Jack Shaw (Dancing Lotus) Interview

I recently met up with Jack Shaw, front man to local group; Dancing Lotus, an original sounding group of Lincoln University graduates whom achieved significant attention from media, record labels and public alike with their original sound and dedication to music during and after their time at Lincoln University.

Jack, your band Dancing Lotus started off and formed at Lincoln University, can you just say how you got started off?

Well basically I came down to Uni, a week after Fresher’s week my funds were running low as my loan wasn’t in, so I decided to go out busking in town and made £20 or £30 and thought “this isn’t a bad city for music!” then I started jamming with my house mates and formed what was the original Dancing Lotus. Then in my second year I met up with Joe Mac (guitarist) and Nick Long (violinist) and through Nick we met Woody (bassist). After a year of jamming around I met up with Weird Productions, who produce a lot of Hip-Hop/Rap sort of stuff, and met Lanre (MC) who asked me to feature on one of their songs and that’s how we all got to know each other. After a while we formed as a full band and from then on started putting out albums playing more gigs and then moved on to our second album.

After forming as an eight piece with such a new, original sound, how did Dancing Lotus’ music settle in, did you encounter any difficulties?

As a band, as we are so different, we have had a lot of criticism and the biggest question we get asked all the time is “why don’t we have a drummer?” and the answer is that we use beats and it gives a different kind of sound to create another level where we can control what we do with it and kind of construct different things.

Our first album was all acoustic and was recorded onto a mini-disk that kept over-heating, making it a fucking nightmare! Let alone it was recorded live in front of eight people whereas our second album was more electric and silenced many of our critics. We’ve recently just finished recording our third album which is going live on iTunes in October hopefully, as well as gigging around to promote it.

This is a part of the Fresher’s edition of Bullet, many people will be coming to the university and will be looking to start a band or musical project, just like you and I did. What advice as a successful musician who started without a band when you came to university in a small and musically limited city that you can give to these aspiring musical first years?

I wouldn’t say so much that the music scene here is limited but more that it is the same as anything, if you want to get something to do with music out of somewhere, then go out and gig. There is plenty for people to do to make it their scene, for example if you are someone like me then I go busking and people notice you, leading to being asked to gig as well as there being loads of Open Mic Nights and if you want to perform as a band then the best thing you can do is wait until you meet someone, even on your course and if you love music then you’ll naturally fit in circles that are filled with similar minded people. Just jam around and don’t be afraid, just take things as they come. If you want to set up a band then Lincoln is such a great place for it because it’s such a small community, you’ll soon get introduced to people who are doing the same thing you are.

There will be many students here that will be looking into doing a whole range of different types of musical involvement or creation. I’m very aware that this alone is intimidating let alone starting out in a new city and trying to get involved with all types of different music genres. Any experience you can hand out?

The great thing is with Lincoln is, especially with the amount of students here, people are susceptible to new music. There is the Mix Introducing on BBC Radio Lincolnshire broadcast every Friday night from seven to nine that have new acts come on and play four songs, then have a chat with you about your music. They’ve had music ranging from rock to grime on there. Just don’t be afraid to be different because ultimately if it’s what you love doing then you should do it.

You have your own record label now, and as you’ve shown me you have been working with Tyrone (Dancing Lotus’ backing singer) on an album of his own which from what I’ve heard from what you’ve shown me sounds amazing. Anything you want to say on the matter?

We have our own record label now called DLG Records which is based in Lincoln, we’ve just signed Tyrone who’s our backing singer and we’ve written and produced an album for him which is going live in October as well.

Forming The Band by Billy Lunn (The Subways)

Beginnings

Songs, to me, are what it’s all about. My first ever experience of really loving a song, or music for that matter, was aged six or seven when my mum first played me Smokey Robinson & The Miracles’ “Tracks Of My Tears”. It was, from that moment (and still is now), my all time number one favourite song. I heard it on the stereo at a friend’s house recently and it still sends shivers through me and strikes me as musical genius - if there is such a thing - in so many ways. The way the phrases transition and flow from one to the next, always keeping in mind its impact and its subtlety. Every time I write a song I guess I’ve always got “Tracks Of My Tears” in the back of my mind. Then one day, having professed this love of song to my dad, he decided to share with me some of the magic of his CD’s. I listened through them all with a consuming enthusiasm and said offhand one day, probably before I was about to go out and play a bit of footy, that my favourite of the bunch was AC/DC. My dad smiled at the idea of me liking rock ‘n roll and soon I found myself at my first ever gig – AC/DC at Wembley stadium. He took my brother and I, who, at only eighteen months younger, was my partner in crime in anything that I did, and we experienced something that was to totally alter the way we saw the world.

Forming the band

A couple of weeks after the AC/DC gig the tinnitus eventually wore off and I found myself suddenly able to concentrate properly again and I decided, with this new found cognitive ability and love for rock, to form a band. It felt only right to include my brother in this adventure. We had no idea how we were going to form this band until I heard “Supersonic” by Oasis. That was the moment I turned to my mum and said “Mum, I have to learn to play the guitar…” Being the ever-supportive parents that they always were (and have been) they indulged our interests and soon I found myself playing a ratty old acoustic guitar that one of my nan’s lodgers had left behind after fleeing without paying the rent. It had only four rusted strings when it was handed to me, but soon it was fully stringed and tightly tuned and I could begin to play the songs I loved. I bought a chord book and began learning all the chords to my favourite songs and eventually felt confident enough to start singing along too. Shortly afterwards, Josh came across Nirvana and then Smashing Pumpkins and decided that drumming was what he wanted to do and before long we were making a racket together, as things were always done with us, on our newly acquired instruments. At the time I’d started seeing a girl I’d met at Harlow swimming pool called Charlotte Cooper. Now and then, when she’d come round the house to see me, she’d have to sit through at least half an hour of Josh and I jamming out a cover of a Foo Fighters song and so in order to quash her boredom we decided to let her join in. We had a four sting bass lying around and soon she’d taught herself Nirvana’s “About A Girl”. Not long after that we began writing songs for ourselves.

Glastonbury 2004

Our first ever gig was at The Square in Harlow and to this day it remains a very important place to us. Our gig consisted of six covers and six original songs (that were utter rip-offs of the covers we were playing that same night) and it was probably one of the worst performances The Square’s legendary walls (and the audience within those walls) had ever seen. Though The Square became a continual source of support and encouragement and soon we found ourselves recording demos there. Eventually we bought a cheap recording unit and some microphones and, using the experience we had gained from the wonderful people who helped record our demos at The Square, began making demo CD’s of our own at home. After some time, maybe a year or so, we’d made six EP’s, each with three songs on, and had sent them out to London promotors. Our first London gig was at The Buffalo Bar in Highbury/Islington. It was also the venue where we met our manager who, after three songs, ran up to the stage from behind the sound desk and begged to manage us. From that point onwards we played at least three or four shows in London a week – and all of this whilst Charlotte was taking her A-levels at school and Josh and I were working at a hotel as linen collectors during the day. We began developing a regular crowd that eventually formed into a fan-base. I’d spent a little of my very small stash of cash from work to set up a website (www.thesubways.net) and a forum where all our fans could talk and meet, and where we could also meet the people who were enjoying the demos and the live shows. Then it got more serious. Record labels began appearing at gigs, John Peel was playing our demo on his show and soon we found that we were being mentioned in some of the London based music press reviews sections. Also around that time, in order to gain more experience and just to have a bit of fun, I took up recording other local bands on the recording unit we'd bought. I asked one of the bands I was recording at the time what they were going to do with the CD once I’d mixed it and they said they were going to be sending it off to Michael Eavis for a competition he was holding that year. Apparently, if he really enjoyed your demo then he’d put you onstage at Glastonbury festival! As soon as I heard this I put our three best songs out of all the demos we had onto one CD and sent it off amongst a batch of thirty other CDs that were already going out to London promotors for more shows. And then we got a phonecall…

All Or Nothing

We were picked to play on The Other Stage at Glastonbury in 2004 and immediately afterwards began booking our very own self-funded tour to follow that up starting in October 2004. The Glastonbury show was a success (we played at 1pm to 10,000 people) and we were determined to throw ourselves into the music. Josh and I quit our jobs and Charlotte decided to defer university for a year to see how things would go. As it turned out, she wouldn’t be going to university after all. In December 2004 we signed our record deal with Warner Music and in the February we began making our debut album, Young For Eternity, in Liverpool with famed Lightning Seed, Ian Broudie. The album was released on 4th July 2005 and got to number 32 in the UK charts and we scored five top 30 singles and eventually sold half a million records worldwide. After two years of constant touring around the globe and learning new things from all the new countries and cultures we were afforded the opportunity to see, we began working on our second album, All Or Nothing, in Los Angeles with legendary producer Butch Vig. This album was released in June 2008 and we reached number 17 in the UK charts. Since making our debut album we’ve toured the world countless times and played in the UK (obviously!), America, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Italy, Greece, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. We’ve been lucky enough to have played with our heroes Oasis, Foo Fighters and AC/DC on several occasions, each with audiences up to and over 50,000 people. We’ve performed at Reading and Leeds festivals five years in a row and will continue to play there for as long as we can! And, for us at least, the adventure is only beginning!