Shamir Bailey
⤏ IN CONVERSATION WITH ELLEN KEMPNER
⤏ PHOTOS BY RIKKÍ WRIGHT | STYLING BY LINDSEY HARTMAN
⤏ ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JUNE 2018
A few months ago, about halfway through a Palehound tour, I pulled into Los Angeles to do a live video session. Barely out of the van, a flash of warmth embraced me. It was Shamir. I had never met Shamir before, but I’ve been inspired by him for years. Shamir started his career as a breakout pop star and transformed into an independent bedroom rock artist. Following his creative journey has been fascinating, he’s an artist who is as true to himself as an artist can be. While most people would have suffered through insecurities, Shamir stuck to his guns and put a life of commercial success behind him in favor of following his vision.
ELLEN: Let’s start by talking about your music! Revelations is really cool. I really like how it was recorded, did you do it yourself?
Shamir: You’re like the only one [laughs]. Not everyone likes lofi stuff, it’s also mixed very oddly. It’s annoying, there are things I do deliberately that seem like a mistake, and it’s like, “I know that it’s mixed oddly, I did that on purpose.” I mixed it myself. I did the record in Vegas in the corner of my aunt’s house.
E: Is your whole family back in Vegas?
S: Yeah, and as I’m sure that you read, I had a little psychotic episode and spent some time in the hospital. When I got out none of my friends wanted to fuck with me anymore, so I had to go back home to Vegas.
E: Your music business friends?
S: And a lot of friends in Philly. When I was out of the hospital and just getting back to myself my mama was like, “I think you have to come back to Vegas.” But I didn’t want to go back to Vegas. I thought that would make me even more depressed.
E: When did your breakdown happen?
S: It was about two years after “Ratchet.” I had attempted two times to do a follow-up record, one time in LA which was really hard because I was working with all these, like, you know, “producers.” It wasn’t sounding how I wanted, so I went back to Philly to work on the record with a friend. Scratched the whole last project to do a project with him and he had a problem with the more experimental rock stuff I was making, so we had a falling out. After that I had recorded this whole project in a weekend that I called Hope, that I just threw on Soundcloud. That was the bomb that severed everything.
E: Were you still signed to XL when you dropped Hope?
S: No I had just gotten dropped. So I was like “I have nothing to lose.” I had lost all fucks. The record Hope was just me, first of all, at the beginning stages of my psychotic episode, and secondly, like putting that manic energy into something. A week later my mental state just kept getting worse and worse until I woke up and went to the hospital. Spent a week there, my mom flew out to Philly and got me, and I went back to Vegas. I didn’t hear anything from friends, I was in shock. Revelations is called Revelations for that reason.
E: So do you think those friends you lost were people that you had met through your early success? Or were they people you were friends with before?
S: Unfortunately, it would be so easy to chalk it up to that, but I think the part that really hurts the most is that that didn’t have much to do with it. It was more like, “Shamir’s done now, Shamir’s crazy, we don’t want anything to do with him.” I understand that it was really traumatic for all, including myself. But, at the same time, I feel like if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t have made it all about me and I would have tried to understand the struggle. Two of those people I considered my closest friends in Philly helped me get to the hospital and after I got out, I thanked them and I never heard anything back.
E: People can be not who you think they are, really selfish.
S: Well that’s why I’m really grateful to have music in my life. Everything else is so whatever for me, because I have this newfound joy. Not only music, but music that makes me happy. It feels like 100% pure catharsis for me. I’m also able to use it to empower other people.
E: You’ve been touring a lot! Who’s in your band?
“I’m really grateful to have music in my life. Everything else is so whatever for me because I have this newfound joy.”
S: After everything I went through, I did still have friends who were around. My queer and female friends that have been there from day one, like my bassist Christina. Christina’s my everything. We’ve been playing together since we were 16. I recently met Evan, Evan’s amazing. He’s based out of San Fran. He did a tour, but normally we have Fiona, but she also tour manages so Evan fills in. Me and Christina have known Fiona since we were 16, because she was a fan of our old band. The people from the beginning are the ride or dies and they’ve helped me through everything. After Hope, I didn’t have anything. I didn’t have a label, I didn’t have management, so all of those people came together to help me rebuild.
E: You're my age right? 23? How old were you when you did your first tour off Ratchet?
S: I was 20.
E: I remember when I first heard about you. We were so young and I thought, “Wow here’s this kid who overnight has just skyrocketed!” I was wondering if I would even want that at that age and at that time.
S: You don’t want it! It literally was overnight.
E: So what happened? How did that start?
S: Here’s the T, buckle up. By the time I was 18 I had graduated high school, I started working and wanted to go to college, but my mom was the one that told me to take a break for a year to work on music. Music had just been a hobby of mine, I wasn’t trying to make a career out of it. I ended up writing a group of songs. As a thank you to my mom, I wanted to put them on a tape for her. I hit up a bunch of small tape labels and one of them flew me out to New York to record two songs. A few days later, back in Vegas, one of those songs had gotten a Best New Track on Pitchfork.
E: Things took off from there because of that?
S: Literally. The next day I had multiple labels knocking on my door.
E: That’s wild! Truly overnight. I feel like we see a lot of this story with young people in the industry. The music industry fetishizes youth in this way that I feel is so harmful. I’ve seen so many teenagers thrown into the spotlight like you were.
S: It’s not healthy. It made me a much stronger person, though. I’m still young and I’m glad that I got to see all corners of the industry at such an early age. Now I know what’s up, what I like and what I don’t like. I now have that experience. I don’t take it in vain. I would be dead without it.
“I never have been a person who wanted to be famous.”
E: Were you ever freaked out about it? Were you ever starstruck?
S: I was always freaked out. I never have been a person who wanted to be famous.
E: So you probably had to struggle a lot with guilt because of that. You were living the dream of so many people, but you didn’t want it.
S: It’s funny that you brought that up, it was such an inner battle for me. I almost felt like a brat, or ungrateful. I was like, does this make me selfish? It took me a long time to realize that my own personal happiness not only affects other people, but also the art I create.
E: How much do you think people were focused on your art versus your image/brand?
S: Yo, they created a whole new term for me! The thing they used in the press was “post gender.” That was completely invented. I almost never talked about music in interviews, it was always my sexuality or gender identity. This was before Hayley Kiyoko, Troye Siva; so essentially I was one of the only queer voices, especially queer voices of color in pop music.
E: What pronouns do you use?
S: I always use he or she.
E: And you wrote all the songs on Ratchet?
S: Yes I did.
E: Was it fun for you to write disco/pop after writing mainly indie rock/pop?
S: The first song that came out, “If It Wasn’t True,” was danceable. I just wanted that to be a one off. I thought after that I’d be able to go whichever direction I wanted. I remember sending guitar rock demos to the label and they were like “Um no, this is not your life anymore.” In the industry they want their artists to be one thing, a product.
E: Now that you’ve changed your sound and you’re touring on your new stuff, how have you seen your crowd change?
S: It still feels pretty mixed, but a lot of people are angry that they can’t dance anymore.
E: Are you working on any new stuff?
S: Yes! Ratchet wasn’t really my style, Hope was a shot in the dark, and Revelations was purely therapeutic, so this one I actually have confidence in. I think it’s the best stuff I’ve ever done.
⤏ BUY THE PRINT EDITION OF JR HI THE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 002 HERE.
⤏ ELLEN KEMPNER (SHE/HER) IS A MUSICIAN, WRITER, PAINTER, AND THE FRONTPERSON FOR THE ACCLAIMED BAND, PALEHOUND.