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.
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