setteesounds

Good night, good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

SHALLO, an alternative rock duo from Dublin consists of Shawn Legaspi on bass and Willow Leavey Stewart on drums. Their influences range from the Foo Fighters to Royal Blood, and they write songs about ‘sad, unimportant stuff like feelings.’ Unusually, there is no guitarist within the band as they ‘refuse to speak to [them]’. Instead, Legaspi’s riffs and Leavey Stewart’s heavy drums fill the room, alongside their intricate and beautiful lyrics. 

Their debut single, ‘Mirror’, was released on April 5th 2023 and they tell us more about the single below. SHALLO is the fourth and final installment of our debut evolution, they answered our call into the world as we looked for new and fresh sounds, good looking and sound musicians. Throughout the interview below, SHALLO talk about their evolution, their creative process and how it differs, due to their unusual set up of being a two piece. 

💙 setteesounds are always listening.💙 

When asked about how they fit the criteria above, Legaspi began, ‘As one of the few two piece bands in Dublin, we…feel like we’re bringing something totally new and exciting.’ Alongside playing their respective instruments, which he claims are typically ‘used as background support,’ Legaspi says they both sing on almost every song. Furthermore, he continues on to say their sound is, [just as] loud and big as bigger bands.’ Leavey Stewart follows up, talking about their composition process, ‘With the two of us, all of our songs are written together, with us tossing back and forth with new ideas, so our songs end up as messy amalgamations of both of us.’ She continues on, ‘Our live dynamic is also unique, with us interacting with each other as much as we interact with the audience.’ The admiration that both members of SHALLO have for each other is palpable as the interview goes on, as is the level of comfort they have around each other, ‘we deliberately cut over each other and try to make each other laugh, almost as if the audience is watching us in a rehearsal.’

We raise the question of evolution and learn how SHALLO started, ‘I started playing with Shawn through our previous band,’ Leavey Stewart begins, ‘where an old friend… introduced us to each other and we got a lot of experience playing together in school through that.’ They continue, saying that by the time school had finished, so had the band, but Shawn had created a tune called Queen of Deceit. ‘I thought it was a really cool song…I had ideas to rewrite the drum parts…I mentioned to Shawn it would make a really good live song and we should use it for some gig auditions and his performance assessment.’ Leavey Stewart puts it concisely, that was the ‘seed planted which grew into SHALLO.’ 

Both parties talk admirably about their collaborative effort when it comes to songwriting. Legaspi says, ‘At the beginning, I brought almost finished songs to Willow that I worked on myself, but we’ve gradually evolved into a sort of ‘duo’ songwriting style, where we work on everything together.’ Legaspi talks about his own personal evolution too, ‘I started making music sometime during Transition Year in school. I had just discovered that I could play guitar at the same time, then that old friend [who introduced them] picked me up to sing and play bass for the band.’ However, his dedication to SHALLO is clear, ‘Since working on Queen of Deceit with Willow, my songwriting focus has been really SHALLO driven – riffy rock songs with super personal lyrics.’ When speaking about the band’s struggles, there is only one that sticks out to the pair; the fact Willow is a left handed drummer, ‘We all hate her for it,’ Legaspi jokes. 

SHALLO defines themselves as a mix of ‘alternative rock and metal, inspired by recent music we’ve been listening to…Our sound is just a big jumble of different artists and influences that we somehow turn into songs.’ Legaspi begins, saying one of his biggest influences is Royal Blood, ‘they’re a duo with such a…massive sound, with some of the hardest hitting riffs and drums I’ve ever heard.’ He also mentions Nothing but Thieves and Set It Off, ‘I found them years ago while scrolling…on Youtube and I just happened to fall in love.’ Leavey Stewart follows up, saying a lot of her inspiration comes from ‘musicians that surprise me with their creativity. One of the many drummers that have influenced me is Alex Bent from Trivium. The way he drums amazes me, he perfectly serves every song Trivium writes, while also being incredibly creative…[he] always gives you something new and interesting to listen to…It’s been a big influence on how I write drum parts.’ Outside of drumming, Leavey Stewart is also a fan of Nothing But Thieves but also former member of The Big Push and soloist from Brighton, Ren, ‘His creativity in his songwriting is so incredible and it’s made a big impact on how I write.’ Leavey Stewart embraces the element of surprise too, ‘I love to throw Shawn and the audience off guard by playing something on the drums or doing something vocally they don’t expect.’ She searches for the moments that make the audience go, ‘Woah! What did she do? That came out of nowhere, that was sick!’

Regarding the question of music coming out of Dublin and the impact their locality has on their sound, SHALLO have a double ended answer. Leavey Stewart begins, ‘I study songwriting in the city, and get to witness first hand the sheer amount of talent in this city. One of my favourite bands at the moment has to be Tonedeaf. (We also love Tonedeaf here at SetteeSounds!) It’s easy for me to sing their praises…but they really are incredible. I’ve had the pleasure to work with some of the members of the band in other projects and in my own music, like their drummer Meg Bruce, and one of their guitarists, Fergal Beatty.’ Leavey Stewart continues to sing their praises, creating a lovely sense of community within the scene, ‘They’re some of the coolest…hardest working people in the scene… Anytime I’ve gotten to see them live they’re amazing.’

On the other hand, Leavey Stewart says she isn’t 100% influenced by her locality, ‘…In the influences I mentioned earlier, none of them are Irish, they’re from different parts of the world, found through the internet.’ She talks about how proximity influences you too, ‘When you work with people from Dublin, you inevitably become influenced by them but I think the amount that we are influenced by our locality…has shrunk in recent years and everyone’s influences are more global and international, which I think is really cool.’

We also talked about their creative process regarding their first single that came out earlier this year, Mirror. Legaspi says it had always been their ‘main track…it has the vibe of a staple song…Mirror has been the only constant in our setlists so far and we felt like it deserved to be recorded and that’s basically how we came to that decision.’ When the conversation of recording rises, Legaspi says all of the recording and mixing was done in his bedroom, ‘I was particularly eager to release it but we didn’t have the money at the time to book a recording studio…I took it upon myself to start laying down vocal…and bass tracks. Originally, it was just meant to be a demo/backing track for when we were going to record drums later but it didn’t seem like we would get to that stage soon enough. I decided to program the drums myself, with a lot of aid from Willow on the drum sound, the ‘humanisation’ and the actual drum parts – I’m not a drummer so that was a massive help.’ Once mixed and mastered, it was released on all major streaming platforms on April 5th of this year.

Leavey Stewart shares with us that SHALLO are in the process of ‘re-recording it for an upcoming project so stay tuned! I will finally be heard! Bang bang.’

We asked SHALLO for a fun fact about the band, they shared that Legaspi isn’t  ‘even the best bassist in the band.’ This raises banter, Leavey Stewart follows up, ‘ If Shawn learned bass on a bass that I owned, which he did, could one say that makes me his bass mother?  I think it does.’

(Our fun fact is that we think Michael D Higgins should be printed on every cash note, especially €100 notes. Argue with me. Go on.)

You can find SHALLO tagged on our instagram post.

Gigs: The Soundhouse on Tuesday, September 26th. (Tickets five quid go on!)