The Shane Parish Interview
Athens, Georgia-based guitarist Shane Parish devotes much of his time to developing his singular and expressive voice as a composer, improviser and songwriter. He is a self-taught musician who communicates through emotion, unexpected melodicism, technical whimsy, a nuanced sense of form, and rich timbral variety, simultaneously drawing from the guitar’s history and aiming for its future. Avant Music News described Parish as “one of the most consistently innovative finger-picking acoustic guitarists in a generation.” In 2016, he was recognized for his solo acoustic efforts by composer John Zorn, who issued the album Undertaker Please Drive Slow on Tzadik Records, hailing it as “a remarkable and soulful acoustic solo project that digs deep into Appalachian roots… At times reminiscent of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, at times of John Cage and Morton Feldman.” Parish has self-released numerous recordings of folk interpretations in the years since Undertaker. According to All About Jazz, "Parish's deeply personalized spin on roots music transcends any semblances of playing it safe. More importantly, he establishes a musical conduit that pays homage to tradition while unlocking new passageways, enacted with the utmost sincerity." In 2022, he released Liverpool (Dear Life Records), a collection of sea shanties and nautical ballads reimagined for electric guitar.
Folk Radio UK noted, “One of his reasons for making this album was to unlock ‘the code to resonance within the body’, the inscrutable power that exists within worksongs that makes them timeless and uniquely human. It’s safe to say that he has achieved that goal and made a breathtaking and singular album in the process.”Parish also fronts the electric prog-punk band Ahleuchatistas, described as “…knotty, instrumental rock that blends punk, prog, jazz, non-Western music and improv into something exhilarating and even awe-inspiring [Wire Magazine]", "possessed of many moments of beauty and mayhem [Pitchfork]", "the kind of musical tug-of-war that sounds as jagged as it is graceful [NPR]", and "music of upfront physicality and twitchy intent [New York Times]”. Their 2004 album, The Same and the Other, (re-issued in 2008 on Tzadik Records) was described by John Zorn as “one of the most intense documents of compositional rock complexity ever recorded,” and “a cult rock masterpiece.” Ahleuchatistas has toured internationally and released nine albums on labels such as Tzadik, International Anthem and Cuneiform Records. In 2022 the band released their head-exploding maximalist 9th album, Expansion, with an all new trio lineup, featuring legendary bassist Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle) and drum virtuoso Danny Piechocki.
In recent years, Parish has been performing a collection of original outsider folk songs that combine play-on-words about cognitive dissonance, personal excavation, sweet longing, subtle subversion, moral support, and mourning, with his singular and intricate acoustic guitar inventions. Like the scattershot trajectory of his career—free-folk improvisor, finger-style experimentalist, prog-punk shredder—Parish’s songs integrate a wide range of styles and techniques into well-crafted nuggets of sincerity and whimsy. A blazing country blues about apocalyptic forebodings careens into a mid-tempo minimalist pulse drone, ornamented by ethereal whispers of good intentions. An odd-metered contrapuntal prog-folk psychological thriller depicts the inner tension between multiple selves searching for authenticity. Delicately fingerpicked minor figures cascade beneath a deadpan spoken word poem about the futility of waiting to subvert the system from within. Harmonically rich and meticulously constructed musical eulogies mourn the passing of friends and loved ones, while basking in their eternal presence. The pieces move seamlessly in and out of Parish’s breathtaking instrumental flights of fancy, and candid extemporaneous musings. In the Spring of 2021, Parish received a surprise message from guitarist/composer Bill Orcutt, asking: “Can I send you some music?” Orcutt sent a recording of his forthcoming album Music for Four Guitars, and asked if Parish could transcribe it. Parish produced an 85-page score that was included as a PDF download with purchase of the album, which was released in September 2022.
Subsequently, The Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet formed with Ava Mendoza and Wendy Eisenberg joining Bill and Shane. The group began performing in Spring of 2023. Parish also enjoys improvising with friends and teaching lessons.
-Bio from Pasrish’s site
Are you originally from Asheville, NC? What was your childhood like growing up? I understand you first playing at the age of 14 in the early 90s. Are you self taught? Was music relevant around your household growing up?
I was born in Miami and grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I lived in Asheville for 20 years, from August 2001 to January 2021, age 23 to 43. My childhood in South Florida was marked by poverty, fear, insecurity, and abuse. My parents divorced when I was still a baby. My father was a boxer. He suffered a brain injury in the ring when I was four years old which left him paralyzed and brain damaged for the next 16 years of his life. He was replaced in the home by a megalomaniacal coke head of a stepfather, who tormented me physically and psychologically until my mother divorced him when I was 13. There is quite a lot to unpack here, and I have done a lot of work to heal and break the cycle, and, as my therapist years ago said, “it’s a miracle” that I’m here. Luckily, I discovered MUSIC! I began teaching myself to play guitar when I was 14 years old. And this proved to be a miraculous escape from the chaos of my childhood environment. I formed bands with friends and wrote songs and played at open mic nights, and took psychedelics and jammed out all night in the warehouse my friends and I rented in Dania Beach. Music became the only thing that I cared about. I dropped out of high school to pursue my life in music. So, I worked in the kitchens of restaurants for over 15 years until I could eke out a living at it.
Do you have any siblings? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your formative years? Who would you say has impacted you the most as far as the direction in music you’ve taken?
I have two younger sisters, Elyse and Deanna. I’m very proud of them both. Elyse has Downs Syndrome. And if you have spent any time around people with downs, you realize what enlightened beings they are who walk among us. There is so much to learn from them about experiencing life fully, with your guard down. A few of my earliest influences, after I realized I wanted to take guitar very far in my own direction, were Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin and Robert Fripp. I was a big Floyd head, and a Dylan freak, and a metal head, and I got way into jazz when I was 16, or 17. John Coltrane, his whole ethos of continual growth, musically and spiritually, has been perhaps my biggest influence throughout my career.
Did you participate in any groups, or projects prior to setting off on your journey as a more solo musician? When and where did you play your very first show and what was that experience like for you? Tell me about writing and recording your debut album in 2015 “Odei”.
My main band for many years was Ahleuchatistas, formed in 2002. This was the band that I started releasing albums into the wider world and touring with. I was involved in many other collaborations and bands prior to and alongside it. But, Ahleuchatistas is the place where I really let my inclinations be completely free and I compose and play in an idiosyncratic way. I My first concert was actually at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Hollywood, Florida. I was 16. My friend Chris and I had a band called Union Prayer Book. He was a singer and he wrote all the lyrics. I wrote all the music. This was my first band. The show was actually pretty successful and a bunch of kids and teachers from the high school came, friends and family. Everyone was really impressed. I thought for sure we were going to be big stars after that. Odei, my second solo acoustic album, and first totally improvised one, was recorded at home in Asheville in 2014. At that time, I was playing with different free improvisers on the scene who would just hit record, crank out albums and release them. I had always been carefully planning all of my albums, composing and rehearsing. Feeling inspired by this more off the cuff, let-it-ride attitude, I set about to record a solo acoustic album of improvisations.
How did the deal with Marmora Records come about and would you mind giving a little back history to such songs such as “Torture Fabric”, “Blind Contour” and “Is That My Daughter To Be”? What was the overall vision you had in mind for your music on this early project? What did you want to achieve/express with your work the most with this release?
I don’t remember exactly, I met Marmora online and they expressed interest in doing a tape release. Honestly, I would have to go back and listen to the album to give you more specific feedback about each song. But, I do know that my wife was pregnant with our daughter during this period of time and I was psychically feeling the emergence of this being that we created together. I was speaking to them while they were in the womb. And playing music for them. An improvised recording like this documents where you are with your music as a disposition and mechanism, at a particular point in your life. It’s a freeze frame of what is otherwise a fluid state. I don’t record solo improvised albums very often. I feel like some perceived growth needs to occur for me to do that. Or a life change. Like when I moved to Athens in 2021. I went right into the studio and I recorded Viscera Eternae, a solo acoustic improv LP on Ramble Records (2022). As well as Disintegrated Satellites, an EP I released digitally on Bandcamp.
That following year in ‘16 your very acclaimed release, “Undertaker Please Drive Slow”. Tell me about writing and recording this album and what went into this project. What was the overall vision going into this one? How did the deal with Tzadik come about? This was around the time I first became aware of your work!
“Undertaker Please Drive Slow” came about by accident. I was not planning to do an album of folk music. Though, I love folk music and have since I was a kid. Around the time that my daughter was born, I cut back on playing gigs, so I did not have a lot of music that I needed to practice for performances. I started spending my guitar time just playing open strings and pulsing my fingers in a meditative trance, being mindful of the pure act of touching the instrument and listening deeply. I did this exclusively for a few months. The first thing I did at the end of this incubation period was record a bunch of folk songs in one take that were in a book called “Flat Pick Country Guitar”, by Happy Traum. I just opened it up and started improvising on the tunes. Kind of reading the melodies, but being really playful and loose and taking them way out. I sent this recording to John Zorn who I had worked with on a couple Ahleuchatistas albums, and he immediately got back to me and said he loved it and wanted to produce and release a recording of solo acoustic music for me. So, I spent the next eight months being much more considerate about the repertoire that I was going to put on the album and developing it a little more than just zoning out on some charts that I had never looked at before.
I’d like to jump ahead a bit and highlight some of your monstrous collaborative releases with folks such as Toshi Dorji, Tatsuya Nakatani and Michael Potter. What is the experience and process/approach of working on a collab compared to releasing something entirely on your own?
I often find it easier to bounce off of someone else other than just myself. It really puts me in the mood when I am in the presence of another musician whom I vibe with. I love the recordings of the collaborations you mentioned, and would add my duos with Wendy Eisenberg, Frank Rosaly, Michael Libramento, Jacob Wick, and John Kiran Fernandes. Plus, Library of a Babel, my trio with cellist Emmalee Hunnicutt and bassist Frank Meadows. These are all dear friends and wonderful musicians. I am ultimately in it for the connection, the friendship, and the adventure! If we can document some thing magical or perform a transcendent concert, there is no better feeling.
I understand you teach music to children, correct? Would you mind telling me about that and how that compares to performing live for an audience? I’m curious about the teaching/performing dynamic? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
I get the same thrill from teaching a great lesson that I do from playing a great concert. The teaching and the crafting and the performing all go hand-in-hand. It’s all one and the same thing. I like to think that I don’t teach lessons. I have conversations. And I learn so much from these conversations. And we have so much fun. And I experience so much goodness being around students of all ages who are drawn to the guitar as a means to express themselves. People would be less cynical if they saw what I saw. Coming up, in 2023 I will be touring with Ahleuchatistas and the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet. I’m working on some different recordings, my singer songwriter album, and others. And I’m just generally trying to grow as a musician and person.
