3 Questions with Rees Shad

By Rob Skane.

Over the course of a distinguished career, Rees Shad has established himself as a master storyteller whose songs blend literary depth with melodic craftsmanship. Working within the broad traditions of Americana, folk, and roots music, Shad creates richly detailed narratives that reveal both a keen observer’s eye and a songwriter’s instinct for emotional truth. His catalog reflects a lifelong commitment to the art of songwriting, where every lyric serves the story and every song invites a deeper listen. Please visit www.reesshadmusic.com 

RRX: What was the moment that made you pick up a guitar and never put it down?

RS: I actually put it down all the time.  I like to pick up another instrument and make my brain bend so that the next time I pick up a guitar, I am approaching it with a different mentality. But you were being facetious, weren’t you? I was hanging out with my two best friends in 7th grade, thinking that perhaps we should stop playing air guitar and actually learn to play rock n’ roll on real instruments.  We went about saving our pennies until we had enough money to each buy an instrument.  I had played piano since I was 5 or 6, and writing songs on it pretty much since the get-go, but my folks weren’t gonna spring for an electric piano, so it was decided (by my pals) that I was gonna play guitar. I scratched together $25 and brought it down to We Buy Guitars on 48th Street in NYC and bought myself a Magnatone Tornado Strat-like electric guitar.  They didn’t have a case for it, so I carried it home in a trash bag, worked out how to plug it into my parents’ stereo system, and started working at figuring out how the thing could be played.   About a year later, I got a Goya classical guitar and started bringing that everywhere with me … so much easier than dragging a piano around … and girls seemed to dig sitting and listening, so I kept the guitar around and transitioned to writing songs on it.  I have only recently come back to the piano in a serious way.  Half the songs for the upcoming album are piano songs … which means I now tour with guitars AND an electric piano. Ugh. So much for lightening the load in my old age. 

RRX: If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about playing guitar, what would you say? 

RS: Turn it the f*** down! 

Seriously?  I’d advise myself to drop the pick and embrace the strings with my fingertips.  It took me too long to make that shift, and it has made a huge difference in the subtlety that this instrument is capable of. 

RRX: When you’re not onstage or recording, what kind of stuff do you play when no one’s listening? 

RS: Someone is ALWAYS listening!  Even when I put the aluminum foil hat on. I like to pull out old sheet music and try to figure out what was going on in an old American Songbook-type song.  Songs with changes that I normally wouldn’t play through or write lyrics to.  It stretches my consideration of what I can play with when I am composing.  I’ll also go online and try to teach myself a song that I’ve recently heard.  Like, I have been working to learn Buddy Mondlock’s “The Kid” this afternoon.  Just so the next time I see him, I can maybe harmonize with him and play a solo that doesn’t suck.   But when I first start my warm-up routine, I almost always start playing swinging blues stuff.  Kinda jazzy, kinda bluesy, with a bit of a bop feel to get my hands moving in different ways than I might normally have them move.