One listen to any of the four previous albums from Austin-based band Shoulders, and it’s easy to see why they were crowned by the Austin Chronicle as the best avant-garde band in 1987 and for the next five years after that.
“None of us knew what that meant either. We just thought it was rock and roll,” says singer and multi-instrumentalist Michael Slattery who, along with guitarist Todd Kassens, started the band in 1986.
“We’ve been around a long time, but we stopped doing most of our touring by the 21st century. That’s a long story, so it’s easy to see how we could slip through the cracks,” says Slattery.
After many years, Shoulders will be returning to Houston to play the Continental Club on Saturday, October 10. The band is celebrating the release of their latest album Beauty in the Arms of Pain.
When they started, Shoulders was quickly making a name for themselves in Austin and beyond. Their live performances were explosive and created a high energy and wild scene unlike anything most audiences had experienced.
“All of a sudden all the major record companies started showing up here at our shows and flying me to New York,” says Slattery. “We thought we were gonna sign with a major record label but nobody made us a deal. They kept saying, ‘We don’t know what to do with these guys.’”
Then the French label Musidisc offered them European distribution, which landed Shoulders on the charts in France and kept them busy touring overseas. It was a great opportunity, but it also made it difficult for the band to establish themselves further in the United States because they were constantly on the road overseas.
“We put out Trashman Shoes in ‘92 and that did really well,” says Slattery. “We were playing with Nirvana. On the charts we were number one and they were number one, but they stayed at number one and we slipped down,” he laughs.
The relentless touring, including a stint with Irish legends The Pogues, eventually took its toll on Slattery. He recalls writing a letter to his girlfriend, now his wife, telling her he’d be home soon but feared it would be in a body bag.
The language barrier made it very difficult for him to communicate efficiently with medical professionals in France and he couldn’t get the answers or relief that he really needed. He describes nurses meeting them at every show to pump him full of medicine and get him ready to take the stage at any cost.
Slattery had to go home and focus on his health, putting the brakes on Shoulders’ European success. “My body was going haywire but that didn’t stop us. We still played regionally but I couldn’t go on long tours and so that put the brakes on that and then the band, we can’t make any money when we are not touring.”
“It just became this thing to try to get well and keep writing. Me and Todd just stuck with it mostly locally.”
“The whole idea was to write songs where the lyrics and the music could propel you on an adventure with each song so it wasn’t just formulaic. Whatever the song demanded we were going to try to do so consequently, I would play anything from tuba to trombones to different horns and things but only if the song called for it,” he says.
“What I found playing live was that we just had to make it so fun for ourselves and that’s what we did. It became like a circus for us and carnival-like and with that our music evolved in that direction because all we were doing was playing live all the time.”
Slattery adds, “That’s the whole reason for music for us anyway was to have that communal and tribal feel where you are with the audience and you’re taking the adventure together and if the music doesn’t propel you along with the lyrics and the whole thing encapsulated, then you’ve failed so our live shows were sort of just kinda crazy like a train going off the rails which is fun, it is a lot of fun. It still is that way because the songs do survive although we are wretchedly old now.”
Slowing down is not always a bad thing as Shoulders proved in Beauty in the Arms of Pain, an album that shows the effects of Slattery and Kassens’ more mindful and intentional approach to songwriting.
The album encompasses a range of emotions, creating a moody and often sexy testament to the hard facts of life. Slattery describes how the band this time around started the songs off with the bare minimum of sounds, only adding what they felt was necessary to convey the message.
“I was relying a lot on screaming and the grand gesture on my earlier stuff and I really wanted this one to feel different and it is different. The songs are different. We live in a different time. I have to say this album to me, all of the songs to me refer to some search for beauty or something beautiful in this god forsaken time we are living through right now,” he says.
“I think that there’s a lot of confusion in my mind about how we got here and how we’re going to get out of it but the one thing that’s consistent is sex, love and death. I guess you could add taxes to that and have the whole thing but it’s a matter of really living through this time.”
Slattery is excited to bring these songs to the stage in Houston with their band featuring Buxf Parrott on bass, who played on the album and was a member of Texas hardcore legends The Dicks.
They will also bring in their back up singers Bonnie Cook, Molly Owen and Patti Lou Ryland from the album and Continental Club owner and operator Pete Gordon on accordion. Slattery promises a good mix of songs from the band’s older catalog and a few newer tracks
“I hope that people like this record,” he says. “I’m sure die-hard Shoulders fans, and there are a few of them, I don’t know if they’re going to like it or not and I hope they do. It is different but it’s still hopefully got some humor and adventure.”
Shoulders will perform at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, October 10 at the Continental Club, 3714 Main. For more information visit continentalclub.com. $10.
