Interview with SHARDS: ‘We’re like a big Venn diagram of music and all meet in the middle’

Last month, Liverpool-based band SHARDS brought out their latest single, ‘2020 (I Want To Go Home)’, a punchy track they describe as ‘encompassing the feeling of safety, nostalgia and the comfort of youth’.

The band comprises Alex McKenzie (lead vocals/guitar), Paddy Gullidge (guitar), Cain Garcia (drums) and Dan Jones (bass). McKenzie and Jones went to school together and McKenzie describes finding the others as: ‘We were two lonely boys, we cast out the net and these two wonderful boys showed up!’ They came up with their name because it’s ambiguous, according to McKenzie. Garcia jumps in: ‘People can’t put their finger on what we should be.’

For McKenzie, ‘2020 (I Want To Go Home)’ is about ‘going back to how things were in the past when you were more comfortable and less stressed’. Gullidge started the song off. ‘Paddy came up with the riff and it came together from there and I started playing the guitar hook over it,’ McKenzie said. ‘It then took about a year to write the lyrics!’ Garcia adds: ‘Some songs come together quickly but some develop slowly.’ Even the lyrics are tweaked fairly relentlessly, according to McKenzie: ‘The words can be nonsense for months [laughs], I don’t have a magical process. This song predates lockdown and the lyrics get tweaked until we record them.’

The lyrics hint at the overall frustration: I want to go home, the time that we’ve been wasting, when we thought we’d almost made it, I want to go and start it over because I am tired of feeling this low, I want to go.’

”Caspian’ is different, it’s more like ‘Reflections’, a bit more dreamy’

Their next single, ‘Caspian Sea’ will likely come out in January with plans to record a further two singles. ”Caspian’ is different, it’s more like ‘Reflections’ (their debut single in 2018), a bit more dreamy,’ McKenzie said. ‘It’s darker than ‘2020’, both lyrically and in terms of the music,’ Garcia added. Unusually, it is the only song they’ve written where they came up with the lyrics before the melody. The version they’ll release is also very different to the initial one, which was cheerier. ‘We changed the music, Paddy put the guitar line over it and made it loads better,’ Garcia said.

As the song goes: ‘A lovely day to go swimming, where else could I be, a lonely walk to nowhere, I could not believe. I feel I belong here, under the trees, somewhere I don’t need you anymore.’

After releasing their first dreamy, silky single, ’Reflections’, they have had notable support slots with the likes of Black Honey and Tim Burgess. They also played for Liverpool Digital Music Festival twice this year. ‘Reflections’ was taken in part from one of Gullidge’s demos when he joined the band: ‘One track on it, ‘Interlude’, had the guitar line we used in ‘Reflections’, McKenzie said.

They describe their music as ‘enveloping profound anxieties wrapped up in a romantic, dream-like setting’. Their lyrics can be dark yet the melodic pieces are typically packaged in a haunting, gentle, soundscape.

Of their own songs, they all have different favourites. Gullidge picks ‘Reflections’: ‘I love that song, it doesn’t miss a beat.’ Garcia says his favourite is always changing: ‘Sometimes I’ll hear a song after not hearing it for a while and really love it,’ he said. ‘ Jones picks ‘Caspian Sea’: ‘Individually, our favourites lean into different things,’ he said. McKenzie chips in: ‘We’re like a big Venn diagram of music and all meet in the middle.’

In terms of influences, they cite bands such as Tame Impala, Blur, Radiohead and The Strokes. They’re also fans of local indie rock band Zulu, who supported them at a gig back in January. McKenzie is also a fan of Bill Nixon who he describes as ‘lo-fi style, very emotive’. They would all tour with different bands. Jones goes for The Cure: ‘I have a lot of bands that don’t fit our demographic but I adore them.’ Gullidge plumps for Tame Impala: ‘I absolutely love them and their live shows are insane.’ McKenzie picks American band Nile Rodgers & Chic who he saw at Kendall Calling last year. Garcia is quick to say The Strokes: ‘You can’t beat The Strokes, they’re the saviours of rock ‘n’ roll!’

(Photo from left to right: Cain, Paddy, Alex and Dan)