SPINNER interviews Shellshag!

Brooklyn-based musical duo Shellshag isn't your typical girl/boy band. Jennifer Shagawat beats away on the drums, playing next to John Driver (Shell), who belts out the lyrics, and the duo is also a couple off-stage. Before Shellshag embarks on a trip to SXSW, Spinner recently caught up with Jen Shag (with Shell sometimes piping in with an answer or two) while the band was camping out in Florida getting to ready to perform at the Harvest of Hope Festival.

Describe your sound.

Minimal rock. Indie punk. Warm and fuzzy, recorded. Loud and unpredictable, live.

How did your band form?

We lived together, and love playing music. Not sure how the band actually formed.
Were you a band before a couple or a couple before a band?

Couple before a band. When we met, we really didn't want to become a couple. We tried to ignore each other, because we liked each other so much. We've been a couple for 12 years. We have recorded as Shellshag that long too, but only been doing it live for five years.

Who are your musical influences?

The Breeders, This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, Pavement, Sonic Youth, 50 Million, Kung Fu USA, Static Faction, to name a few.

How did you pick your band name?

John's nickname is Shellhead, my last name is Shagawat ... get it?

Beatles or Rolling Stones?

Jen: Beatles.

Shell: Beatles.

What's your biggest vice?

Cigarettes, green tea and honey.

What's in your festival survival kit?

Jen: My pillow.

Shell: Right now, the autobiography of Lemmy from Motorhead.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

Jen: Eminem.

Shell: The Darkness.

What's the craziest thing you've seen while performing?

During one of our shows at mission records in San Francisco years ago, we passed out lighters with little American flags, so when you lit the lighter, the flag would go up in flames. So a guy in the middle of our set bent over and stuck the flag up his (butt). And that was really memorable. The flag was about 10 inches, and it had a red ball on the end of the stick. Later on, the guy came up to us and said that when he pulled the flag out, the little red ball got stuck, so he was walking around with the ball stuck up his bum all night.



Kelly Rose is a contributor from Seed.com.