Welcome to Music Matters Podcast with Darrell Craig Harris, talking about all things music with celebrities, artists, music business insiders and more. Jake and Shelby, how are you guys doing? Good. How are you? I'm very good. You guys are really interesting. You're a duo based in Nashville. I guess you would say IndiePop, but it's really kind of more than that. You have a new single, Shut Up and Kiss Me, but that's actually a re-record of a previous release, really great song. And you have your last album, actually was your debut album, Learning to Love came out last year. So, tell me how you guys are doing. It sounds like you're very busy. Oh yeah. We, I mean, we're doing good. It's been such a pleasure to be getting to do music. This is a dream for us. And so, Learning to Love was like our first full record, full length record. So that, and it was also like our first, like, I guess our first album trying to do like full production stuff. So it was really fun kind of finding a sound that was like different from the acoustic thing, because that's how we started doing a lot of acoustic stuff. So yeah, it was really fun to make that. And then now we're like in the stage of like, let's go and release some acoustic versions of the record because we also love the acoustic thing. So yeah, we're doing good though. It's been fun. Yeah. And the acoustic thing is kind of what you guys got known for online and social media has played a big part in what you guys have done. Tell me about that journey. What made you decide to start posting videos and kind of developing that part of what you guys are doing? Yeah. I mean, honestly, we started out just posting videos like from the start. We met at a music school in Hendersonville where you could just take like weekly lessons and they had some like cover bands that you could join or audition to be a part of and we were in those. So that's where we first met. And then we started riding together after a while. So we had like been riding together and doing music in that way, but it wasn't anything like, we weren't even like really thinking about being like doing it professionally together or anything. But after doing that for a while, we're like, let's be a duo. And like basically like right when we decided that we're like, okay, we're going to start posting and doing it and doing the grind because we know like that's what you're supposed to do. So we just like started posting every day and I mean, to our surprise and yeah, I mean, it just started going really well pretty quickly. And yeah, so we've kind of just stayed on that grind and tried to keep feeding the beast of social media. Yeah, exactly. And you kind of had developed a strategy of releasing singles before releasing the full album, which it seems like that's a really good in terms of like streaming and that kind of thing. That's a really good avenue. Shelby, what did you like about that and getting your voice out there too? You have such a cool, interesting voice, I should say too. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, releasing music has been like, like Jake said, like a dream of mine. So it's been really sweet being able to like do it and like share this experience with someone else too. And yeah, like writing our own music and being able to share like what we write with the world has been really fulfilling. And it's also been a journey like he said, finding our like full production sound has been, it was fun, but it was hard. It was like all of the things. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to new music in the future and I'm so proud of our album and I'm really glad that it's out now and people are connecting with it. Yeah, you're getting a lot of attention. I know you have a lot of social media followers as I mentioned, but you're also, it's just, it seems like it's really kind of blowing up and getting a lot of great reviews, which is awesome. And how did you develop your sound, Shelby, with your voice? Because you have a very unique voice. I always say it's like, it's so cool to be able to stand out because of all the singers in the world. Like a Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, people instantly know who that is. And you kind of have that vibe with your voice. Who are some of the heroes when you first started singing and people that you looked up to? I am a big Swiftie. So Taylor Swift is my favorite artist. Other than her, I love Lizzie McAlpine and Lynn Estella. I feel like I had a voice teacher at Cedarstone, the place that we met actually who told me that my voice reminded her of Lynn Estella. So that's how I got into her and she's been really inspiring ever since I started listening. I also like Madison Cunningham. She's a really good guitar player too. And her voice is really pretty. But I don't know, that's a good question. But I feel like, I mean, I've been in voice lessons for a while now. Well, I haven't been in them for like a year or so at this point. I don't know. I've kind of just sang like ever since I was little. So yeah. I feel like she's always had like, in videos of her like singing as a kid, her voice is like always super good. She was like, yeah, I feel like it was just naturally like that way somehow. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a thing where you could take lessons, but you're still you're kind of bored with that, right? Yeah. Yeah. I remember like, and like we went to the same like public school and I remember like hearing her, I think, and something like before I even knew who she was. But I feel like I remember hearing her at like a talent show and being like, wow, that girl's so good at singing. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, that's cool that you guys have known each other for so long. You've kind of grown up in music together and sort of in life, which is pretty awesome. It's cool to have a partner in crime, right? Yeah. Tell me about producing the album. Obviously like the acoustic sound is very stripped down, which I love. But also doing the production in general. Is that something you guys sell produce or are you working with producers? How does that work for you? Yeah, we've been we've been working with producers. We've worked on the record. We worked with a good amount of producers actually. I think in total we had like six different producers on our record. But we had like one guy we it's kind of different like some of them. It would be like we wrote the song with them and they were like the track guys kind of in the writing session with us. And then we were just like really happy with how the track came out like just from the right. So we would kind of just like have them finish it up instead of just having something else do like it all over again, even because we already liked how it was. So that was a good amount of people. So Josh Ronan is one person we wrote fragile with him and shut up and kiss me and he finished both those. And then will Hanukkah is another guy and we wrote our hands with him. And so we had him finish it and then Joseph Tilley. He did you don't know. And we so he finished that and then also Tony. Oh, no, not Tony. I'm like getting names combined. Yes, lucky West. That's a lot of names. Yeah, it is a lot of names. Lucky West. He did loophole. And so yeah, I mean like all those songs we basically like created the song just while we were writing it. And they're not even really that much different from how they were when we wrote in the day of so yeah, we had them finish those. And then Micah talks is who we brought a lot of songs that we had written but didn't really have any production to. And so he did like I think he did like six songs, I guess then off the record. Also my dad helped a lot with production on some songs. So some of the songs we had written like a long time ago and my dad knows how to like is great in Pro Tools and stuff. So he he also has done like he usually does our acoustics thing. So like the show up and kiss me acoustic version. He produced that and helped us record it. So it sounds like you like you like collaboration. Is that something is that something from for you as you feel like like going through the process with different producers? Have you guys learned a lot about about how to do that in that process? Yeah. Definitely. For sure. Shelby, talk about if you could songwriting and lyrics because I know you mentioned I mean part of your story is that you grew up in the foster system and then you were adopted. And I know you've written some songs related to that. But talk about lyrics and what those mean to you because I know a lot of your songs are very story driven. Yeah. I mean, the I think the main song that we've released so far that has really been like about my story is a song called Morning Light that actually wasn't on the album. We released it like a few months after we released the album, which was kind of crazy. But yeah, that was my first time writing about my experience. And I think it felt like a really big hard thing for me to like try to write about for a long time. But I we sang at this event for an organization called the Cape Cod Foster Closet when we were on a riding trip in Cape Cod. And it was just really inspiring, like hearing about what they do. And I think it had just been a long time since I had been around any like foster care organization type of thing like that. And so yeah, it just inspired me to write about that song, write about my experience. And yeah, it was it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, which was really nice. And I'm really glad that we were able to release that song so quickly, like we released it not even a month after I wrote the song. So yeah, I don't know that song I wrote by myself. And so I feel like I'm used to us like writing with other people a lot of the time. But that song I kind of just, I don't know, I kind of just wrote random things and it kind of like fell together. It was oddly like a quick experience writing that song. I think it had come a long time in the waiting. Yeah, do you find that like songwriting, I know for me it's very cathartic, it's very healing. Do you find that that's a powerful tool that that songwriting can be used for? Yeah, very much so. I think both of us are like, we're like, at least I am for sure like more introverted and like, I don't know, communication can be like a hard thing for me at times. And so like, I really appreciate songwriting in that way because like, I can really like work on and like create a piece of art out of like what I want to say and I can like put time into it and I don't know, just turn pain into something beautiful, which I think is why so many artists write and release songs. And so, yeah, that song has been really sweet, just seeing how much it's connected with people. Yeah, and it's you have a lot of fans, a lot of young fans that maybe they have a similar story or they want to know, get to know you better. So writing, being that honest, it's hard, but it's important for people to get to know you. I think. Let's talk about cover songs because you guys have done some kind of fun cover stuff. And to talk about that, I know you did, you did, I think some stuff with Michael Buble and some other folks to talk about that. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's where we started. I mean, we first started posting as a duo. It was we're like, let's just do covers because we know people enjoy that and we were having fun doing it too. So we did a lot of covers and our first cover that did really well was a cover of the song called Sway. It's like an old jazz standard. And but Michael Buble has a he did it pretty recently. I think he really said like 2000 something, but he had a good recording of that. And he saw the video and he commented on the video. And then he said he said something like do it on the way. So we're like, oh, what the heck? This is crazy. And it was just like our first video to do good too. So it's cool to have like a video do well and also have like some like celebrity recognition with it as well as cool. But then you did a duet and we're like, this is crazy to see Michael Buble singing with us like online in a way. But then like a few months later, his he was coming to Nashville and we were like, you know, if he wanted to sing with us online, maybe he'd be down to like do something with us and sing with us in person. And so we just like took a shot and like DM them on Instagram and we're like, hey, we see you're coming to Nashville. Would you want to like sing this way together in person? Make a video? And he actually responded. He was like, yeah, let's make it happen. So we got to go. Yeah, we got to go backstage and bridge down. It was really cool. He like they took us back. We were just like weighing back there like all nervous and to meet him. And so but he was like so nice and so kind and he's really encouraging and was definitely like a good example to us of like he inspired us and kind of gave an example of like what we want to be if things continue to grow and how we want to kind of share the love with other artists. Yeah, it's important because it's a community. I know Nashville too is very community driven. It's a very big community, especially with songwriting and and and all that. So that's really awesome. And it's great that it seems like he does. He likes to do that a lot. He likes to work with young artists, which is really awesome. To talk about touring and live shows, you guys have some touring coming up or how often are you working live? I mean, we don't have any shows booked right now. We're definitely hoping to do some kind of tour in 2026. But we yeah, we love touring like so much and we really want to do it more. The last tour we did, we did our album release tour, which was so much fun. It was a short one. It was like four or five shows or something. Yeah. And that one. Yeah, I mean, we we do music because we want to connect with people and we want to be able to like share, I don't know, our music and just the whole experience. Like the live shows is like, I don't know, just what really like the extreme of that. It's like it's all of it at once. So it's just really beautiful to get to do that. And so that's why we want to do it so much more. But it was really fun on this last tour because we did some shows that were like right before the album came out and then some that were like a day or two after and people were like already singing along to like every word on the album. And yeah, it was it was a really fun experience doing that. And we've done some tours opening for other people too. We got to do our first tour last year that was on like a tour of us and everything. We were gone for like seven weeks and it was it was. Wow. Yeah, I think you have a lot more touring coming in your future. So we want to just for like before I could hear I think so. Give some advice to young artists, young songwriters, because you guys are you know, kind of it's still at the beginning of your journey, but you've had a lot of success. What are some some kind of key things that you guys have learned along the way so far? We've learned a lot of things. I mean, I would say I mean, honestly, be open to learning as you go and like be open to failing because you're not going to get everything right as you go along. And just take those moments. Take the take every thing as an opportunity to learn and grow and be better at your craft. And have fun while you do it. I would say I think sometimes it's easy once you like choose to do music and like try to like pursue that full time. It can be easy sometimes for it to be just feel like your job, you know, because it is your job, but it's also like don't forget that it's your dream and that's something really cool and fun. Yeah, keep the spirit alive. That's for sure. Shelby, what's what's a couple of key things that you've learned along the way as a songwriter? Um, I think I've learned to just not have like to not be a perfectionist so much like in writing songs because I think I don't know. I think it's easy to make sure you like love every single line that you write in a song. But I feel like if you like wait until you have like the perfect lyric for every like word in the song, you're not you're not going to like write anything like ever because it's not always going to be like perfect. And you may write a song and like not like it. But then like a week later, you're like, wait, I was onto something there. Like that was really good. So like, I don't know. I think you just I've just learned that you just need to like you need to write something. And also not every song is always going to be good, but you just need to like write the bad ones to get to the good ones. Um, and yeah, like you said, I think I've learned to just have fun with it and not worry too much about like how people are going to think about it or whatever. It's really just it's just for fun. Don't take yourself too seriously. Yeah. That's actually, yeah, that's a key point. And also, I've always said, it's under your business. What other people think about you? Yeah, it's kind of a good life motto because you kind of you have to, you know, songwriting is a brave thing. And when you're putting music out, it's like putting your children out into the world. It takes a certain amount of bravery and and willingness to be able to open yourself up for that. Yeah. I mean, I think I've learned that like if it's something that is really meaningful and like important to you, like chances are like at least someone else is going to relate to it. And connect with it in a deep way. So. Yeah. That's about communication. So that that's that's really awesome. And you guys, I love your production style. Your acoustic stuff is really cool. It feels like very much like you're just sitting in a living room listening to you sing, which I love that style. And it's very you have a perfect voice for that. It's very emotive. Tell people how they can reach you and find you guys online if they want to connect and all that stuff. We are on every social media platform, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all the things. And our username is jaconshullbeofficial on everything. And then we're also on every music streaming platform like Spotify, Album, music, all the different ones that I might not even know the names of. There's a lot of that. I yeah, those are all the things. And then we also have an email list for anyone who wants to really stay in touch with us in case they don't see our videos. If you just look up our website, jaconshullbeofficial, it should pop up a thing to join our email list. So awesome. And I'll include all that information on the podcast episode too, so they can find you with links and Spotify and all that stuff. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me. I know you guys are really cool. I really like what you're doing and it's exciting. It'll be exciting to watch what happens because I think you're going to you're about to blow up. Big talk. Yeah, you're very welcome. So everybody, please check out Shut Up and Kiss Me. It's out now. It's on the streaming outlets. Learning to Love is the album that came out last year. It's still totally cool. It's also on your outlets. And please check it out. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. Ciao. Bye. Bye.
