Interview with Gazebos

by Matt Dunn

I recently heard a great song by an up and coming Seattle band called Gazebos. The track is off their debut album "Die Alone". The suggestive song is "Just Get High" and it would fit in well on any compilation of 80's Post-Punk/New Wave songs. It's really catchy and Shannon is a great vocalist. I caught up with the band on the phone earlier this month right before they were heading out on their very first tour with Shannon and The Clams!
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Shannon Perry - Singer
Jordan T Adams - Drummer
Shane Herrell - Bassist
TV Coahran - Guitarist


How long have Gazebos been a band for?

Shane:  About a year and a half.

Jordan: Yeah, I think a year and a half.

Jordan: TV had some demos that he kinda started out with and then we practiced instrumentally for a while and then once Shannon joined I think like a year and a half ago? 

Shannon: yeah

Jordan: We played our first show in August of 2014.

How did everyone in the band first meet each other?

Shane: We've known each other for a long time. Just from around town through other bands. 
Shannon: Jordan and TV grew up together and we all probably met between 3 to 7 years ago. Seattle is a really small town. 

Gazebos has a new record "Die Alone" coming out on Hardly Art records right?

Shane: Yeah, it came out on the 19th of February. 

Jordan: Yep, and it's my favorite *laughs*.

How did you get hooked up with Hardly Art records?

Shannon: They are just sort of the local label that a lot of our friends bands are on. When we were thinking about shopping our album around, they were the first people we thought of because they are local and we just know them. Aside from them just being our label, we are friends with them prior so it just seems like the natural choice. 

Is is true that you recorded the album in someone's basement?

Shannon: Yeah, we recorded the album in TV's basement where we have band practice...

Shane: With a Tascam 8-track.

Jordan: And Kurt Bloch did that for us from The Fastbacks. He brought a big 8 track down there and recorded us.

I was going to ask if you were starting a new genre called Basement Rock instead of Garage Rock?

Jordan: *laughs* Nah, I don't think so.

Shannon: It's more of a necessity. Like we need a place to practice and it's free to do it in a basement of a house that you are already in. I don't think it's intentional. It's got really short ceilings and we've got tall band members.

Jordan: I'm playing the drums and I can't stand up in it all the way so it's pretty convenient. 

The album sounds great for being recorded in a basement.

Shane: Thanks! 

What are some of the best bands coming out of the Seattle area? 

Shannon: I really love Boyfriends. 

Shane: Yeah, Boyfriends is really good.

Shannon: They're our new favorite. They are literally all the boyfriends of all the girls in Tacocat. Which is another band that I really like. And I really like Nail Polish. They're not signed to any labels yet. 

Shane: I'm in another band called Bread & Butter which is kinda fun.

Jordan: *laughs* Yeah, Shane likes Bread & Butter quite a bit. 

Shannon: We have a bunch. Childbirth has been doing really well. Pony Time is one of my favorites that I just always love. There's a lot of bands here. It's like every once in a while we have a really good moment where there is a lot of things that are all coming together all at once. Like So Pitted just put out a really neat album. It's hard to talk about one without talking about the community at large. 

Jordan: I like Seattle music quite a bit. At least within the genre of live band performance there's all sorts of weird cool stuff like The Fabulous Downey Brothers. They are amazing. You can go to a lot of different shows and see a lot of different genres within Rock N Roll so it's cool.

Have you ever played with the band wimps?

TV: Yeah we have. Definitely.

Jordan: Shannon used to be in a band with Rachel Ratner from wimps. That band was called Butts and TV put out their stuff and it was great. 

I didn't realize Rachel was in that band. I interviewed wimps a few months back. They are a great band!

Jordan: Yeah they're really good and I love to watch them play. Their drummer is amazing. 

Shannon, I was actually going to ask you about the band Butts. Didn't you record one of the shortest music videos of all time? 

Shannon: Yeah, for "Wiggle Drip". Carlos Lopez, who just did Gazebos newest video. He made a couple of different videos for us when we were in that band. One of them was for "Wiggle Drip" which is an 18 seconds long song but the video is 22 seconds long. We had a crew and extras and everything just for that.

You just recorded a couple of music videos recently. I wanted to ask you about the video for "Just Get High". It's a great video. 

Shane: Yeah, that was done by Daisy Heroin.

Shannon: Yeah, my friend Colin who goes by Daisy Heroin. When he makes a video, he painstakingly places each video frame by frame. He's a very dedicated dude.

Shane: Yeah, super talented.

Shannon: And super psychedelic. I really like how weird he gets. 

Did the video for "Just Get High" take a long time to film?

Shannon: It was short to film but it took him a long time to make each frame. 

Jordan: Our other video for "I Don't Wanna Be Here" took a long time to film because we had like 37 costume changes or something crazy like that *laughs*. And scene changes.

Gazebos is about to go on tour soon with Shannon And The Clams right? 

Shane: We leave Monday.

Jordan: Yeah we are really excited. I think it's 26 days and we are all buds with The Clams and have been for a long time. 

Shannon: It's very exciting! We're just gonna go mostly across the South. We don't get to do much East or West Coast but it will be nice to be warm for a second because it's really dreary in Seattle right now. 

Is this your first national tour?

Shannon: Definitely!

Jordan: It's our first tour actually as Gazebos. I think we've all been in touring bands before though.

Do you ever have any plans to play North Carolina?

Shane: We're not opposed to it!

Jordan: Yeah, I wish!

Shannon: We'd love to get everywhere but it's gonna be a matter of booking it. We're just trying out the first tour and getting that out of the way. We're gonna need to go to the West Coast and East Coast and go to as many places as we can. 

Jordan: We're lucky we are touring with The Clams and now we got picked up by Inland Empire. It's been so nice working with them as far as booking shows. It's a lot easier than calling your buddy and seeing if their older brother will let you throw a house party or something *laughs*.

I wanted to ask you more about Seattle. I understand the city has changed a lot in recent years. Has the cost of living become way more expensive?

Shannon: It's sort of a recurring question in subject matter in both interviews and in just life in general. We've got a tech influx. Microsoft and other companies. It's really changing the demographic of Seattle and also making prices shoot up and sort of pushing out the arts community. It's kind of a bummer but I can't think of a lot of places where that's not happening. It's not like we're unique to that. I think maybe it's a systemic issue more than anything. 

Jordan: It's a big West Coast issue right now. I'm excited to drive through the South and through the Midwest to play some towns that ran off steel mills instead of computer chips. 

If someone hasn't been to Seattle, what are some of the best places to check out? 

Shane: Lots of places.

Shannon: That's always a question I'm very resistant to answer because I don't want strangers to come overcrowd our special places *laughs*.

TV: Go to Volunteer Park and find the water tower. You can see the whole city for free.

Jordan: Gas Works Park is really nice. Golden Gardens is also one of my favorite parks. 

TV: Sound Garden off Sand Point Way. 

Shannon: I know this sounds cliche especially after what I just said. But I just took my boyfriend's parents to the Pike Place Market. It's legit. I go there all the time even though I am from here. That place is beautiful. Just stay off the hill! Don't come to Capital Hill *laughs*. 

Jordan: The science center is really cool too.

Do Gazebos ever do any cover songs?

Jordan: Oh yeah! We love doing cover songs.

TV: There's two on the record.

Shannon: We cover "There are Worse Things I Could Do" which is from the Grease soundtrack. Also "Not Allowed" by Suburban Lawns. And in our live show we frequently cover "Life on Mars" by David Bowie.

Shannon, I understand you are a popular tattoo artist.

Shannon: *sarcastically* Oh yeah...

Have you seen any band tattoos for Gazebos yet?

Shannon: TV has one. Does it count if you're in the band? He's got a great big one down his arms that is some gibberish lyrics that we have. Not gibberish, it's just a backwards phonetic spelling. Also our friend Izzy got a tattoo without even telling us first! It was very shocking. She got one of our song titles "Ere Specka" on her wrist and I was like "oh my god!". That's pretty amazing. That one was done by somebody else. Not me.

I also wanted to ask you about bootlegs. I know Danzig from The Misfits will not autograph a bootleg. If someone had a Gazebos bootleg, would you sign it?

Shannon: Fuck yeah!

TV: Yeah! I'd probably say "Thank you!". 

Shannon: I'm down. We're generally the opposite of Metallica. We're okay with Napster. 

You don't wanna sue all your fans?

Shannon: No, we're fine. It's cool.

Jordan: I think we all really just play music because we like it. 

Shannon: Yeah, we really like people to be enthusiastic. I mean, it's great to make money at doing something. We definitely put a lot of work into this. But it's not like we're gonna be having a task force in order to find bootlegs or something. That's a lot of effort you'd have to put into it.

How many releases do Gazebos have so far? Is it just the album?

Shannon: We just have our album so far, yeah.

Jordan: We put out a two song demo recorded in the same basement. 

TV: On the same tape machine too.

Jordan: But that really just exists on SoundCloud now. 

TV: Yeah, the CD's are sold out. 

Jordan: And I don't think we are gonna reprint that anytime soon.

What are the future plans for Gazebos?

Shannon: Write more music!

TV: Tour the world!
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Jordan: Play the drums!

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 "Die Alone" by Gazebos is out now on Hardly Art Records 
Contact Matt Dunn: [email protected]