On Saturday, March 14, I had the opportunity to chat with Shallowater, a Texas-based band returning to make their mark once again at SXSW. Known for their blend of atmospheric indie rock and emotionally driven lyrics, the group continues to build momentum both locally and beyond.
Thank y'all for taking the time to chat with me today. Can y'all introduce yourself and the position you play in the band?
Hi, I'm Tristan,I play bass. I'm Blake, I play guitar and sing. My name's Ryan, I'm a percussionist.
How does it feel to be in Austin as an official South by Southwest artist again? Is there anything you hope to see or gain during your time here whether it be new music, new recommendations, or anything fun in general?
Tristan: This is the first year where it actually financially makes sense for us to come down here. This is our second time being Official South by artists. I think it makes it a little bit easier when we’re from Texas, it's just more of a guarantee that we're gonna be here. What I've always looked forward to is just seeing all these bands that I hear about on Instagram and Twitter that are all living in New York and I'm never gonna get to see them. You know? Like I can just walk into any bar and it's like, oh, they’re here!
Haha like oh hey!
Tristan : Yeah. My entire pitchfork- like everything I've read on Pitchfork is just all here at this random bar. It's so sick. I love it so much.
Blake: Living in Houston, you know, a lot of the bands that I want to see and a lot of the bands that I like usually don't end up coming down. So it's really nice to have them all in one big setting. The band I'm the most excited to see is Worlds worst.
Tristan : Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've seen them so many times and never gets old.
How was performing at Cheer Up Charlies?
Tristan: I mean, today was sick. It felt good. Since we released Million Dollars, we haven't really been able to tour very much. We toured immediately after opening up for the Raveonettes and we played ACL. Playing ACL was the coolest thing ever. But also we were opening up on the main stage, so, you know. The people that were really there for Pierce the Veil like super early, and it was about 200 people which is incredible. This is the first time we've been able to play after the album's kinda done its rounds. To hear people immediately react whenever we do the opening to Sadie is just so crazy. It's the best feeling in the whole world.
Blake: Just having people that aren't my friends tell me that they like my music is pretty cool. Very grateful for it
Tristan : Yeah. We signed about 50 records today!
I know it was previously mentioned that some of y'all are from Lubbock?
Ryan: Two of us.
Tristan: Yeah. Me and Ryan are from Lubbock born and raised. We went to rival high schools. We hated each other until COVID. It's a wild story, but Blake is from Booker.
Blake: I've lived in Lubbock for like six years. That's where I met these guys. But yeah, I'm from north of Amarillo in a tiny town.
How is the music scene there? How would y'all describe it?
Tristan: I mean the problem with Lubbock is that the music scene is directly tied to Texas Tech, so the bands just get cycled out every four years. People from Dallas and Houston and all over the country really go to Texas Tech, form bands, and graduate. That band's done, they never got to record an album. Me and Ryan being locals and COVID hitting right when Blake was about to graduate, you know, we were there for a little bit longer than the average band. During COVID we had nothing really to do. I guess how we formed wasn't necessarily tied to any scene at all. We just had all the time in the world to just play music every day. And it was sick. Yeah. Maybe not so much that the scene didn't really evolve or really shape what we are, but being from Lubbock definitely formed us in a way.
I did want to talk about one of your new releases that y'all did last December, From My wings. What was that process like? I really loved hearing that song.
Tristan: Jordan Raf is one of our best friends. I love him. Coolest dude. He's the coolest guy I've ever met.
Blake: His movie is coming out this month.
Tristan: Yeah, he's gonna be in that movie with Robert Pattinson.
The wedding one?
Blake: He is like the chef for the wedding and he makes the cake. That's our homie!
That's insane lore
Tristan: I met him over Instagram. I had just been following him because he had the most unhinged Instagram story. I had him on notifications, he didn't even know.
We all have that one friend
Tristan: Yeah. Yeah. Just like, what the hell? For some reason, I just had a feeling like..I need to send my record to this guy. I feel like he would like it. And he responded. He was like, this is the only good music I've ever gotten via DM in my entire life. We just became good friends and every time we were in New York, we stayed with him. He's the best.
Blake: It was a lot of fun making that song with him too. He sent us a demo version he had made and then we had to come up with instrumentals for it. We actually went out to New York and met up with him, and then I got to do some background vocals on it. It was a lot of fun.
Tristan: Honestly, it opened up so many doors. 'cause we never worked like that. We only kind of worked with each other. Even when we worked with Nara’s room, it was like we just did a cover for somebody. With Jordan it was the first time we kind of had to figure out how to be collaborative over the internet. 'cause everything we've ever done is just, all three of us are in the room.
Has that collaborative process made y'all more eager to collaborate with other musicians?
Tristan: Absolutely. We're always down to collab.
I saw somewhere where Ethel Cain said she was your biggest fan. How did y'all react to that?
Tristan: We flew out to New York and we got to see her show. We hung out backstage and it was just an insane, insane experience. We put out our first record and it gained a little bit of steam. It was doing well, way better than we ever thought. We jumped from 70 monthly listeners to 30,000 in a couple weeks. We never expected anything like that. But one day I just saw that we were tagged by Mother Cain on Instagram. I was like, no way.
We saw that we were placed on a playlist that she made. There was no contact between us, but I was lowkey just fishing for any interactions. I was just commenting on her post, this is so sick. Then, one day she replied, I'm your biggest fan. It was a big inspiration to keep going.'cause if we just did one album that we weren't that stoked on and had this kind of reaction and reaching these kind of people… maybe we're kind of onto something.
I wouldn't shut up about it, honestly.
Tristan: We definitely did not. But yeah, I still can't believe it.
I want to talk more about your song, Laredo. What's the meaning of that song, is it tied to Laredo, Texas?
Blake: Yeah. I was talking about Laredo. Right around the time right before we got together with Ryan and all three of us started practicing,I went down to Laredo in 2020, and I was building houses with missionaries in Nuevo Laredo. I don't know. It was just a significant time. I wanted to make a song about it. I don't really know what the song is saying about Laredo, but I really like Laredo. It's special to me. That's where that came from.
Do y'all have any artists or sounds that influence your music?
Tristan: For me definitely Codeine, Red House Painters, Morphine, pretty much like every band that's in the Numero group. Just like all this music that was widely overlooked during the nineties that I just found on YouTube when I was like 15 or 16. I had a sense of pride about it whenever I was younger… I know cool music. And then like Smashing Pumpkins, Drive-by Truckers and George Jones.
Blake: It's just fun taking little bullet points from songs I listen to.I hear certain songs by certain artists and there's new ones that pop up all the time, but you know, you just take. I like what they did there. I wonder if I'm ever gonna be able to throw in something like that. And then you try to do it, it comes out a little bit different. But you know, I would hate for it to come out the same. So, you know, smashing pumpkins has always been a huge influence. Whenever I was a kid, I just wanted to play like Billy Corgan, but I can't, so I've found other things to do.
Tristan: You kind of can.
Ryan: You kind of can now.
Blake: I like finding ways to bastardize things that I love and it comes out sounding like me… maybe. I hope.
What about you, Ryan?
Ryan: No Comment.
Tristan: Neil Peart?
Blake: He actually thinks right now that he invented drumming. He's never heard a song with drums.
Ryan: I've been working my whole life to never listen to music so that it's completely original.
You just listen to songs in your head.
Ryan: Yeah. I just make up my own songs. Some of those in my brain.
Tristan: Yeah. He thinks we're the only musicians.
Any future projects coming up?
Tristan: We're looking to collaborate with some people. We're in the middle of writing our third record.
Blake: We're about six song ideas into writing another album. We want to have more than six songs on the new album. A long road ahead, but it's going good. We also have some other projects cooking up that we can't talk about.
We'll leave it up to Imagination.
Blake: We're opening a restaurant.
Tristan: Yeah, that's the new project.
Shallowater. ShallowFood... Thank you all so much for chatting with me! Any last words you wanna say?
Ryan: Good night.
Tristan: Thank you so much, means a lot.
Blake: Bye!