by Jim Testa

Jennifer Shagawat met John “Shell” Driver about 15 years ago at a DIY performance space in San Francisco called Starcleaner. They started making music together – at about the same time that the White Stripes were making a name for themselves in Detroit – and eventually wound up in Brooklyn as Shellshag. For a combo that pares rock ‘n’ roll down to its essentials – one guitar, a minimal drum kit, two voices – Shellshag has always kept things interesting, from the belt of bells that Jen wears and jiggles for additional percussion to the innovative new “pyramid of sound” that the band brings with them on stage, which combines lights, speakers, and effects. They’re also one of the rare Brooklyn bands that’s as home in the DIY lofts and warehouses of Bushwick as the basements of New Brunswick; the pair have insinuated themselves into New Jersey’s underground scene so thoroughly that they’ll be appearing this weekend as part of Don Giovanni Records’ annual showcase concert with Screaming Females and For Science. Recently Shellshag released its first album of covers, “Fuck Society Vol. 1,” on Mauled By Tigers, which includes songs by bands as diverse as INXS, Liz Phair, and Underground Railroad To Candyland. We talked to Jen and Shell via speakerphone to catch up with the dynamic duo’s current activities. You need to have them both in the conversation because, like any couple that’s been together a long time, they’ll often wind up finishing each other’s sentences or thoughts, but it was a pleasure talking to both of them.

Q: What inspired you to record an album of covers?

Jen: A friend of ours, Jesse James, who runs the record label Mauled By Tigers, it was her idea. Years ago I really didn’t like doing covers, and then Shell got me into doing them. She’s actually been after us to do this for years, and now it’s finally here.

Shell: We had a collection of cover songs that gradually built up over the years. I think the very first cover we did as a band was the Liz Phair song, “Fuck And Run.” That goes way back to when we first started playing as a two-piece, with the non-acoustic setup, in the early 2000’s. Once we got to the point where he had learned enough covers to do an album, that’s the point where Jesse started telling us that we should record them. We did so many that we can’t do them all in one set, you can only do a couple each show, so she said we should just put them all on one record. And it started from there.

Jen: That’s also why the album is called “Volume 1.” Because there’s so many that we do now, so we figured we’ll make this “Volume 1” and we’ll just keep doing them. Because it’s become so much fun now, we just keep learning more. We even put together this medley – we’ll be doing it at the Don Giovanni show – that’s just a bunch of our favorite bands bunched into one song. We’re going to San Francisco in March to record a new album, and while we’re there we’re going to record a bunch of other covers and just keep ‘em going.

Q: I like the fact that the album reaches all ends of the musical spectrum, from really mainstream stuff like INXS to punk rock classics like Descendants and Buzzcocks, to some fairly obscure indie bands that a lot of people probably won’t even recognize. A few of them could probably pass as originals if you didn’t introduce them as covers.

Shell: The thing is, they don’t seem obscure to us. They’re from our record collection, they’re songs we listen to all the time and really love. That’s why we’re playing them. We’ll hear a song that we like and we’ll fool around with it at practice, and sometimes we’ll say, hey, we do a really nice little version of that, we should play that one. Once we get going, if we get a song that we think sounds good, it’ll stick around for a while. But from our collection, those are all songs we listen to all the time, from that Warsaw song to the Descendents. We could have done any song from I Don’t Wanna Grow Up, we play that record constantly. It’s one of those records where you just scream along to it while it’s playing in your bedroom. There are a few of them like that. And then with the newer bands, we play with those guys live and when you watch them, you’re thinking, man, we should be doing that song, that sounds great. So all those songs mix together pretty naturally to us, they’re all just greatest hits.

Q: Let’s talk a little about the two-piece thing. I was thinking back to the first time I heard the White Stripes in the late Nineties. They really seemed like a novelty at the time. But today you look around and there are dozens of these two-piece acts. Do you think that’s a reflection of the economy, especially the music industry, and the fact that it’s just so much easier and less expensive to tour with just two people?

Jen: That’s a good question.

Shell: I really don’t know to what degree that’s true, but I would guess there are a large percentage of the bands in that situation were looking for a third person and unable to find that third person, they realized the advantages of keeping it at two. Two is really perfect.

Jen: You know what’s funny, years ago when we were playing SXSW, they actually paid us less because we were two people. And then years after that, they changed it.

Shell: I think they realized that not only was it unfair, but it didn’t make sense. If you have ten people in the band, do you pay them more? Of course not.

Jen: I can’t speak of anyone else, but for us, yes it is an advantage. I think maybe the White Stripes just opened a door to something that a lot of people were doing anyway just out of necessity. And finally when a band was successful as a two piece, it kind of opened the door for radio and the record labels to say, okay, you’re allowed to be a two piece and still be a band. I was kind of psyched about that with the White Stripes. It did make it more acceptable in way for what we were doing.

Shell: I think what’s probably more relevant, as far as the White Stripes, is that it was a boy/girl duo. Back in the 60’s and 70’s, you had duos like Sonny & Cher, Captain and Tennille, the Carptenters, but they always had backing orchestras. No one ever really considered them a two-piece because there were always other people on stage doing the music. Then you have bands like Japanther and Black Keys, and a lot of other duos out there, and we don’t really get compared to them much. But the boy/girl thing is the real connector, I think that’s why people connect the White Stripes to what me and Jen are doing.



Q: When I think of rock ‘n’ roll bands with just one guitar, I always think of Buddy Holly, who kind of invented a way of playing rhythm and lead at the same time. As a guitarist, hass that early rock ‘n’ roll sound been a big influence?

Shell: I have listened to a lot of that stuff, but to be honest, I do a lot of cheating when it comes to that kind of thing. I play through my microphone so I get a little extra organ-y whistle going for leads and stuff. I often wish I was a sharper player because you can do a lot with one instrument. But I think we utilize our voices and maybe distortion a lot to fill up spaces, whereas some of those older bands had an amazing guitarist.
Jen: And when we’re recording, we definitely create more of a big band vibe.

Shell: Yeah, we definitely add more tracks and other players to build a song.

Jen: Live is a completely different beast. And part of it for me has been fun because we’ve talked a lot about adding organs or adding things that we could do to fill the sound out, especially if we’re playing a larger place. But it never really feels right. It almost feels like we’re cheating. Well, not cheating, that’s not the right word, but not being true to ourselves.

Shell: We’ve played a few shows where we’ve had another guitar player come up and play with us, and it sounds fantastic, but it completely changes the dynamic on stage. Suddenly you have this person who’s actually facing the audience, whereas usually people are just focused on watching me and Jen stare each other down all set. There’s a lot of challenged to creating that dynamic with just two people.

Jen: And that struggle has become a real fun part of the project for me. It’s really difficult to fill out the sound when it’s just the two of us. There’s something about us almost failing every single time every second that adds to the joy of it all. That danger is really the essence of what we do.

Shell: We’re not that guy who’s walking across the highwire effortlessly. We’re hanging on by one arm and threatening to fall every single second.

Jen: And we feel so rewarded every night by that. Every show, we get off stage and we think, ‘man, we pulled this off, just the two of us. How did we do that?’ But the records are getting to be a lot more fun for us too. Because we get to hear ourselves the way we’d like to hear us. But I think for the live show, it still works best when people are huddled right around us and it’s a small room. We really have a good time with the energy. It’s different in a big room when you’r eup on a big stage. That becomes a real challenge because we’re this teeny little unit and you want to use it all.



Q: Well, you’re playing Music Hall of Williamsburg for the Don Giovanni showcase, which is a pretty big room. Do you prepare differently when you’re getting ready for that kind of show? Do you build the set list different than if you were playing a basement show to a dozen kids somewhere?

Shell: A little bit. Not entirely. But because we know the sound will be really good there, it’s an opportunity to do some songs that we know we can pull off really well when we can hear ourselves. At a party or a basement, it’s fun for us to know we can do that but you usually can’t even hear yourself so we might do a set of more driving stuff and just feed off the energy. That might be the only difference. Otherwise we have our own little system and it seems to work well.

Jen: I don’t know if you’ve seen us recently but Shell built this thing called the Pyramid Of Sound that we use on stage now. It’s basically a five-sided pyramid that stands between us.

Shell: It’s got twelve speakers and it takes in all the guitar tones and all the vocals, and it all just comes out…

Jen: …of this one giant unit. With the mics and everything. So it’s really unique in that way. It becomes a really intimate experience. So we’ve been thinking about the bigger shows differently, because you have to control that.

Shell: To go back to your question though, the honest answer is that we put together a special set list every time we do a show. Because we play the smaller places a lot more than the bigger ones. How it’s different is that when we’ve done the Don Giovanni shows, or when we were in Europe with Japanther playing bigger places, we put together a very specific set list for those shows. You just have to because you have to tell the soundman what you’re doing and you have a specific set time. When we play the parties, we try to play all our songs all the time, so when we’re at a party, we can just go through any one of them that pops into our head and even do a 25 or 30 song set list.

Jen: The Don Giovanni showcase is special because we’re such good friends with those people and the other bands are so awesome. So we want to do a really special set.

Shell: We were wrestling yesterday with the problem of whether we do a few less songs and a couple of longer ones. Or if we pull the longer ones, we can fit in four songs for those two. So what do we do? We still haven’t decided.

Jen: We just know that we’re just going to get up there and play… and try to cram as much in as we can into a 30 minute set. But you know what I wanted to say? Going back to the covers thing, it’s interesting at this point in our lives to look back and look at all the music that’s influenced you. So Volume 1 is really only a start… you could picture Volume 24 and all the songs we could be doing by then. And we’ve even thought about giving other volumes over to other bands and having them cover us. Because kids have been covering our music, three different bands now have done our songs and do incredible versions. So it’s opened this conversation, and often it’ll be like, okay, they covered one of our songs, we’re going to cover them.

Shell: When a band’s got a good song and they play it for a long time, it’s like they do their standards, and the song is so freakin’ good that eventually no one even remembers it’s an original anymore, it’s like the song’s always been there.

Jen: That’s how Shell actually refers to the covers record, he calls it our standards.

Shell: They’re standards. Everybody wants to play these songs.

Jen: Everyone can, and everyone should.

Q: How about going forward? What’s happening next?

Shell: We’re recording a new album of originals in March. We fuckin’ started on it and we got a little wealth of songs, and we’ll probably have to trim a few of those, and then pull a few gems out of the archives, and we’ll have a new record. We even have two working titles: “The Pyramid of Sound,” or “Keeping The Mission Alive.”

Jen: And we had one other one. “Sorry The World Sucks, But It’s Not Our Fault.”


You can find more about Shellshag at www.starcleaner.com .