A Chat with The Dead Shakers (15.09.22)
Floating in the form of a musical collective led by singer-songwriter Kevin Bloom, The Dead Shakers is a genre-defying group ranging from acid rock to ambient pop. We speak with Kevin Bloom about their new album Some Shapes Reappear, speaking to the world and future plans.
OSR: Music is an important part of life for any musician, so what does music mean to you?
Bloom: My music and my life are indistinguishable, I can’t tell the two of them apart.
OSR: How did The Dead Shakers come about?
Bloom: The Dead Shakers is a band that came to be after I stayed up all night and watched a Ken Burns documentary about the Shakers.
OSR: What or who inspires you to make music?
Bloom: I don’t think I need a tangential inspiration. I am music and music is me. Through my life experiences and thoughts on things, the music just sort of appears in my head and then I just have to translate it through producing, recording and mixing.
OSR: What can you tell us about your album Some Shapes Reappear? Is there a backstory
or theme to the album?
Bloom: The title comes in conversation with the last album All Circles Vanish. “Some Shapes Reappear”.
OSR: If you could change one thing about the album, what would it be and why?
Bloom: I wish I could have finished the album sooner. It took 3.5 years to make from start to finish and one day I’d like to figure out how to get my sound a little quicker. A large part of the sound is intricate and psychedelic layer upon layer, so that type of thing just takes time if you’re going to do it right!
OSR: Which song on Some Shapes Reappear is your favourite and why?
Bloom: Since all of the songs flow into each other, I hear the album as one long song with several parts.
OSR: What about a least favourite song?
Bloom: Based on my answer to the previous question, I think that would be like saying I don’t like the whole album! Ha! Although, if it’s one big song that means it’s my favourite and least favourite if we were to follow that to its logical conclusion.
OSR: If you could pursue any career (other than a musician), what would it be?
Bloom: I’m especially interested in genetic sequencing and how it has a real potential of massive positive benefit to the people of Earth as it becomes accessible to regular folks all around the world in the near future. Combined with vehemently open-sourced freeware, I think there’s an opportunity in offering the poorest farmers on Earth a hand in controlling and owning their own crops to break the colonial debt cycle of western agricultural monarchs. I’m thinking about going back to school to study sequencing plants but I haven’t made up my mind yet.
OSR: If you had the attention of the world for one moment, what would you say?
Bloom: Well, it would feel really weird to talk about my music and not something more important like world peace, the global climate crisis, or the urgency of ending world hunger. I’d try to think of the right thing to say, but honestly, the pressure would probably be too much for me and I’d defer my time to an expert. Those are the things I think the world should hear as a whole.
OSR: Do you have future plans as The Dead Shakers?
Bloom: Of course! We’re always making new things. But for now, I’d encourage everyone to listen to our album Some Shapes Reappear.
Many thanks to Kevin Bloom for speaking with us. For more from The Dead Shakers check out their official website, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
