Tonight, Akron, OH’s Shivering Timbers play Off Broadway with our own Incurables (Guitar monster Jimmy Griffin’s most-recent-and-slower-paced-but-equally-as-impressive-as-his-harder-stuff-project) and We Are Warm (Former Chicagoan Derrick Streibig’s melodic-and-often-soaring-and-sometimes-experimental-rock-project).

Shivering Timbers’ sound is an intriguing, confounding (in a good way) mix of delicacy and darkness. It would provide the soundtrack to a film wherein Mother Goose slings back Jamesons with Ichabod Crane. ST’s Sarah Benn answered a few of my questions about the creation of the band, performing live, and working with The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach.

So you and [husband] Jayson released ‘We All Started In the Same Place‘ in 2010 (Brad Thorla plays drums for ST). It’s a collection of songs with influences from all across the board, thematically centering on the birth of your daughter. What’s it like to make music as a family? How does it feel to create a piece of work both for an outside audience and for yourselves, as a relic of this important time in your lives?

We share a lot of mutual interests outside of music as well, but somehow I think it’s all related. The life we live together is what inspires the musical choices we make, and as life changes, so does our music. Our newer material is a little heavier, and I think that mirrors our life – these times are tough for everyone, and life feels heavier.

How long have you been playing together and what was the catalyst for becoming an actual band?

Recording the album is what made us decide to consider ourselves a band.  We knew it was a great record, so different and unique, we couldn’t just leave it sitting on a shelf.  So we went to work trying to figure out what kind of band we wanted to have, and the simplicity of a trio was what took.

I know that you and Dan Auerbach are both from Akron. How did your band and Auerbach cross paths, and what was the experience like working with him?

I first met Dan when he would come hear my old band (The Rhondas) perform. I was pregnant I think, and so was his wife. She and I met a few years before, then bonded through the shared experience of having our first child around the same time. We’d take our babies on walks together since we lived close by. At that time neither of us had childbearing friends; we needed each other. Of course recording music inspired by a shared experience made the work in the studio a piece of cake. Dan understood us. He ‘got it’.

I was fortunate to catch S.T. play a set at a design and music conference in Cleveland earlier this year. It was a weird atmosphere, with people funneling in and out of the bar and a bunch of sunlight behind you guys. What kind of live performance “principles” do you ascribe to that keep your shows sharp and interesting regardless of setting/venue?

When I get on the stage, I try and lose sight of the activity going on around me.  I attempt to just get inside the music and feel it the way I want the audience to feel.  It can be hard to do when there’s crappy sound or some other issues that come up from time to time, but at some point you just have to let it go and sing.  And I love it.

 

Show Notes:
— Songs are starting somewhere between 8:30 and 9p tonight. They should have you home before midnight.
— Price – $8/$11, and more info can be found on this FB invite. Enjoy!