From Drums to Cinema: Shawn Van de Peppel Finds His Voice in Simplicity
When arthritis forced Shawn Van de Peppel to stop playing guitar last year, he had to sit with an uncomfortable question: why does he even make music? By the time his hands healed and he’d relearned his own songs, he had his answer. Now he’s celebrating both his 40th birthday and the release of his new EP “If Ever You’re Lonely” with a show at O Patro Vys on February 7th, with a clearer sense of what matters.
The six-track collection represents something of a homecoming for songs that never quite belonged anywhere else. “They were, quite consistently the same songs that I just, as you said, couldn’t fit anywhere,” Van de Peppel explains. “They were short, very simple songs and when I started looking at the songs I was discarding for the next album, it just stared right back at me: these actually fit together! They were all inspired by a similar era in music (except for The Boys Of Summer, which I really thought would fit anyway).”
Getting to songwriting independence took time for Van de Peppel. Years as a drummer left him bursting with melodic ideas but unable to complete them alone. “When I was drumming I would constantly have vocal melodies or ideas for songs. My band’s singer/guitarist, Mickey, would have the gruelling task of figuring out which chords matched the melody, and that was the basis for several songs of my first band, The Hot Showers. I felt I had that in me, but I couldn’t drum my way through songwriting!”
Picking up the guitar years later changed everything. “Learning the basic chords I could read up on songs that I liked, how they were structured, what chords they used and finally feel confident to put together my own,” he recalls. That newfound independence produced “La Belle Aurore,” the EP’s opening track and the first song he ever wrote on guitar. “There was something amazing about creating something out of nothing, front to back.”
But that independence came with a question: what kind of songwriter did he want to be? Van de Peppel knew immediately that he didn’t want to write conventional confessional lyrics. “I’ve found, and this is for me personally, not as a general rule, that when I attempt to create a scene rather than bluntly expressing what I’m feeling, it allows me to not get tired of the song. I can revisit it time and time again and find new details or perspectives. The feelings, honesty and emotions are there, and I know exactly what I’m writing about, but it allows me to ‘live’ in the song when I play it as opposed to just revisiting, say, a time in my life, a feeling, a good/bad day.”
Six years later, “La Belle Aurore” still works for him because of that approach. “The lyrics are taken from Casablanca, one of my favourite movies, and maybe because I never get tired of rewatching it I never tire of playing this song… which was actually a pretty personal one to me. It was about a breakup I was living at the time.” The song’s simplicity remains instructive. “Its simplicity keeps reminding me that I don’t need to feel self-conscious about going back and keeping things simple sometimes. It’s a song that anyone new at playing the guitar could learn to play in very little time. It’s fun to sing and it’s fun to play so I suppose that keeps it alive.”
That same simplicity runs through all of “If Ever You’re Lonely,” pulling heavily from the concise storytelling of 1950s and 60s pop and soul. “There’s so much to learn from that era. For one, you had to keep singles under a certain amount of time so they could fit onto the side of a 45rpm record. The lesson there is how can you say what you need to say in that amount of time? It teaches you a lot about editing yourself, trimming the fat off a song.” He pauses, then adds, “I also love the lack of cynicism in the lyrics. You know, where the worst thing that could possibly happen is that your baby leaves you on a Saturday night. Even the sad songs feel good.”
The production choices matched that philosophy. Van de Peppel initially planned to layer percussion, whistles, and overdubs onto tracks like “Lavender Hill,” but discovered something more powerful in restraint. “A friend lent me this Ibanez guitar that had the tone I was looking for, for that song: I wanted that echo, reverb that you could hear in those old Elvis ballads. But I fell in love with the sound of that guitar so much that I decided to showcase it, and to not overdub a thing.”
“I did want the songs to breathe,” he continues. “As I feel modern music can be so micro/over-produced that the challenge here was the restraint, and in being ok with the idea that the songs could be simple in form and in sound. There’s nothing to hide then: with just voice and a guitar, if the song sucks you’ll know fairly quickly! I think it’s also cool for whoever wants to play music or write to listen to: songs can exist without all the technology you see everywhere. Pick up a guitar, start playing the piano, sing a little something: it’s surprising how far you can take that. In itself, it’s super freeing.”
This was also Van de Peppel’s first time fully producing and mixing his own recordings, an experience that left him with newfound appreciation for studio professionals. “It taught me that I absolutely need to find a studio next time,” he laughs. “Even just recording voice and guitar, being my own engineer and producer was exhausting. But it was an awesome learning process and it gives me so, so much more to the people behind the consoles who know exactly how to record, where to place the mics, how to capture a performance. They are the ones who really let the performers do their thing and not have to worry about all that stuff. It’s an art in itself!”
The EP’s only cover, Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer,” fits naturally with Van de Peppel’s originals. “There’s a nostalgia to the song that always feels so sincere. I think we can all relate to a relationship or situation where the good days were just the best, and that it’s all slowly behind you now… ‘The end of summer,'” he explains. “Every time I hear Don Henley’s voice and listen to the lyrics, it’s like a movie. He’s feeling it.” The song even influenced “Sheltered Hearts” on his album “The 51st State Blues.” “I’m really quite nervous about putting out a cover of this mammoth of a song, but I don’t think I’ve played a solo show where I haven’t covered it. The words just seemed to make sense next to the rest of the EP.”
The February show means more than usual after his year away from performing. “I had a bad spike in arthritis last year and couldn’t play shows. I couldn’t play the guitar. By the time I got back to normal I basically had to re-learn my own songs and not to get too deep, but I really started reflecting about why I play music. What was the use in writing new songs if I couldn’t play them in front of people? Because you can never take your body and capabilities for granted.”
What he realized was freeing. “The truth eventually rose up and I have to admit to myself that I just write because I have to, because I can’t stop. So being able to play this show after all this time, knowing my family, my friends will all be there is an absolutely beautiful feeling. I can’t wait. I’m also very honoured that Guilhem agreed to be part of it. He’s part of the heartbeat that keeps the Montreal music community alive; with Pouzza Fest along with Hugo Mudie.”
As he looks toward his second album, Van de Peppel doesn’t talk about clarity so much as confidence. “I’m not sure if I would say clearer, but the first thing that came to mind here was confidence. I have more confidence in my voice, in the songwriting. It was all rather new to me a few years ago. It’s clear to me that I will keep going, that new songs will happen, and that the more I write the better I feel about the writing and about the new songs.”
The imposter syndrome from his early guitar days is gone. “Nowadays, just being happy with playing music again, I don’t have to doubt that anything is good enough if it’s honest.” For an EP made from misfit songs that finally found each other, it’s the right note to end on.
