SMASH benefit concert

hello welcome back to another episode of broken record my name is ellie i'm your host and today we're going to be talking a little bit about the smash benefit concert that i went to so this past weekend i went to a benefit concert for seattle musicians access to sustainable health care which basically helps the artists in the seattle area get health care um any type of health care you can imagine mental health mental health physical health whatever it may be they help you out and it's a super great cause it was very interesting to hear some of those speakers there was a dentist that was talking um and along with the speakers there's also performers um dave matthews performed um a bunch of small seattle artists performed and they're all outstanding um it was very cool to see them because they all did like some of them sang original songs some of them did covers of famous songs and so it was really cool um i had the opportunity to interview two of them that were performing i interviewed zan fiskum and alex shaw and they're coincidentally best friends um yeah i interviewed zan on thursday and i interviewed alex on friday and the benefit was on saturday so we had a busy busy little couple days and it was super fun it was super cool it was my first time interviewing like someone who like wasn't my mom so it was really cool really interesting we did it live on air which was scary i was really nervous but it was nice i liked it um it made like editing and stuff a lot easier because we didn't have to edit because it was live um so yeah i'll play zan's interview and then i'll talk a little about it and then i'll play alex's interview and then i'll talk a little about it so here's my interview with zan fiskum kmih mercer island here's seattle artist zan fiskum how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man how many seas must the white go sail before she sleeps in the sand yes and how many times must the cannonballs fly water for the band the answer my friend is going in the answer is the answer is the answer is while her songs don't directly mention sleeping the name comes from countless sleepless nights by creating these truly incredible songs her nine-track album features a cover of bob dylan's blown in the wind and songs written by zan herself along with alex shaw who co-wrote a couple songs and produced this album i'm ellie and i'm being joined by zan fiskum who you might have heard on the voice last year you can hear her on our radio and you can hear her perform live on the same stage as dave matthews and more at the smash benefit concert this saturday at the more feed more theater welcome zan hello thanks for having me yeah thank you so much for coming on yeah um so this upcoming smash benefit on saturday is helping a lot of musicians get the important health benefits and services and so i'm wondering how did you first discover smash and like what made you want to get involved with this benefit well i got um connected with them actually through some of the people who lead the organization and i had no idea what they did um but obviously um health care for musicians is a huge issue and they put a big emphasis on um mental health for musicians um and so when i heard that that was something they provided um and obviously i had a relationship with these people i was like yeah i got involved um yeah and they're just a great organization a great group of people so i'm really looking forward to the show this saturday that's awesome and then so there's about 18 people who are on the set list and i'm wondering what we can expect from your set when you perform um i don't know if i should say what i'm doing um you can expect uh you know something that you've heard from me before maybe something i've done on the voice before um yeah it's gonna be cool that's awesome and is there anyone at the smash concert you're most excited to see or meet um you know i haven't gotten to see dave matthews play live before and i've wanted you for years so i'm definitely excited for that yeah i've heard he's quite the performer on stage um so i'm wondering if so i was reading what your press release and you've stated that this new album sleeping problems is kind of a soundtrack to your early 20s and so i feel like whenever you hear that you have to ask the question who would you want to play you in a movie who would i want to play me oh gosh maybe maybe emma stone i don't know i love emma stone um so you were on the voice for season 18 and i'm it was obviously interrupted by covid you were doing live performances in person but then you had to transition into creating your own sets and your own outfits and like just performing at home and so i'm wondering what like coaching from your coach john legend was like how like what the difference between being in person versus being isolated was like right yeah no it was um surprisingly actually really cool to be at home because it was like i'm like facetiming him in my living room i'm like hey come on in like come chill at my house um so that was actually kind of a cool element that was added and the longer that you're on the show the more time that you spend um with your coach so that was actually like the most time i spent with him um was the time that i was at home and we got to talk about a lot of life and um you know so it was a unique experience and i think being in person could have been cooler but you know you still don't get that aspect of like i said having them chill with you in your living room yeah yeah that's awesome um so on your album you said that your favorite song is darling i've loved you because of like the process of writing it and so i'm wondering if there are any other songs that you immediately like knew how you wanted it to sound or if there's any songs were kind of the opposite really took you a little bit to figure out how you wanted it to sound well still thinking about you was like the first demo i ever made and um that one was really cool because i like you know just basically started exploring um in alex studio actually and created this track and literally just like made up the verses and all the stuff just on the spot and it really like made way for how i approached the rest of the album um yeah and i think you are the light was one of the other songs where i had like a really strong vision for it from like the beginning yeah i think yeah come from come from the light is one of my favorite songs from this album i think it's you are the light it's so beautiful and i love listening to it thank you yeah um and so another song that really stuck out to me was come home because it's such a different sound compared to all the other songs um it's so emotional and so like vulnerable and so i'm wondering what made you want to include like this like slower song um in your album you know i like the diversity and like um i like that it catches you off guard too um kind of where it is in the album but it also was one of the songs that i wrote while i was processing like a lot of hard things so it just was almost the most authentic thing to include it because it was such an important song to me like one of the most important um yeah that's awesome um and we talked a little bit about alec earlier and i'm actually speaking to him tomorrow and so yeah yeah so i'm wondering if there's a question you think i should ask him or if there's any fun fact that you think i should bring up and see if he reacts to it oh gosh um well i don't know okay he's a he's a beatles lover he's sang the like beatles music ever since he was like three years old yeah all the songs memorized so something about that could be fun yeah for sure and then my last question for you is what song from your album would you use to describe your week my week um i have to remember what my week was i guess um let's just go with come home i think with it like approaching like thanksgiving um like i've got some people that i love and care about out of town or like gone and it's going to be like a different year for me so i think that's sort of been on my mind like missing some people that i really love and care about that's awesome so thank you so much for coming on yeah great questions yeah make sure to go see the smash benefits on november 28th in september at the more theater and this is come home by zan fisca so yeah zan was super fun the interview um she's so sweet and i really enjoyed talking to her um if you haven't had a chance to listen to her music please do it is so outstanding i love her voice um speaking of the voice she was on the voice which is super cool i grew up watching the voice i still watch the voice um and so it's really cool to have the had the opportunity to talk to someone who was on the voice um it was i i it was very interesting to talk to zan i was very grateful for the opportunity and it was super cool and after that the next day i was prepped and ready for his alex interview which was also super fun um i like talking to him i also like that he likes the beatles because i like the beatles a lot and so it was a nice little thing to connect with him so i'm gonna play alex interview right now kmyh mercer island this is seattle music and artist alex shaw alex shaw is a seattle born and raised singer songwriter and producer before the age of 22 alex has written sung and produced three albums not letting covid be an excuse to slap off alex spent his time helping to write and produce stanford's album sleeping problems along with creating his next album in his downtime alex fourth studio album quantity will be released this upcoming february with incredibly powerful and well-produced songs i'm ellie and i'm being joined by alex shaw alex can be heard on our radio he can be heard and he can be heard performing live on the same stage as dave matthews and moore at the smash benefit concert tomorrow at the moore theater welcome alex hey how's it going good thank you for coming on yeah you made me sound really cool there um so for the smash benefit tomorrow it's super important um to earn money for the seattle artists to have important like health benefits and resources and i'm curious to know how this opportunity came about for you um you know i i it came through the organization that is uh curating it black red and they um it's very important to them to help local musicians they uh they give grants actually to different bands and artists who um are voted on every year and uh and they curated an event and i played one of their events before covid started and so they asked me to be part of it with stan that's awesome are you excited to meet anyone tomorrow uh dave matthews definitely yeah dave matthews is definitely gonna be very exciting to watch oh yeah and speaking of stan i was talking with her yesterday and she mentioned you're a really big beatles fan and so i'm wondering if you have a favorite like underrated beatles song underrated ooh oh man i wish i knew this ahead of time there's like so many right i know it's hard to choose um uh let's just say lady madonna that's a good one i like it um you mentioned how songs can get boring if they don't like have lots of textures and different rhythms and kind of melodies so i'm wondering if you like if there's a certain instrument that whenever you add it to a song you would like feel like it immediately adds like this depth to it well i like kind of ethereal pads and stuff and then you can layer that in behind you know whatever song it is but it can add a lot of depth to a song yeah would you say that's your favorite instrument to play or do you have a different one my favorite is guitar because it's really easy for me because i've played guitar for 13 years so um it's more natural right yeah and so i'm assuming that's what you usually start your songs with or do you just like start them different like like you start with a different instrument before you add the other ones uh i try to start with a different instrument every time like you said i don't know who told you that but i get forward really fast because i'm adhd but uh i understand you know i like the variety right so if i can i'll start with different instruments or a sample or something you know yeah and um on your recent single i was looking at the credits for nobody but you and you have a lot of very impressive people and i'm wondering how you find these people to work on the songs with you um i don't know how i do that i just kind of like pretend like i know what i'm doing and people join me and work with me so your first album you released when you're 17 and obviously it's probably going to sound a bit different than your upcoming album and so i'm wondering if there's any songs from your first album or from any of your earlier work that you like can think about how they would be how they would sound if you made them today versus five years ago how i would make them today yeah like if you like if you were creating a song you created five years ago but today with like all your knowledge now and stuff would you change anything about one of your songs yeah i would make it i would make it good um no uh yeah like first album i mean it's just like a random hodgepodge of things that i thought were cool you know because i didn't really have any idea what direction i wanted to go so the songs are kind of all over the place um i think i would try to make it sound more like what i've landed on more recently the last two albums i feel like i've landed on a sound that is kind of like this combination of my influences which are folk uh and some gospel just church music groups you know kind of put together so you have soulful vocals otis redding is someone i listen to and then the beatles and uh different folk artists that simon garfunkel you know stuff from the 60s um and so i think i found a way more recently to combine those influences in a way that doesn't sound too forced and i would love to take some of those old songs and make them and bring them to that sort of vibe you know yeah that's awesome um and last question you kind of went into it a little bit just now but what can we expect from your upcoming album um well you just played a song from it that i who gave you that song because i didn't know that was not released so you got to get into some unreleased material but um it'll uh it'll sound more dramatic i think than my older stuff i think that's the best word to use and um it's it's more emotional it's more dramatic um it's it's more kind of vibrant sounding i guess yeah i totally like i was listening to a little bit of it and it is so incredibly like powerful and just listening to the lyrics like you you can feel the emotions and stuff and that's very beautiful thank you i appreciate that yeah so thank you so much for coming on um make sure if you have the opportunity to go see alec in person tomorrow at the more theater for the smash benefit concert that helps seattle artists get music health and benefits for their health so this is alex's single nobody but you yeah um it was super cool to interview both of them i like talking to alex he's a very good producer i recommend listening to his stuff um yeah so i interviewed them before the benefit and when i was going to the benefit it was really cool seeing them perform um it was like whoa i just talked to you yesterday um but it was super cool they were outstanding live there was so much good performances there um one of my favorites was the very last song that everyone sang was so let me backtrack so basically there was 18 artists performing and it would go one person performs a song and then they get off and another person performs a song and they get off another person so they would rotate every song would be a new person singing and it would always be a new person and then at the very end um everyone came out so it was all 18 performers came out and they in the band and they all sang um all you need is love by the and it was super cute and super happy and the whole audience was standing up they were all singing everyone was singing it was such a little happy moment um and it was super cool because i before that night i thought that i wasn't going to hear a beatles song be performed live like at a concert or something um because obviously the beatles aren't the beatles anymore um and so i always thought that i would never be able to hear it live and knocking on the line that made me a little bit sad but it was super cool hearing that song live um even if it wasn't the traditional way but it was super cool um it really made me happy and it was really fun to hear and yeah it was super awesome seattle musicians access to sustainable health care is a super great cause i recommend um checking it out if you're interested in learning more um it's super it's such a great cause it's music is everything you i cannot survive without music and i'm sure you have some sort of connection to music and so i just love this cause and i think it's super cool and yeah thank you for listening to this thank you for listening to this quick little episode of broken record on every tuesday at 6 and if you can't catch it then it's okay you can listen on any podcast streaming platform just search up kmh broken record and you'll find me and yeah thank you so much for listening to 88.9 the bridge