Q&A: SHAED Adds to the Family, Talks “Everybody Knows I’m High” and Follow-Up Album
“WHEN YOU HIT THOSE REALLY TOUGH LOWS — somebody spilling beer all over your guitar amp and crashing into you on stage, you have your family there to be like, ‘We can do this. Let’s get through this night,’” multi-instrumentalist Spencer Ernst shares about being in the genre-defying band SHAED with his wife, Chelsea Lee, and identical twin brother, Max Ernst.
SHAED’s 2018 song “Trampoline” blew up when Apple featured it in a MacBook Air ad, resulting in 2B streams, the track becoming iHeart's Alternative Song of the Year, and a world tour for the band. During COVID, they released their first album, High Dive, asserting them as a mainstay in the alternative pop scene.
High Dive is an expressive, wide-ranging feast for the ears. Life has changed since then, and SHAED explored these changes while writing and recording their follow-up album.
Everybody Knows I’m High” marks a return to the D.C. trio’s signature sound. Lee’s clear-eyed vocals cut to the heart of the song, leading listeners through Spencer and Max’s rich soundscape. It’s the first single from their forthcoming album, set to be released later this year.
Absurd, humorous elements of their music videos and lyrics are sleights of hand, masking the melancholy within the chorus of the track: “Stuck on the wrong coast / I’m missing you back home”; and in the middle verse, “When I’m left to my own devices / I’m homesick and I’m paranoid.” These deeper feelings prevail amidst trippy imagery and a satisfying groove.
SHAED can not be confined to one category, which is probably how they like it. Why so many listeners connect with their music is clear. Their taste in music is eclectic, their sense of humor is free, and they are brimming with gratitude — all of which can be felt while listening to their work. With two of them having become parents and one an uncle, the force that continues to propel them is family.
During our conversation, chairs skid and a vacuum drones on as the hotel crew cleans after breakfast — SHAED’s busy trip to LA is winding down. The trio seems earnest and grounded, no doubt tired from performing their new single, “Everybody Knows I’m High,” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! the night before, but they light up as they recall their start. Read below to learn more about the band, their latest single, and what comes next for their music.
LUNA: Do you all remember the first song you played together, just jamming as a group?
LEE: I met these guys in 2007, and they were playing a show at the 9:30 Club [in Washington, D.C.] A week later we decided to hang out, and we wrote this one-minute song.
MAX: Three-part harmony. It was just one refrain.
SPENCER: “Give a little bit of my love and I’ll wait for you.” We went to this local mall and we sang that over and over again, basically with one other lyric. Just to make some tips.
MAX: People started to watch, and the third time around … they were like, “Is this some weird cult? What the hell is going on?” (Laughs) And then we got kicked out.
LUNA: What did you find rewarding about making and releasing “Everybody Knows I’m High”?
MAX: The first time we performed it live was at Austin City Limits. It was really cool to see the crowd respond to it and be in on the joke immediately. They were singing along by the second chorus. And then playing it on Kimmel last night was pretty awesome.
LUNA: What are your favorite moments on the new song?
MAX: The whole song is about that feeling when you’re too high in public and you feel like everyone is staring at you even though they’re not. In the third verse, “The white rabbit staring from the corner / is telling me I’m late for tea” is like an Alice in Wonderland surreal moment. For the music video, one of the crew members killed it with this rabbit puppet. We were cracking up.
LUNA: That next line, “They wanna pull me back under the ceiling,” is awesome, too.
SPENCER: I will give some credit. We wrote this song with these two really great writers in LA, Tommy English and Jeremy Hatcher. We wanted to keep the trippiness going, and I think Tommy threw out that “pull me back under the ceiling” idea.
LUNA: You released “Everybody Knows I’m High (bedroom version)” on Feb. 14. Is that an early demo or an alternate idea you found while producing the original?
MAX: We made the original version, a ’90s alternative, dreamy, pop vibe. And our label asked us to do an acoustic version to put out after the original. It was fun for it to evolve into a place we weren’t expecting. It’s like if you were really stoned in bed.
LUNA: Do you tend to finish songs in short bursts, or is it a longer exploration process?
MAX: The title track [on the next album] we recorded at my house in D.C. I was on piano in my living room, and Chels and Spence were in these tiny little bedrooms upstairs. We played through the song five or six times. We knew it was done by the day after. This other song about their daughter, June, started out with just piano and vocals. We tried to flip the song and take into an ABBA “Dancing Queen” disco thing.
LEE: We had lots of versions of this song.
SPENCER: We ended up using the demo as the core. Chelsea singing, Max on piano, and then building the rest of the music around that. There was a song for the album that we fully produced. We spent a week or two on this tune. After stepping away from it for a month, we realized the lyrics and the emotion didn't feel authentic to what we were trying to do in this next chapter.
MAX: It felt like a Queen cover band. So we said this song has to go. If one of us isn’t on board, then we won’t release the song.
LUNA: You’ve said your upcoming album will explore your brightest and darkest emotional experiences together. How does making this project compare to your previous LP, High Dive?
LEE: With our previous LP, COVID had just hit. We were forcing ourselves to write after ditching songs we had been working on previously. We were living with my parents because we were moving into another house. It was a different kind of chaos. We have a child now. I feel like we’ve grown up a bit with this next album.
SPENCER: Our daughter, June, is two years old. And the source of light on the album, for me, has been having her around. When you have a kid, there is also another side of yourself that you start to explore. That really deep sadness that you won’t be here with this person forever. That’s where the dark side of this album is.
MAX: We went back to our roots too. There is a lot more three-part harmony. On the last album, we were working with a full Macedonian Orchestra. This record is a lot more stripped down. A lot more room for Chelsea.
LUNA: Max and Spencer, as identical twins, how do you differ as musicians?
SPENCER: We both started on piano. And when we transitioned to guitar lessons, I stayed with guitar as my primary instrument. Although we both can chameleon and go back and forth.
LEE: They are very similar. When I came in and started working with them, it was like they were reading each other’s minds. They have a lot of the same traits, like spacing out. We’d be writing and I’d be like, “What planet is everybody on?”
SPENCER: I think we’ve been writing so long together as a trio that outsiders who come in and work with us are probably saying that about all of us now.
LUNA: What do you enjoy about making music as a family?
LEE: Being able to do this with them is a dream. That sounds so corny to say, but we spend so much time together. We travel together. Conveniently, [Spencer and I] are married, and Max is my best friend.
MAX: Being in a band with your brother and your sister-in-law and being so close with them, you fight like siblings when you're writing sometimes. But at the end of the day, we get to wake up and make music for a living with our family. It's really hard not to be grateful.
LUNA: You list Radiohead and Fleetwood Mac as influences. Favorite stuff from them?
LEE: Kid A is our favorite Radiohead album. That was such a big part of us. And Fleetwood Mac, we always love the three-part harmony. It’s also kind of a family band vibe.
SPENCER: The Smile is one of our favorite things to listen to now. Our daughter loves it too. It's super trippy and she's fully down for it. She graduated from Sesame Street to The Smile very quickly.
LEE: No more Elmo.
MAX: She’s like, “Fuck Elmo, I want to listen to Thom Yorke” (laughs from all three).
“Everybody Knows I’m High” by SHAED is streaming now. Their upcoming album is set to drop later this year.
