Brisbane band Sheppard have recently skyrocketed into success and are this week released their aptly- titled debut album ‘Bombs Away’. We chatted to frontman George Sheppard about their explosive success.
The band’s catchy single ‘Geronimo’ spent three weeks at the top of the charts, knocking Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’ from the top spot.
“It’s pretty humbling to know that something you wrote in your bedroom has been played so many times and been loved by so many people. It’s an unbelievable feeling. And yeah, it’s thanks to the fans and the radios for getting behind us and supporting our song. It’s crazy to even think about. I still don’t think it’s hit us properly yet.” he said.
The band recently visited Perth as part of a national tour supporting Keith Urban, which George says was an unforgettable gig. “It was so much fun. It was the last show of the tour so we gave it everything that we had. Keith ended up asking us to come onstage and perform a song with him so that was pretty special. We got to perform ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ with Keith Urban! How often does that happen?”
Keith Urban is just one of many well-known acts Sheppard has shared the bill with. Others include Placebo and Pitbull, but George says one of his personal favourites would have to be another Brisbane band, Ball Park Music. “They are one of my favourite bands. For my birthday last year we got to do a show with the, we were supporting them in London. That was pretty special. , I don’t know what’s in the water over here but there seems to be quite a bit of talent in Brisbane.”
Sheppard was formed in 2009, but its original incarnation was quite different to the band that’s storming the charts today. George took us back to where it all began. “It actually started with Amy in TAFE, she was doing an assignment. She studied music. I was actually studying acting in Sydney at the time. I was back on holidays and Amy had an assignment to do, which was to write a song with harmonies. And she walked past the shower and heard me singing, you know, belting out some tune in the shower. And I think she saw some potential in my shower voice. So when I got out of the shower she sort of ambushed me like ‘Hey look, I heard you singing in the shower, I know you can sing, let’s go do this song, I need your help.’ So we wrote song together for her assignment and it was so much fun. It just felt right, felt natural so we kind of kept doing it as a hobby and yeah, it just kept building from there.”
The band grew into include four more members including Jay Bovino as a third songwriter and fellow Sheppard sibling Emma. George explains that their creative process is fairly collaborative, with himself, Amy and Jay banding together to write a song before pitching it to the other three members of the band. George says their eclectic musical tastes are an integral part of creating Sheppard’s distinctive sound.
“The 3 writers all have pretty different influences, it’s like I’m into the stadium sort of rock, like Coldplay and Kings of Leon, and U2, that sort of stuff. Amy’s more into old school classical rock like Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones, she’s into the newer stuff like Katy Perry, so that might be where most of the pop influence comes from. And Jay is more of like a singer/songwriter influenced artist so he likes Death Cab for Cutie, Eliot Smith, John Mayer, those sort of acoustic driven artists. So I think those three influences come together, and they create something unique and new. Even though some of our songs wouldn’t be written by any of us individually, when all three of us come together we write these Sheppard songs.”
George says he’s thrilled to be sharing their music when the band tours the album this month. “Right now we’re playing live and people mainly know ‘Geronimo and Let Me Down Easy’, and they seem to really enjoy them because they’re the songs they’ve heard on the radio and they’re the singles that have been released, so. I just can’t wait to get some more music out there so that when we play live people are going to be able to sing along to all of the songs. And it’ll be nice to show a bit of diversity. The album’s quite eclectic in terms of the styles of music on there so, yeah, I can’t wait for people to hear it.”
Find out more about Sheppard on their Facebook page.
Sophie Joske
