Interview: Shane T on “I’m a Simple Man” and More New Music

Shane T writes music to fall into or out of love to, and his latest single “I’m a Simple Man” is no different. With a perfectly simple structure and well-written lyrics, it makes the perfect song to dance in the kitchen or cry in the shower to depending on your mood. The Nashville-based indie musician shared his thoughts on his newest lighthearted heartbreak anthem along with the journey that brought him to this point and what’s next to come:

You grew up in Florida, went to school in Georgia, and now you’re here in Nashville. What brought you on that path?

I grew up in Florida because my dad worked there, so we were there for 17 years. I went to the University of Georgia because I really wanted to get out of there. Most people from Florida really get that because if I’m meeting them somewhere else it’s because they’ve done the same thing — they also escaped. So I wanted to go somewhere different but not too far away, and since Georgia had a good music business certificate program I ended up there. And I honestly felt like that’s where I needed to be. I talked to my mom in the short time before we were about to go on a couple college tours and just told her I was going to Georgia. It was a really cool, decisive moment. Then I got to Georgia and never doubted it. After my freshman year my family moved up here because of my dad’s work and that spurred the thought of potentially transferring to Belmont. I’m glad that I didn’t but if I knew that the majority of my connections from UGA weren’t going to stay in the music industry it may have swayed my decision. But I could’ve also seen myself doing what happened to a lot of my friends who went to Belmont for music: dropping out of school, hating it while they were there or making pop music.

So when you moved here was it mostly because your family moved or to take the next step with your music or a combination of the two?

I wanted to move to one of the major music cities in the U.S., and I happened to have a free place to stay here with my family. I still had a bunch of friends in Georgia and was still dating a girl going to Georgia at the time. So I moved to Nashville and I absolutely hated it for eight months. Jacob and I were actually planning to move to New York or Philadelphia together but ended up deciding to play it safe. I eventually warmed up to Nashville and met a lot of people and decided I couldn’t leave yet. 

Why did you hate it in the beginning? Were there specifics or was it just not a good fit at the time?

It was the change coming from college, graduating, and then leaving the city immediately when none of my friends went where I went — it was hard just in general. I think I didn’t like Nashville because I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t really like a lot of the music coming out of Nashville at the time, or at least that I was aware of. It seemed really hard to meet people but also the weather. With it getting dark so early and being overcast a ton, there’s literally more days of sunshine in Philadelphia than there are in Nashville. It was honestly a hard time because I moved back home, was dating long-distance, was living isolated from the action in Franklin and didn’t really have any kind of “in” to the industry or local scene here. But I slowly started meeting people and finding more opportunities. The biggest was actually pretty early on when a show back in Athens wanted a local opener for a show with Illiterate Light and Post Animal. So that’s where I met those guys and can literally trace so many relationships to that show. They played up here a week later in Nashville so I went to that show and met Dan Luke at an afterparty and he ended up asking me to play his birthday party and it just was one relationship to the next. So from that point I started to really warm up to Nashville and still really enjoy it to this day, but I don’t think it’s someplace I’m going to be forever.

When did you write “I’m a Simple Man,” and what was that writing process like?

“I use the word impressionist a lot because I think that’s how I record. In the way impressionist painters would just set up somewhere and figure out the quickest way to get a landscape onto canvas and just do it — I feel like I record like that.”

I wrote this song right around 2 and a half years ago, which is just crazy to think about what my life was back then. The first voice memo is from July 6, 2018 and it was essentially complete a day later, then and I added stuff like the interlude later on. I had just gotten my heart broken and it came together in like 30 minutes. And that’s my preferred method of writing a song minus the heartbreak but that feeling of a song just happening. When that happens the lyrics will usually be some of my favorite that I’ve written. The only thing that didn’t come together on this was the production. It was my most simple song and I didn't want to mess it up by adding too much to it. The big struggle was that I had a demo, didn’t update it, then started playing it live. It became something live that you’ll never capture on a recording. If I could go back I would’ve released this song maybe 3 months after I released my EP in 2019 because I had it written and a demo recorded, but when it came time to make the final decision it was too late. I can’t go back to change anything, I’m just glad it’s out now because it taught me the importance of finalizing your vision for a demo first when it's fresh in your mind. 

So why was now the right time to release it?

It’s the oldest song that I’ve yet to release and wanted to release. I genuinely think it’s one of my best written songs so it was never a question of not releasing it. I thought it could potentially be a one-off single because it’s different from the rest. Depending on how the production goes with other songs I’m working on I knew it might fit or might not, but I knew I couldn’t change the production on this one to try to make it fit a record. 

Knowing now that it was written after a breakup I feel like I could make a guess, but would you consider this to be a happy or sad song? I feel like I recognize elements of both but I’m curious about what you think the song’s overall mood is.

At the moment I wrote this song I had gotten past the self-loathing and hysterically sad part of heartbreak. I was at the phase where you haven’t necessarily given up hope but you’ve given up hope in what you had previously. It’s not happy and not sad — it just is what it is at that point. And I was in that mindset when I wrote it and I really like songs that aren’t clearly happy or sad. The ones that run that middle line of just realism. That’s what makes it fun because it could be a sad, breakup song to some people but when you play it live people nod their heads and enjoy it. 

The cover art is also really visually striking, who designed it and how much of a hand did you have in that process?

Constantine Giavos, he does Illiterate Light’s art. He’s another Illiterate Light connection and I just loved the work that he did and he offered to help with art whenever. I have strong visions of what a song or album looks or feels like. I usually describe to him what I'm feeling with the song and maybe some ideas on framing or color families. But I didn’t have that for this one. Because this song could go into cheesy breakup song territory or be too over dramatic it needed to be lighthearted and make fun of myself. So when I listened to it I just saw yellow and an image of a dramatic man laying down in some sort of circle frame. I talked to Constantine about it and he loved it, then he guided on what to wear and where to take the photo and Christina Pope did the pictures. Olivia and I went to a thrift shop 30 minutes before the shoot and found the suit, then Noah provided me with a light blue shirt and we went to the stairs and took a few shots. I sent them to Constantine and he had it ready to go in less than an hour. 

How have the events of this year impacted you creatively? Positives, negatives, realizations, all of it.

I would say big time negative. A lot of it has to do with where I was when everything shut down because I was about to go to L.A to finish an EP with a producer I was excited about working with and I just finished my longest tour. When everything shut down I couldn’t record and the shows I was excited about were cancelled. So I said okay, I’ll use this time to record on my own, but then absolutely nothing was coming out creatively and it was honestly just so depressing for a while. Then I had a knee surgery in June where I couldn’t walk for three weeks. But overall my creative output has been a lot lower than it was before the pandemic. Now I’m just trying to gather my steps and regain that momentum to see what I can do from here on out. I don’t have a label telling me I need to wait or speed up, so I can go at my own pace. 

You’re definitely a Titans fan, so how did you feel when Derrick Henry posted your song on his Instagram story?

It was hilarious. I love the Titans, I love Derrick Henry, but it did literally next to nothing for streams. A couple people followed me and a lot of people liked the post he shared but the funniest thing was getting a DM from a random nashville kid who just said “yo.” I respond to pretty much all my DMs unless it’s spam so I just said “yo.” Then he said “want me to post it too?” I told him sure if he really liked it but he absolutely didn’t have to so he said “aight, gotchu.” And didn’t post it. Did he want me to pay him? Did he think I paid Derrick Henry to post my song?

And what other new music do you have up your sleeve?

I’m going to release at least an EP of 5-6 songs before spring is over, sometime in early 2021. At least an EP if not a full-length. I have several styles coming to me at the moment. Stylistically I’m going in several different directions at the moment because I’m simultaneously working on my next EP and the album that comes after that and going back and forth between the two. I have enough songs to release an album and a half now but they’re not totally finished. A problem I can envision is having the EP ready, then touring almost coming back, then thinking about waiting to put it out. Touring coming back would be amazing and I think we’re getting close to ways to do it safely, but you never know what’s going to happen.

Listen to “I’m a Simple Man” and the rest of Shane’s discography here.