I had just got back from walking the dog when I got a message saying “they’re here, we’re having French martinis, come over”. I made the conscious yet questionable choice of wearing my ugliest lilac fleece and hopped over to my friend’s place, sliders over socks and all.

I let myself into the living room filled with smoke, records flipping on the turntable. It felt like a get together of old friends, everyone was getting along and chatting away like being into the same kind of music can make people do.

Shadow Show had left Detroit some 24 hours earlier to travel to Toronto Airport (flights out to London were cheaper from there), and had gotten to the airport some six hours too early by mistake. They had been traveling for the better part of a day, but if they were exhausted it didn’t show. Perhaps it was the excitement of finally being on a tour they had planned to go on two years ago, before we had to convince ourselves that we were actually happy to be watching a live-streamed concert instead of breathing second hand smoke and drinking cheap gin and tonics in overcrowded venues.

They had to pay for an extra suitcase filled with merch, which, they said, better be empty in a months’ time, when they were due to fly home. They said how much it weighed but I only do Metric system so I don’t remember. I made a mental note to purchase a t-shirt before their UK tour came to an end because, I must admit, I was already enchanted.



Ava, Kate and Kerrigan (but she also goes by KP), have known each other since high school, and the chemistry shows, not just when they’re playing. We talked, not in this order order, about welding, dogs, children shoes with soles that light up, their new album, Ava and JD’s rescue pitbull, and the cost of getting stuff printed if you don’t have the contacts. It was delightful. When I left them it was close to 12am, and they were eating a plate of spaghetti with ragu.

By the time Shadow Show came back for their last evening in Alston Works, they had played in Bristol, Cardiff, Brighton, London, and Newcastle, and had recorded a live session at Act Cool in between. We sat down, KP with a Marlboro red in her hand, Ava and Kate drinking an elaborate lime and basil liqueur we’d taken out for the big occasion.

Call me corny but I stand by it: if there were a fourth and a fifth member of Shadow Show, they'd be the city of Detroit and the spirit of the 60s. I’ve never been in Detroit, I’ve never been in the USA for that matter, but I’ve seen movies and I’ve read articles and I’ve seen photos and I have a vivid imagination. Having been born in the 90s, I’ve also never been in the 60s, so make of this what you will, but - as I said - I stand by it.

Since the beginning of the last century, in a fashion that seems to allude to the city’s own contradictions, the Metro Detroit area has seen the rise of contrasting musical genres, from classical to blues, from jazz to rock’n’roll. Aretha Franklin, The Supremes, The Temptations, and Bob Seger, but also Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Suzi Quatro, Surfjan Stevens and The White Stripes. “America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine”, CREEM, edited by names like Rob Tyner of MC5, Patti Smith, and the legendary Lester Bangs, grew out of Detroit. It was the first to print the words “punk rock” and “heavy metal”.

It is not a case then that Shadow Show look, talk, and sound like the product of the cultural hub that is Detroit, of a scene that kind of still lives in its past but is trying to make peace with the future. And they are doing their best to bring people together and give back to the scene that made them who they are today.

“We're always trying to bring the local community together. So when we put up shows in Detroit, we tried to get musicians from different genres, different ethnicities, you know, like try to get people to come together instead of organising shows that are all the same kind of scene or genre,” said Ava. “We got the old heads, we got the young crowd, there's a lot of different scenes in Detroit, and a lot of times they don't merge together. So we try to kind of like, bring the community together in that way.”





When asked about the overarching 60s feel of their music, their clothing, and their makeup, Shadow Show explained that it all makes sense in the context of turmoil we are living through. “The 60s were a social revolution and, in a different but comparable way, it’s what is happening today,” they said. “There was war, there was chaos, and that’s very similar to the situation the world is now. And music is a form of escapism, and a way of talking about things we care about in a meaningful way.”

And 60s beats they give us, both in the songs from their first album, Silhouettes, released in 2018, and in the previews of their upcoming work, composed over the pandemic, that they are bringing on tour. It’s mixed with a distinctly 21st century pop-art identity and with harmonies The Byrds would have certainly appreciated, creating the mysterious, ethereal, trippy melodies that are just so… Shadow Show.

“At the end of the day, there's a message of hope in there. Even if it's like buried in everything, you really need to be searching for that, but there's hope,” said Shadow Show, when asked about what we can expect from their next record. “In the madness… there's hope in chaos. And even if we're not directly saying, because we are taking you on some kind of magical trip, it’s almost like when the eye of the hurricane becomes split in two. We’re creating chaos but, underlying it all, there is peace, because that’s what we’re looking for. We think it’s going to be very relatable to a lot of people because everyone's experiencing something crazy right now. It’s a crazy time to be doing anything expressive”.

I had to search what they meant when they said that a hurricane has two eyes, and apparently it’s a phenomenon called the Fujiwhara Effect, which happens when two nearby cyclones rotate around each other and become one. I thought it was a beautiful image.





One thing is for sure, we can expect everything in that album to be purposefully there. In fact, Shadow Show is not only recording new stuff, their bassist, Kate Derringer, is also engineering it. “We've been lucky enough to have that as a resource that we're able to use, and have the time in the studio where we're not worried about, you know, like spending several $100s a day in studio fees. So we can really develop the songs and take the time to, like, get really creative and deep with the production on the songs,” explained Kate. “We're just not going to cater to anybody. We're going to express ourselves the way we want,” added Ava.

Because, sadly, the obstacles for a girl band are still greater than those of one made of straight white dudes, I asked them what they thought were the challenges and what they would advise to someone that is looking up to them for inspiration. “We want to encourage female musicians to get into this field that is still very male dominated”, said KP. “It can be really intimidating, and there are a lot of instances where it becomes difficult. But my advice is to just keep going and push through the bullshit. Don’t listen to what people fucking say, that’s my advice”.

When we realise we’ve been chatting for more than 45 minutes, I tell them it’s time for everyone to refill their glasses and that I probably have more than enough material to write three articles. I hug Ava, Kate and KP like covid never was and like we’d known each other for years. Maybe it’s inappropriate of me, but if it is they don’t seem to mind.