Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.

Ed Flyn – guitar, bass

Jamile Wiggins – drums, backing vocals

John Sellers – guitar, bass, piano, backing vocals

Dan Holden – guitar, backing vocals

Andrew Corkery – lead vocals

For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Shadowplay?

There were some proto-Shadowplay versions of the band in high school with a bunch of different names and players. Around the time of our junior year (2008) we settled on the name Shadowplay. Jamile is the most recent member to join, playing with us for about two years; he was in the band SoundBots Motif prior to joining and also plays with the reggae band Cheezey and the Crackers.

How long has the band been around? 

This question is a little tricky to answer. The name of the group has been around since 2008 and that marked an important step in which Dan, Andrew and I (John) all started working on music together. When Ed joined several years later, the band took a huge leap with added song writing capability and the addition of his technical abilities. But not until Jamile joined about two years ago did it really feel like the band we have now, so in that sense the band has only been around for two years.

What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before? 

The name comes from the Joy Division song which was later famously covered by the Killers as well.

Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time? 

When it comes to songwriting, we are very fortunate because we have three different composers in the band. Ed, Dan and I all write the songs that we play, both lyrics and music, and depending on the song Andrew also contributes lyrics.

There is a definite consistent theme of love and love lost in many of our songs. Many them attempt to illuminate different aspects of this topic in the form of lyrics devoted to acceptance and moving on to lyrics devoted to discussing the questions of why we feel the need to love others and what roles those loves serve in our lives.

Another major theme we have is that of “knowledge” and “truth”; songs of this topic attempt to discuss what we as human beings think we know and how this effects our decisions in life.

I think our lyrics in the future will see a shift to discussing more tangible things that we as musicians see in our society. One of the things that we have been discussing a lot lately is the question of whether people are really happy where we live. It is the opinion of many members of the band that more community oriented styles of living, with more inter-person dependence and closeness, would enable us to live more happily. I think our lyrics in the future will probably reflect this shift in interest.

What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?

A lot of the classic bands inspire us: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Radiohead. In the past few years weve been very interested in post-rock, trip hop, math rock and folk music as well. Some of the big names are: God Speed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Portishead, Phantogram, Don Caballero, The Fleet Foxes and The Decemberists.

Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band? 

I was inspired to be in a band mostly because I realized very early on that I love playing music and want to do it as often as possible. The band is nice because it takes some of the pressure off of you as a performer and also gives new ears to your personal compositions. There have been about a thousand times that Ive written something that hit a brick wall and one of the other member listened to it once or twice and immediately wrote something great to complete it. We have a tendency to help each other fill in the gaps within our compositions. I started playing with Shadowplay simply because I love playing music with new people but, it’s the group mind and family like atmosphere that has kept within the band for close to ten years.  

What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, ect …

I do finger exercises and scales mostly. Sometimes Ill also meditate and focus on my breathing to stay calm and relaxed.

What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?

We have had so many great moments together, traveling all around the country and playing music in front so many different people. There have been too many great shows to count. The best part for me though is really the song writing. I love to create things and its even better when you create something with your friends and it feels like it really represents all of you as a group. I think the biggest highlight of the bands career has been the release of our most recent album “Almost Lifelike”. The time and energy that went into the composition of those songs makes the final product feel like one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.

If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why? 

The mother fucking BEATLES! They started it all really. All band oriented music stems from what they did and created. Radiohead would be pretty dope to tour with too.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

“Dude tomorrows already the tenth”

“far out”