For those unacquainted with Sean McMahon – a musician’s musician, as he has been described – his new Americana album with The MoonMen,Shiner, proves a compelling entry point into his heart and soul.
But McMahon’s life of late has not been without trial and tribulation, and though sharing his latest songs has him excited, he is not at all afraid to share his struggles.
“I’m OK,” he sighs. “I think it’s just a long day at work after a big weekend, is all. I’m a cabinetmaker at the moment. You could do worse than that. It’s weird. For a while I’m on the other side of the world playing all of these solo shows, and two months later I work at a factory at 7am and that’s just the reality of playing music at the moment. I’m making interesting stuff, but I wouldn’t call it creative. It’s more like putting together someone else’s jigsaw. Where I work they all like to start quite early, so after your late nights off watching a band, your focus is constantly, ‘Don’t chop your fingers off, don’t chop your fingers off!’” he chuckles.
McMahon’s day job offers an interesting corollary to making music – shaping a piece of wood into a fresh form, bestowing purpose and meaning to an object that it does not inherently possess. Yet while McMahon enjoys his work, he is not one to romanticise the association.
“I definitely think personality-wise, that aspect of my life has shaped me. But I’m not living in some fantasy of being anything that I’m not. I’m not putting on a cowboy hat. I’m a songwriter, but I have a day job. I don’t really live beyond my means. I’m a creative person, but I haven’t had the success with music that’s meant that I can take it easy. And the business side of music is not something that I’m great at. I’d love to be able to play music all the time, and maybe I could with a little more focus, but I’ve spent the last few years just getting life back on track, to be honest. A lot of personal things, and the full-time job. I’m on damage control – that’s where I’m at. Being self-employed for three years, moving from job to job and house to house. That’s just how things have gone for me.”
McMahon’s experiences overseas offer a truly fascinating glimpse into not only his technical craft, but the very way in which he seems to engage with music – as something that can be whittled and reshaped, full of unintended connection and consequence.
“I was really surprised because these were like the most attentive crowds I played. In my first show in the north of France, just in this little bar, there were 40 people sitting here, hanging on every word. And you wonder, ‘How many actually understand what I’m singing?’ It made me think about my delivery, and I really concentrated on the rhythm and rhymes. I put a lot of stress on the most musical aspects of the words. I find it easier to be more expressive with words [than guitar]. You have total flexibility and elasticity in the feel, the intensity and dynamics.”
As for the story of how The MoonMen came to be named, there is a multifaceted history.
“Well, there are a couple of stories,” McMahon says. “One is kind of personal, but kind of funny. In a past relationship, I was working out of town and had a silver suitcase at the end of my bed that I’d pack every time I went away. There was a joke whenever we used to fight, how I had this suitcase always packed. Always ready to run out the door. And I’d say, ‘Yeah, it has my space suit in it. I’m going straight to the moon.’”
Shiner isout now through MGM. Sean McMahon performssolo at The Gasoline PonyWednesday April 6 and withThe MoonMen onSunday April 10 atMarrickville Bowling Club.
