Everybody in your life will write his or her own chapter in your story. Take a step back, and you’ll see the influence of your loved ones, mentors, and friends in your decisions. Shook Twins refer to these folks in the title of their fourth album, Some Good Lives, which is out February 15. Throughout fourteen tracks, the duo—identical twin sisters Katelyn Shook [vocals, guitar] and Laurie Shook [banjo, vocals]—pay homage to everyone from a late grandpa and godfather to Bernie Sanders.
During 2016, they planted the seeds for what would become Some Good Lives by thinking bigger. The girls intermittently recorded at Hallowed Halls in Portland, OR. Within this old library building, “which feels full of stories,” they tapped into palpable energy like never before, locking into a groove inside of the spacious, reverberant live room. Moreover, the full band—Barra Brown [drums], Sydney Nash [bass], and Niko Slice [guitar, mandolin]—expanded the sonic palette. In the end, Shook Twins do Some Good Lives justice by reaching new heights themselves as musicians, lyricists, artists, and women.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the standout tune “What Have We Done”. The song finds these normally folksy sisters embracing a brassier, funkier sound that still manages to do justice to their angelic blood harmonies. With a driving, funkified blues guitar leading the charge, the Shook Twins fully step into the role of vocalists as they question the current state of our fucked up world. Considering their background in the feel-good world of modern bluegrass and folk, it is refreshing to hear them go full Sly Stone and offer a biting slice of commentary on the way things are now. This is a song that encompasses how many of us feel now, and the Shook Twins tell it like it is while also making us want to dance.
In their own words, the Shook Twins have this to say:
“‘What Have We Done’ is a social commentary. We wrote this in 2016, during a writing session in our friend’s spare house when Bernie Sanders was still in the race and was shining a light on so many truths. He inspired us in so many ways and we felt compelled to write something sort of as a thank you to him. And when I sing the line “we can all do a little bit better” it reminds me over and over (and hopefully everyone listening) to BE better now that we KNOW better.”~ Katelyn Shook
“This song started with me looping a simple beat on the banjo head. The first line fell out as ‘You got a lot of those feelings, bottled up in that JAR’ cause I was sitting in my friend’s spare house staring at a Jar on the shelf. It’s funny how an entire song can come from just spacing out basically. The beat and melody had a sort of motivating quality to it. We didn’t intend for it to be a political song at first, but when we wrote the bridge, ‘working hard and broke and broken, working less and rich and ruling’ it really lit a fire in front of our view of the corporate mentality, and how some CEOs can watch their employees work so hard full time and still struggle to pay their bills and insurance and do nothing but watch their bank accounts grow. The wealth in this country is so far unbalanced and feels so far from a solution sometimes. Singing “we can all do a little bit better” somehow helps. We are still Feelin’ the Bern!” ~ Laurie Shook
LISTEN:
Some Good Lives is out February 15. Check out tour dates below and visit shooktwins.com for more music.
1/11 – Durham, NC – The Carolina Theatre %
1/12 – Baltimore, MD – Baltimore Soundstage %
1/13 – Charlotte, NC – McGlohon Theater at Spirit Square %
1/14 – Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle
1/15 – Charleston, SC – Charleston Music Hall %
1/16 – Atlanta, GA – Buckhead Theatre %
1/17 – New Orleans, LA – The Civic Theatre %
2/13 – Garden City, ID – Visual Arts Collective
2/14 – Hailey, ID – The Mint
2/15 – Missoula, MT – The Wilma #
2/16 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Commonwealth Room #
2/20 – Sante Fe, NM – Meow Wolf #
2/22 – Aspen, CO – Belly Up Aspen #
2/23-2/24 – Steamboat Springs, CO – WinterWonderGrass
2/25 – eTown Hall (Radio Show) – Boulder, CO
2/27 – Los Angeles, CA – The Moroccan Lounge @
2/28 – Santa Barbara, CA – Soho Restaurant & Music Club @
3/1 – Morro Bay, CA – The Siren @
3/2 – Berkeley, CA – Cornerstone
3/3 – Petaluma, CA – Mystic Theatre @
3/4 – Arcata, CA – Humboldt Brews
% – w/ Gregory Alan Isakov
# – w/ The Infamous Stringdusters
@ – w/ Rainbow Girls
Photo credit: Jessie McCall
