Shelley Short

(February 2006)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

Captain Wild Horse (Rides the Heart of Tomorrow) is a transitional album, created after its maker embarked on a cross-country relocation, taking up her guitar and harnessing the twin tornadoes of liberating exhilaration and stomach-twisting uncertainty that such a move brings.  More than a journey, though, the album marks an arrival; Shelley Short’s countrified folk songs have an inviting warmth that is rare in this era of technology and overproduction.  A happy album even when it's not about the happiest of things, it could be just what you need to chase the end-of-winter blues away.

Let’s start with a little biography, as there’s not that much of that out there yet.  When did you start writing songs?  How long have you been at it?

I was always kind of writing songs without words, since I was little, just fiddling on the piano.  I think I started writing songs when I was in high school, then writing songs on guitar when I was 21.

Was there a parental influence, then, in those early days, when you’re tinkering on the piano?

Yeah, definitely.  They’re very musical.

And some of the influences that we hear on your record now – they come from your parents, playing Jimmie Rodgers records and that sort of thing?

Yeah, all the time.  They would play everything, all different kinds of music.

Nice to have parents with good taste.

(laughs)  I know, it is.  It saves a lot of trouble.

The new record was written during a transitional period, a big move across the country.  For me personally, when I go back to stuff I wrote right around the time I moved from Wisconsin to California, it gives me the itch to embark on another adventure.  Do you have a similar thing revisiting and playing these songs?

Yeah, well, this has been such a big move for me that I still feel like I just moved here—even though it was a year and a half ago.  I feel like it’s pretty fresh.  It’s nice to have things, whatever they may be, to fuel the fire.

With the songwriting process, are you always starting with you and your guitar and then bringing the band in at a later point?

Yeah, all of the songs are written on the guitar—in my room.  On this record, all the songs were recorded with just guitar and vocals.  Then Jamie [Carter] put drums on, and then I met Andy [Rader] and he put the bass on it.  After the record was pretty much done, Tiffany [Kowalski] came on and put stuff on, too.

What stands out to you as the differences between this record and the first?

I spent so much more time on this one.  The last one, for five of the songs, I just happened to be staying with a friend who had a studio.  It was like, “Oh, I might as well record some songs.”  It happened really fast, and it was mixed in two hours. 

That was at Type Foundry in Portland?

Well, five of the songs were at Type Foundry, but five of the songs were recorded out in the desert in New Mexico.  I was visiting a friend and there was a studio there.

Were you writing out there, too, or did you bring the songs with you?

I wrote a couple of songs out in New Mexico, yeah.

I would think that would be an inspirational location.

Yeah, and it’s so beautiful.

Would you like to re-release the first record at some point?

I’d rather make a new one and put that out (laughs) than release that one.  It’s fine – I feel like it’s good where it is.

I have to ask about your song “On the Waterfront” because as an Angeleno I’m required to talk about film whenever possible.  How direct was the inspiration from the film of the same name? 

Well, it was definitely a touching movie.  Lines of the song can be directly related to the movie.  I was watching a lot of movies last winter, after I’d just moved here.  That was one I watched, and I needed something to write a song about that night, so I chose that. 

Aside from the guest appearances, is the band that we hear on the record the same band that’s on the road with you?

Yeah, and this will be our first tour together.  I met Jamie because he’s the one I recorded the record with; he plays drums.  Andy plays upright bass, and I met him at The Hideout in Chicago.  Last, I met Tiffany through our mutual friend M. Ward, who lives in Portland.  She’d toured with him, and when he came on tour last summer, we all went to breakfast, so we met that way.

Are you making it out west on this tour?

We are not going to the west…yet.  But we are soon.  We’re going to Iowa City, Omaha and Minneapolis, then we come back and leave for New York and Boston and Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Will you be playing with like-minded acts?  Do you get on bills with punk bands?

I don’t know.  (laughs)  Tiffany lived in Omaha for a long time, so set up the shows in Omaha and Iowa City, and they’ll be kind of folkie people.  In New York we’re playing with Ida.  And in Boston we’re playing a house show with Casey Dienel. 

Here’s the quick change-up I like to throw at the end – if you get to a point where you’re like Bono at the Grammys—you have a captive audience—do you have a pet cause, something near and dear to you that you wis h more people would pay attention to?

Oh, there are so many things that need help, even just with people—not to mention animals.  I don’t know, I would say right now it would be getting everyone health care.  We’ll start there.