COOL
AS A CAT
The Shades’
frontman Shaun Hough goes over his career and tells AMPED about his interesting
- and a little bit weird -experiences…
Q-Okay, Hi its
Elliot Robson here from AMPED, we just want a couple of answers, we just want
you to let yourself go and reminisce on your highlights and experiences with
us.
A-That seems fine
by me
Q-What was your
inspiration to start ‘The Shades?’
A-Well, my
inspiration would be general Indie and Rock bands. My early inspiration would be bands such as:
The Beatles, The Kinks and The Rolling Stones.
I mean these old bands are f*cking incredible! But the bands I try and
relate to would be: The Strokes, The Stereophonics and The Strypes. But, I love my inspiration, it completes me
in a weird way, you know what I mean mate?
Q-I have heard
that The Shades are releasing their second CD?
A-Oh yeah that’s
right, I know the guy that owns ‘Sound Effects’, you know the one in Ormskirk? Jeff… he’s a good lad him you know. He’s done me a lot of favours. He let the band record the album in there,
because there is a recording studio upstairs, not many bands know about that
which benefits us. The album will be out
soon, maybe just after Christmas.
Q-We know about
the Jaffa Cake incident haha, have there been any other bizarre incidents that have
occurred in the band?
A-Ohh haha I knew
that would come up, that was a weird one! Mad thing is I f*cking despise Jaffa
Cakes now! Oh yeah do you know about the story about the puppy?
Q-No, we haven’t
heard about that one
A-Oh well, we had
this s*ht gig in Manchester that Sam sorted for us! He is a proper doughnut! Well anyway! We had the worst gig ever! And
we missed the last train home; we had to check into a scatty, scary, back alley
apartment. The room stunk of Egg and
Toothpaste because there was a massive bin outside the window. I got woken up by a dog in the back alley; it
was like a terrible groan. So I got up
all the other lads were fast asleep like babies. I look out the window and there is this
deranged skinny dog that was moaning like hell! So theirs me in my bills,
sticking my head out the window. Next
minute one of the lads pushes me out the window and I go flying into this
bin. The dog jumps in the bin and sits
on me. So that night I slept in a
minging bin with a smelly old dog. So I
got the train home smelling of egg and toothpaste. I don’t know who pushed me out that window,
none of the lads will tell me and I don’t think I will ever find out.
Q-Oh Lord! That
story was great! There have been reports that for one of your songs, you took
drugs to help you write it. Is that
true?
A-Well yeah know
what, I am not going to lie to you and I did.
I had writers block, I just could not come up with anything. The band was relying on a good song to go on
this album. So Sam Shaw came round to my
apartment and told me that my troubles would go away, if I snorted this
cocaine. Me being me I did, and I wrote
a great song out of doing it. I am not
going to tell you what song it is, I will let you figure that out for yourself.
Q-So you snorted
cocaine to help you write a song?
A-Yes, but never
again, because I have heard I did some whacky stuff that night. I woke up with 2 midgets, a hooker and a
bottle of Tizer. So never again haha
Q-Do you like the
way the shades are going?
A-Yeah I do, I
mean we are just going at our own pace.
We have sold an album already and that has been very successful. ‘What are you going to do?’ reached
No.1. I am very proud of that because I
wrote that song. But I am very happy
with how the band is progressing.
Q-Would you
change anything in your musical career?
A-To be honest, I
don’t think I would change anything. I
am very happy with The Shades and how we are progressing. There will be more albums to come
