that came to mind was just for Collins, Colorado
We played in this person's house. It was like a
Duplex and there was like train tracks out front and it was
It was just a magical time. Like it was it kind of felt like
It was kind of the dream that kind of dream moment of being a musician
You're out of town here on the road, you know, you're in the van with these guys that you love and
You're playing music for people who've never heard you and they're sitting there and actually listening and they want to talk to you
Afterward and like, yeah, like those I I'd love to play more house shows
This last year
How where are these people? How do I reach them again?
And do I go back to handing out flyers and so I've kind of started doing that trying to really connect with people because that's what I
Want my music to do. I want to connect with people and I want my friends to show up and I want people to have fun
So I need to get out there and really, you know
make that connection
the last show that we had at this spot, which was
It was a really a goofy venue a weird venue. That's another part of it. It's like
Trying to book a place that people want to go to and so this place doesn't usually do shows
But it's a fun bar and I know that seeing a
A poster or a flyer or a Facebook post that says show at the spot people are like, oh, maybe I want to go to that
People turned out and they danced for it and it was fun
When I first moved here 10 years ago
one of the first shows I saw was a
Black Sabbath cover band followed by a
girl with a acoustic guitar
Are followed by like another death metal band and I and I loved it
And that's something that I thought that was so great about Salt Lake was that that could exist here
The thing about me that I try to approach
Being a musician is I'm lucky to have a job that pays the bills and so I can
Just be a little bit more experimental
It'll freer with this and so I don't have to worry like oh well
I made $30 or I made nothing at that show
Yeah, and I just try to add it to my
experiences I
Don't even know what motivates me now. It's I think it's I've made it a part of my identity
Okay, you know and I see that like I've just told myself. This is what I do
It's super fun to get out of town and
Yeah, having the day job and especially like color animal. We all have sure day jobs and so
Trying to get out of town is nearly impossible. I finally
Forced us to go we buy booked two shows in Boise in June and just was like we're just gonna take a long week
I don't know Boise and and
It was super fun
I mean you connect with these people in a way that's totally different because you're spending all your time together and you're
shoved in a car together and you're
It gave it gave I think it gave me more confidence that our band was
Good yeah that we you know like we're oh we are tight like we went to this other city
Where nobody in there had heard us and and after we played people were like gosh
How many years have you been together and things like that? You know you like
Color animal color animal vision lies is the album. You can get it on bandcamp.com
And hopefully you can get more of them soon
You
Give me just a little more time
You
You
You
