Emery

The gargantuan music scene is overcrowded with syrupy pop songs that arguably are only popular because they’re overplayed. There are a lot of artists out there singing about everything under the sun. With so much to choose from, it’s often the one’s with the most money backing them that get played. It’s a wonder how some songs become popular. But the ones that stick around, that make a lasting impression and change people’s lives, tend to be the ones that a lot of people can relate to.

Emery is a classic example of how to write songs that a lot of people can identify with. A vocal-driven, heavy pop rock band, whether they’re your style or not, they know how to get to the human side of life and bring it to the forefront of their music. Showcased on their latest EP, While Broken Hearts Prevail, they understand that while everyone leads different lives, we all know the sting of a broken heart. From crumbling lives to crises of faith, no matter what someone is dealing with, the image of a failed relationship can become the basis for an intimate reflection. Soul-Audio’s Mark Wingerter recently spoke with singer/ guitarist Devin Shelton on Emery’s latest effort to explore the broken heart, as well as touring, how his faith affects him, and one of his greatest musical influences: R&B.

Soul-Audio: You guys are on tour now; how’s that going?

Devin Shelton: It’s going pretty well. We’ve been on it a couple of weeks now and we’ve been having some pretty good shows. There are a lot of tours out at the same time and the economy’s kind of weird. So some kids are having to kind of pick and choose which shows they go to, so, you know, some of the shows haven’t been fully up to expectations. But overall, it’s been good. We’re having a good time. Especially since we’ve been out to California. The west coast side’s been really good.

SA: So, as far as when the fans come out, do you think they’re more energetic because they chose the right show?

Devin: Yeah, I think so. You know, I think it’s a combination of things that have to do with who’s there and who’s not there. But yeah, the kids that are coming out are awesome. It’s not even hardly noticeable when you get up there and the kids are going crazy, so that definitely helps.

SA: So about the EP that you guys just put out, how are the fans responding to the new material?

Devin: It’s actually an overwhelmingly good response. I know a lot of our fans, a lot of kids thought that we, you know, we did something different on our last album, it was definitely a different thing for us, and we just wanted to write the songs we wanted to write and do something a little different for everybody, including ourselves and for our fans. I think a lot of fans just kind of want- unfortunately, for us some fans just want what they expect from a band, you know? So that just kind of takes its toll after a while. You know, a band doesn’t want to put out the same exact record over and over again. But we were super happy with our last album.

But as far as this new EP, and the new album we’re coming out with next spring, it’s definitely a mix of our newer stuff and our older stuff. So we’re super happy with it, and the fans overall are definitely excited about it.

SA: After putting out a full-length album, kind of not too long ago, what went into the decision to essentially make half an album?

Devin: Well, we just had some songs that we wanted to put out after we put out I’m Only A Man, and we were trying to figure out our label situation and things like that. So we didn’t want to go another two years without putting out an album. So we just decided to record some songs that we had and do some, kind of like b-side stuff and things like that. And we [decided] we would just put out kind of like an interim album kind of thing and it just turned out as an EP. We even thought about making it a full length, but just based on time frame and budget and certain things like that, we [thought it would be] more appropriate just to have an EP.

But it’s been awesome. EPs, you know, obviously don’t get as much marketing or sales as a full length. But it’s been really good, even better than we thought.

SA: My experience with EPs is that, since they’re not a full album and it’s not this big deal with a lot more money put into it like a full length, you can kind of do with it what you want. Some bands have taken EPs and just done crazy stuff with them just as a sidetrack from what they do. So, what was it about these particular songs that made you want to go ahead and get them out there instead of waiting to put them on a full length?

Devin: Yeah, well we had like three or four songs that we thought were really good songs that our fans would like, you know, a little more like our older style and stuff like that, so we wanted to get them out. And as far as that, we were originally going to do four acoustic/ alternate versions of those songs, but then we had a few other songs that we wanted to use as well. So we just did one song and two different versions, and one song is on iTunes and one’s on the disc.

Then there was one song that we had a long time ago from when we first started out as a band that we re-recorded and put on there- “It Always Depends” is the name of that song. So, it was like “well, we have like eight songs that we want to put on here, so instead of making just alternate versions of the same songs we’ll just put these other songs [on there].” And the songs that were brand new we felt were strong enough to carry our EP and make kids want to buy it and really like it.

We were even debating whether or not to put one or two of those songs on our upcoming full length as well. We’re not sure yet. But we just don’t want a song that we think people will really like to kind of miss its chance on an EP, you know what I mean? We want it to have an equal change on a full length so people can definitely hear it.

SA: As far as thematically for the songs, all throughout your career as a band you’ve focused a lot on broken hearts. It seemed kind of poignant with this one that you were kind of pointing it out more than usual. It seems like you use that as a metaphor for different situations, like broken relationships are used as a way to see different parts of life. Is that personal experience? It seems like you guys have a lot of trouble with girls, is that what I’m getting?

Devin: [Laughs] Well, not really. Of course every guy has relationships in the past that have been broken or bad situations. But we’re all older guys now, three of us are married, the others have steady girlfriends, so its like, obviously we’ve had it in the past, but its not like we have girl trouble now or anything like that. It just that that’s something that every person in the world can relate to on every level. You know, there’s broken marriages, there’s broken teenage relationships, there’s people who have a baby together and end up splitting up. And relationships are, basically, as a human being, just relational. Because every single instance whether it be your marriage or your girlfriend or boyfriend, or your faith, whatever it might be, it’s all relational and it’s all personal to you.

So we use those for pretty much every situation that can be- a lot of time it comes across, you know, just like a crappy girl who broke your heart. But in other instances we’ll use it for a guy losing his faith, or whatever he has whether it be Christianity or not- somebody who kind of loses their faith and tries to find their way back.

I think for this EP we just decided- and actually “When Broken Hearts Prevail” was a title for one of our really old songs from our first EP from like 2003 and we just decided to call our album that. It’s just kind of like bringing back our old style and we just wanted to get back to when we first started. So as far as the lyrical content of this one it’s kind of a mixture of our older content. And it always seems like no matter how cheesy something might be lyrically, a lot of times its what the fans like to hear, its things they can relate to the most. It just seems like something everybody likes.

SA: Yeah, I think you can kind of bring out the human side of that situation with something that personal.

Devin: Yeah.

SA: As far as how you guys go into writing a song, whatever it might be about, can you kind of give us a little idea about your writing process and how that works?

Devin: Yeah. That’s something we tried to do on the EP as well in the liner notes. We tried to tell our fans kind of how the songs came about. Toby (Morrell) and I, we switch off singing and playing bass, and we both write songs and we both write lyrics and stuff, and Matt (Carter) writes some music and stuff like that. So, we just kind of work on songs on our own because we don’t all live in the same town. And we write songs by ourselves, come up with ideas, record them a little bit, then we’ll bring them to the band at some point. Then the band as a whole puts in input.

As far as lyrically, me personally, I’m not the kind of guy who just sits around and writes a bunch of lyrics in a notepad all the time. Usually what happens is I’ll have a melody in my head for like a chord progression I’ve been working on, and from the melody I’ll come up with some sort of phrase or line that kind of catches me or gets stuck in my head. Then a lot of times I’ll just kind of write the song around that line, kind of pick out what kind of scenario it could be whether it be personal or not. That’s the best way it works for me, and I think Toby is kind of similar in the way he writes too. But we don’t consider ourselves poets or lyricists who just kind of sit around and write lyrics all the time.

SA: Musically you guys seem like you’re all over the board as far as your influences. Who are your main influences, past and present?

Devin: It’s different, musically. Like most people we have a pretty wide range of what we have all liked in the past. But I grew up just on like, [chuckles] R&B music and really vocal music that was driven by harmonies and vocals, and that’s something I always enjoyed a lot. I still do. And I think that affects a lot of our vocal melodies and harmonies and things like that.

Also when we got to college- we grew up in South Carolina and it was a lot different. There was no indie rock scene; there was no punk, things like that. So we weren’t really exposed to anything like that, or hardcore, until we got to college and some people introduced us to that. That’s when we started getting into Pedro the Lion, Mineral, Sunny Day Real Estate, and all of these kind of early emo bands. Then we got into Hopesfall and Zao and all those bands too. They really influenced us- it was two totally different kinds of music and it was really diverse. So that affects how we kind of employ really heavy parts with really intense screaming, and then we also really like really poppy melodic parts with a lot of vocals.

So I think that’s kind of what sets us apart from a lot of bands in the sense that we do have really really extreme dynamics in our songs. And I think that’s kind of what our fans like about it is that we’re not just all one thing the whole show. There are a lot of different aspects to our music. That’s kind of because of our influences from R&B, from country music, which we listened to a lot growing up, to super heavy Zao or something like that.

SA: Also, I think your fans do know who you are personally as being Christians. What’s been your experience of playing the whole game of ‘are your Christian, are you not?’

Devin: Well, of course there’ve been pros and cons to it. Basically our faith is the most important thing to us. I would assume that anybody in the world that has faith in something whether it be religion, or if they’re straight edge, or if they’re vegan or something like that; that it’s one of the most important things in their lives and they’re not going to break what they believe just for something different.

You know, all throughout the industry there’s been a trend of Christian punk bands and Christian hardcore bands that have become more popular. And I just think mostly it’s like- we’re Christians and we have a job and that’s to play music and of course [our faith] is going to affect our music, of course it’s going to affect our lyrics. We always say stuff like “if I was a plumber and I went to work I would still be a Christian at work and I would still do what I do.” I don’t force my beliefs on anybody. But my faith and my life affect who I am as a person and whatever I do as an occupation.

Obviously music is more of an art form and it comes through more expressively. But yeah, there’s some things- I think some bands are a little intimidated by it. They think we’re totally right wing, conservative people that can’t talk about anything other than what we believe or something like that- the stereotype. But of course that’s not true and every band we tour with that are not Christians, which is 90% of the bands we tour with, they know who we are and what we’re about. We don’t try and preach to them, we don’t try to do anything to make them uncomfortable. If they want to have a discussion that’s fine with us; if they don’t, that’s fine with us too. We’re just here to make friends and show people love and compassion, and if affects our music just like it affects our lives just like anybody with beliefs and faith affects their own lives.

SA: So have you found that it doesn’t really matter what you’ve been labeled- Christian vs. Non Christian or whatever?

Devin: Not really. We used to kind of stay away from that. We used to be like, “Well we’re not a Christian band, we’re just Christians in a band” or whatever, but there’s no real difference. I think the label of “Christian band” is kind of stupid anyway. You know it’s like I said, you’re not a Christian plumber or a Christian carpenter or a Christian whatever. You’re just those things. Then whatever your lyrical content is, fine. And we’re different from like a praise and worship band or something like that that goes to churches and plays. We’re a rock band that plays music and we just have a positive message that we send out. You know just love everybody.

It’s a stigma but we can’t really avoid it- we don’t really want to avoid it. We just want people to really understand who we are and not just take it at face value.

SA: So what’s the ultimate goal for Emery?

Devin: Well, we don’t know for sure. We’re all getting older, we’re all around 30 years old. We’ve been doing it a long time and we want to continue doing it as long as we can and be successful at it and have people come to our shows and buy our albums. But there’s a realistic side to it too. We’re all starting to have families and things like that. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do for your family number one. The number one thing I hate to see is a band where it seems like its over for them and they just keep going and going. It makes me feel bad for them. But I understand why they’re doing it-because they love music and they love to tour. But at the same time I feel like at some point you’ve got to call certain things quits and move on with your life. I don’t want to be a 35 to 40 year old guy who is still trying to tour leaving my wife and kids at home. It’s not for me.

But we’re going to do it as long as we can. We all love music and we’ll probably always do music in some form, it might not always be Emery. But we’ll do it as long as we can and people still support us, you know? But for the next couple of years our plan is to put out albums and tour on them. And hopefully we can still grow, you know?

SA: Definitely. Thanks for sitting down for the interview. I’ve got one last question for you. If Emery were a living, breathing human being, what do you hope his or her last words would be?

Devin: [Laughs] Well, you know, I guess you’d want it to be something poetic and memorable. But you know, no matter how cheesy it sounds, for us as a band we never really realized how much a band’s music can affect an individual. Every time you hear someone come up to you and say “your music has changed my life” you almost take it in a shallow sense where that person, you know, really really means what they say, like maybe they thought about suicide or maybe they had some other unbelievable circumstance where our song somehow breathed some sort of hope into their lives, and I would just definitely, as a human being and Emery would say, “Thank you for letting our music affect you and thank you for letting us be a part of your life.”

That means a lot to us probably more than we show and probably more than we realize.

• www.emerymusic.com
• www.myspace.com/emery

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#1 I’ve Been In Meetings All Week But I Won’t Neglect Thursday’s News « Christian Music Zine on December 4th, 2008 at 7:51 pm

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