Shakey Graves

A couple of months prior, however, will see Rose-Garcia celebrating a very different holiday. For the last four years in his home city of Austin, Texas, February 9 has been Shakey Graves Day, as originally deemed by then-mayor Lee Leffingwell. Rose-Garcia’s celebrations have included playing a $5 show, putting his entire discography up on Bandcamp with pay-what-you-want pricing and even hosting a giant game of laser tag.

“As always, it’s gonna be a party,” says Rose-Garcia with a chuckle. “As every one passes, I get even loftier ambitions about what we’re gonna do to celebrate. I’ll just be cloud-talking, saying, like, ‘We’ll rent a boat!’ or something like that. There’ll be a show, of course, and I won’t take any cash from it – I’ll pay my band really handsomely and pay the opening acts three times what I would for a normal gig. I try and use it as a feeding frenzy for everybody – it’s a prosperous time on the savannah, where all the animals eat.”

Although Rose-Garcia has been performing his Americana tunes as Shakey Graves for the better part of a decade, it was only in the last few years that his work began to garner wider attention. A grassroots following and huge sales on independent music distributing website Bandcamp brought national and subsequent global interest. His latest album, last October’s And The War Came, was released internationally this year and has continued to receive warmly positive reviews from all across the world. When asked to reflect on the album and its successes, Rose-Garcia notes that even though the perfectionist demon on one shoulder will niggle away at any perceived flaws, it’s better to take up with the angel on the other side and have pride in what you’ve done.

“You don’t want to end up like George Lucas or something, just constantly changing things and trying to make them perfect,” he says. “I wouldn’t change a thing about this album, but I’ve definitely learned more about the songs when we’re playing them live. I’ve found ways to make the songs sound even better when we’re performing them, but I’ve only come across that through actually playing the songs after the album came out. It’s a real chicken-and-egg situation, if you know what I mean. The main thing that I’ve learned is that you should play a song in as many different ways and as many different styles as possible. From there, it’s a matter of figuring out which one works the best for what you’ve just written, and being absolutely certain about the finished product.”

2015 began in a big way for Shakey Graves, as Rose-Garcia and his current backing band – vocalist Esme Patterson, guitarist Aaron Robinson and drummer/percussionist Chris Boosahda – were one of the final musical guests on the Late Show With David Letterman before the veteran talk show host retired. Although literally hundreds of artists appeared on the show over the years, Rose-Garcia and co. knew the weight of being one of the very last to be seen on the show.

“The whole thing was surreal. It’s such a weird experience because it’s so fast and it’s recorded so early in the morning. It barely even feels like an actual memory – it’s not like we got to hang around and shoot the shit with Dave or anything like that. It was a real ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am’ deal. We took in as much of it as humanly possible, though. It was magical – it almost felt like a dream.”

In the time since the release of And The War Came, Rose-Garcia has been busying himself with extensive touring and media appearances in support of the album. New songs and ideas have come up here and there – a demo collection, Nobody’s Fool, was released online for this year’s Shakey Graves Day – but for the most part, they haven’t been at the forefront of his attention. A key factor in all this is finding the environment that works best for him, as far as writing music is concerned.

“When you’re on the road, writing music is usually the last thing you want to be doing,” he says. “Think about it this way: I’m playing six nights out of the week. When I write music, it’s because I have excess energy – it comes to me when I’m in my robe, I’m off tour, I’ve slept until the afternoon and I feel like drinking coffee, smoking weed and playing guitar. When I’m touring, I have tonnes of shit to do – if I’m not travelling to the show, I’m getting ready for the show. If I’m not getting ready for the show, I’m making sure that I’ve eaten, called my girlfriend, even spoken to my parents. Most of my energy is going toward keeping myself sane.”

He mentions, however, that some jams have surfaced from soundchecks with his aforementioned backing band, which he describes as “weird, complicated surf rock with beautiful vocals”. He’s unsure if this material will ever see the light of day – least of all under the Shakey Graves name – but holds out hope. “There’s some meaning to this madness,” he laughs. “I promise you!”

[Shakey Graves phtoo by Kirk Stewart]