Sarah Shook

This week's guest is River (a.k.a. Sarah) Shook. As the bandleader and namesake of Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, Shook has ardently toured throughout the U.S. and Europe. They've released some excellent albums, including Nightroamer, which came out on Thirty Tigers in February. Following the release of that acclaimed album and ample touring in support of the record, Shook's "dark pop" project called Mightmare just put out its debut album on Kill Rock Stars last week. Before Shook and company hit the road for the first Mightmare tour (including an Oct. 29 show at Cactus Club), they spoke with My First Band host Tyler Maas about hitting the road in a big way again, releasing two drastically different albums on two respected labels in the same calendar year and how their recent run of European shows went. Naturally, the conversation also moved to Shook's musical history. Over the course of the discussion, Shook talked about growing up in a religious household and only being allowed to listen to worship and classical music, teaching themself to play guitar on an acoustic borrowed from a friend, the origin of early projects that eventually morphed into The Disarmers, and some of their favorite experiences from their career. My First Band is sponsored by Mystery Room Mastering and Lakefront Brewery. The show is edited by Jared Blohm. You can listen to My First Band on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and wherever else you get podcasts. You can also listen to rebroadcasts of previous My First Band episodes on WMSE every Wednesday from noon to 12:30 p.m. CST. Music used in this episode comes courtesy of Devils Teeth ("The Junction Street Eight Tigers") and Mightmare ("Easy").

The pandemic takes its toll on everyone in different ways and Sarah Shook is not unique in that it yielded a new record, but this music was a new sort of fruit from a fresh vine. Sarah's delivery and metrics have up to now hewed to an 'outlaw country' quilt but these songs stood out from their work with Sarah Shook & The Disarmers. They leaned towards pop, yes, but a spartan and economized version of smart indie rock with melodies that also dovetail their country roots. The result is a new band Mightmare and the accompanying debut album Cruel Liars (Kill Rock Stars) due October 14th '22 with tours to follow. It's been a dusty road for this ex-bartender, atheist, vegan, pansexual and now sober singer/songwriter, but the future is very bright indeed.

You can now support us on Patreon!This week Danny and Tyler discuss the phenomenal songwriting and gut-busting honky tonk sound of Sarah Shook & The Disarmers. The North Carolina five-piece band is still a relatively new presence in the country music/alt country scene, but we think if you like barn burners you're gonna like 'em. We especially think you'll enjoy our song of the week, "New Ways to Fail," a brutally blunt, scream-along honky tonk tune.In addition to talking about Sarah Shook and the talented members of The Disarmers, Tyler and Danny discuss country and punk's intertwined history, Sarah's activism, and (once again) a few choice phrases that would make excellent titles for ZZ Top b-sides.Here's the other recommendations for anyone looking to check out more of Sarah Shook & The Disarmers:Dwight YoakamThe NailYearsNo NameKeep The Home Fires Burnin’Good as GoldHeal MeDamned If I Do, Damned If I Don’tStrangerFollow the link to keep up with which songs are being added to our Ultimate Country Playlist on Spotify, now including the "New Ways to Fail": https://tinyurl.com/takethispodplaylist And now on TIDAL!https://t.co/MHEvOz2DOAFor everything else:https://linktr.ee/takethispodandshoveit

This is a fabulous convo, digging into the importance of teaching and learning emotional intelligence from a young age to improve our lives and heal society, and talking about Sarah's relationships with their parents,  childhood experiences, self awareness, identity, empathy, and their life as a single parent, activist, musician and awesome human.Sarah formed their current band, Sarah Shook and The Disarmers, in 2014 and their  current album, Nightroamer, is just magnificent - attitude, tunes, emotion and bags of self awareness. Think Johnny Cash, Joan Jett, Mike Ness, Wanda Jackson and Jonny Two Bags. And I'm chuffed that they wore their new hoodie! I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is a music podcast that does music interviews differently. I'm Giles Sibbald and I'm talking to extraordinary musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in their lives to amplify their own creativity, pursue new challenges, overcome fears and bounce back from mistakes.- brought to you by Hey Sunday, the mothership of the experimental mindset™.- podcast logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste.

We wrap up listener new music. Jason Goebel likes Big Thief and Eddie Vedder. Scot Isom goes with Sarah Shook & the Disarmers and Lavender County. Subscribe to Rockin' the Suburbs on Apple Podcasts/iTunes or other podcast platforms, including audioBoom, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon, iHeart, Stitcher and TuneIn. Or listen at SuburbsPod.com. Please rate/review the show on Apple Podcasts and share it with your friends. Visit our website at SuburbsPod.com Email Jim & Patrick at rock@suburbspod.com Follow us on the Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @suburbspod If you're glad or sad or high, call the Suburban Party Line — 612-440-1984. Theme music: "Ascension," originally by Quartjar, covered by Frank Muffin. Visit quartjar.bandcamp.com and frankmuffin.bandcamp.com

Singer-songwriter Sarah Shook sits down with Cameron to discuss growing up religious, becoming a single mom at 22, and how we're constantly learning about our own sexuality and gender.

Our guest this hour is country rock artist, Sarah Shook. As the leader of the widely acclaimed North Carolina-based band, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, they chat with Amy Wright about the band’s new album Nightroamer, as well as causes close to their heart, such as the Manifest Music Festival in Chapel Hill, the Safe Space initiative, and a whole lot more beyond that. We’ve been big fans of theirs for a long time now, and it’s a pleasure to welcome them to the show.Part of Pantheon Podcasts

This group from North Carolina has drawn comparisons to Hank Williams, Elliot Smith, and the Sex Pistols. 

Our guest this hour is country rock artist, Sarah Shook. As the leader of the widely acclaimed North Carolina-based band, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, they chat with Amy Wright about the band’s new album Nightroamer, as well as causes close to their heart, such as the Manifest Music Festival in Chapel Hill, the Safe Space initiative, and a whole lot more beyond that. We’ve been big fans of theirs for a long time now, and it’s a pleasure to welcome them to the show.Part of Pantheon Podcasts

This is an episode that I've been looking forward to since before (*both laugh*) was even an idea for a show. I was introduced to Sarah Shook's music when their debut album, Sidelong, was rereleased by Bloodshot Records back in 2017 (it had initially been self-released by their band, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, several years prior but I was waaaay out of the loop at that point). I found Sidelong to be an interesting listen; it felt like it ran a real throwback country-and-western vibe through a little bit of a modern roadhouse filter. It certainly wasn't like much else I listened to at the time, and Sidelong and its follow-up, 2018's Years, even stood out amongst the large quantity of Bloodshot artists I'd been listening to for a long time (Cory Branan, Scott H. Biram, Murder By Death, Lydia Loveless, etc).  The Disarmers went into the studio in California to record their third album in early 2020, just as the world was on the cusp of shutting down for the foreseeable future. Label issues and supply chain issues and inability to tour issues got in the way got in the way, as they're wont to do. Fast forward to 2022 and Sarah Shook is on the cusp of releasing their third album. It's called Nightroamer and it's on a new label (Thirty Tigers) and it's really, REALLY good. Fans of Sarah Shook and the Disarmers will certainly find plenty of recognizable sounds, but there are left turns and even-further-left turns and some new and different subject matter. All of that results in an immensely compelling listen, easily their best output to date. We caught up with Sarah to talk at length about the new album; from finishing the recording roughly a week before the pandemic became "a thing" in the States, to the obvious label issues, to the choice of when to actually release it to the world. We also talked about some of the subject matter; parts of the album were written after Shook got sober, and obviously created a very different writing process for them this time around. Perhaps most compellingly, we talked about their increasing involvement as a vocal force to be reckoned with, advocating for the elevating of queer and non-white voices in the country music world. Oh, and we talked about their growing up in strictly religious household and teaching themselves to play guitar and write songs in spite of having no popular music frame of reference, a concept that is truly mind-boggling to me. Nightroamer is due out February 18th. Pre-orders are still available here: https://www.disarmers.com/store/Music-c23349544 You can also check out the Disarmers' videos and live performances and more on their YouTube page here: https://www.youtube.com/c/SarahShooktheDisarmers/videos (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021