Shae-Van Winkle

How did you get started with all this?? Shea-Van Winkle evolved in a step by step process really. Wil Van Winkle had just started performing after a 2 year hiatus, as a solo artist. Brit Shea, his girlfriend and manager at the time, booked a series of coffee house gigs where she began to join him on stage one song at a time. After sometime as an acoustic duo, we began working with multiple hired drummers and bassists before recruiting Chad Pleasant on drums. After a year and a half on the road & a short run in Germany Chad left the band to pursue other projects & SVW returned to playing as a duo relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area to work on new material.

What's the message to transmit with your music?? That's a difficult question because each song has its own identity and is written based on our moods and experiences at the time we're working on the material. I guess the underlying theme would be stick to what you believe in.

What's your method at the time of writting a song?? Step 1 an idea comes, Step 2 grab instrument and attempt to get in the same room for a few hours, Step 3 argue....A LOT, Step 4 argue some more, throw original ideas out, begin again until finally we have something to present to band members-assuming there are any-then begin arguing with them. Eventually the arguing pays off & we get material like "Crucify Me" which was featured in the indie film "Rotkapchen: The Blood of Red Riding Hood"

Which is your music influences?? Our influence vary as greatly as our style. Wil has a lot of blues and classic rock influence as well as some modern/alternative so start with Little Walter, Muddy Waters, Lightin Hopkins, BB King, and move up through the Stones, Zeppelin, Hendrix, and into Audioslave, Alice in Chains, STP etc. Brit's influences range widely from legendary ladies in rock, Heart, to pop power houses like Pink, and local Texas band PJ Flowers. Having been a musical theater major she's also very interested in broadway voices such as Idena Menzel, and Kristen Chenoweth.

What plans do you have for the future?? Winning the lottery & buying this really bitchin tour bus! Unless your readers would like to donate some money to the "get us an RV fund". We have paypal! Aside from those well thought out plans, we plan on being in the Bay Area for a while & releasing a single a month on iTunes, then getting back out on the road again as soon as possible while working on rebuilding the full band.

Which has been the funniest prank you have been or took part while on tour or after a show?? We don't really do pranks. Either somebody is too drunk or too tired after a gig. Although this one time....at Waffle House.....after a Hurricane Ike benefit we were working with a bassist who was messing with the staff, which is usually as far as our pranking tends to go, but he went a bit overboard & was hitting on an 8 month pregnant waitress & had Chad so horrified that he was ready to quit the band. Wil is pretty sarcastic & makes jokes a lot both on stage and off, usually at the expense of others, Brit spends most of her time apologizing for him.

If you were stranded in the middle of nowhere after a show or while on tour. The help is 65 miles away from where you and your band (If any) are, ¿Who would you send to look for help? And if while the rest wait, there's no food and the only way to feed yourself is by eating each other, ¿Who would you eat first? But we have cell phones, its only 65 miles. AAA would only take a few hours to get there, do we really have to eat somebody? Brit is a vegetarian so I guess she'd be the first to go.

Which country you would love to play? Australia or New Zealand, we get lots of sales and some pretty decent radio attention there from what we've read. Then after the gig we can get stranded in the outback & give a better answer for the last question.

With which bands you would love to share stage?? We're like chameleons so we could arrange our setlist to fit in with a few different groups. Kid Rock because would could play all of our material, Black Crows would be cool for our more southern rock/blues based stuff, Alice in Chains, we once shared the front page of MP3 Germany with Green Day & oddly we now live in the same city as them...just waiting for the call...Tre's aunt saw us live & loved us, so, hey guys, CALL!

Are you OK, with the direction the band is going actually? Of course we'd like to be moving a bit quicker, but nothing worthwhile is quick. The next couple of songs we're planning on putting on iTunes are closer to southern rock but in a couple of months we'll be putting up some hard rock, pop punk, and alternative stuff as well. Since we change directions constantly we pretty much have to just go with the flow.

 

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