Meet: Sharone & the Wind interview

Denver rock band, Sharone and The Wind, have announced their forthcoming, and second, studio album ‘Enchiridion of Nightmares’ . Having undergone a nearly complete lineup change in June of 2017, they have been hard at work in the studio and will be releasing the new record on April 13th. Channeling chaos into art, Sharone emerged as a solo artist in on the Denver music scene in 2014. The atmospheric and melodramatic music of Evanescence and the psychedelic blues of Black Sabbath inspired Sharone to start performing live, and to eventually transition her music into a full rock band. We caught up with them to get the low down on the new album, how it all started and where it’s going.

Firstly, can you introduce yourself and tell everyone a bit about the band?

Sharone: Hey my name is Sharone, I’m the lead vocalist of Sharone & The Wind. I’ve been writing music since I was eight years old. I played my first show as a solo artist in 2014, and two years later I founded “The Wind”. The Wind consists of Alex Goldsmith on guitar, Michelle Bailey on piano, Zach Barrera on bass, and Anthony Hester on drums. We call our music “dark rock”- with influences from the hard-hitting depth of Black Sabbath and the poetic darkness of Evanescence, all lead by emotional piano melodies and ornamented with exhilarating, theatrical live shows.

Sharone: This album in particular was inspired by one heartbreaking and traumatizing event that changed me for the rest of my life. I’ve always dealt with hardships by making music. Songwriting and singing has always been my therapy. I began writing down all of my emotions and creating new melodies and piecing them together. At the time, I was particularly intrigued by horror novels and films, which were the spark behind the horror themes in most of these songs.

Alex Goldsmith: Sharone writes out all the songs on piano, and then gives us a piano/vocal demo along with rhythmic ideas for the other instruments. So the band will work together on coming up on the backing. I try to leave most of the rhythmic work to Zach and Anthony, and focus on filling in the gaps. So a lot of what I try to write is full chords, single note melodies, or making more textural sounds utilizing pedals, or focus on using a different instrument, like 12 string guitar or mellotron. Dynamics are a huge part of my playing style as well, so there’s certain parts where I’m happy to play lighter, or get heavier as the song calls for it.

Sharone: I wrote this album to confront the emotions I was feeling in order to force myself to deal with them and move forward. The interest I had in horror at the time resonated with me because I felt so angry and afraid and it felt like the best creative outlet to artistically bring those feelings to life through my lyrics as well as our live shows and music videos. Ever since we’ve started playing these songs live, I’ve heard quite a few people refer to us as “horror rock”. I don’t think that’s what we are. It’s not who I am and I don’t see our band staying in this place forever. This is merely a stepping stone towards the roller coaster we’re about to embark on. In the recent weeks I’ve begun going through a transformation. I’ve found a new light and a change in perspective, and my new found optimism has given me hope in creating new music and chaos with my band that will make an impact. This is just the beginning of the storm.

AG: This is my first release with the band, so for me, it’s been a lot of looking into my past and bringing old things with me forward. A lot of what I’ve learned writing this album was how to compose guitar alongside piano. Bands like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Patti Smith, Neil Young, Nine Inch Nails, and Pink Floyd were a huge part of my growing up, and I started re-listening to a lot of that music to see how bands juxtaposed piano/keys and guitar. I brought a lot of that into my current study, as well as bringing my current influences for guitar in. We’ve been working on a very diverse list of ideas for our next release.

What are you most looking forward to about getting this album out?

Sharone: My entire life I’ve been in constant competition with myself; always knowing and saying that I can do better, that there’s more in me. I’ve grown a lot as a vocalist and a songwriter since I made the ‘Storm’ album, and I can’t wait for everyone to hear the change. While I was writing this album, I found my bandmates: Alex Goldsmith- guitar, Michelle Bailey- piano, Zach Barerra- bass, and Anthony Hester- Drums. They’ve made these songs larger than life, and I feel very blessed to be playing music and making art with my best friends.

AG: I’ve been trying to release at least an album a year, and this will definitely make that goal this year. This is probably the biggest release I’ve been a part of, so that’s a huge accomplishment.

Sharone: Whenever I’m writing new music, I’m purging out whatever melody and emotion I have inside of me. I never “go for” any particular genre of music or audience. I create the music I feel inside of me in hopes that I can help someone else feel less alone.

Sharone: Ever since this album started coming together, our live shows have grown exponentially. You won’t go to a Sharone & The Wind Show now without seeing a life-sized coffin on stage, a bloody shovel as a hand prop, demonic dancers or contortionists, and people jumping off of monitors and bending over backwards. My biggest challenge is to make each show completely different. As a small local band, we often lack and the funds and stage space sometimes to create the full show we imagine in our heads, so we still to the resources we currently have and change it up each time we play.

AG: I feel like our biggest challenge live is making our delivery come through. It’s easy to sit at a recording console and triple track guitars and use great quality piano samples and make sure they sound good, it’s quite another to mic up one amp and the sound guy says “we’ll run the keys direct, don’t worry about it”. Most of the time we don’t have any issues with sound, but I know the perception of what feel and hear on stage isn’t always what’s going on with the house system.

Sharone: We’ve been recently discussing adding more symphonic sounds to our future records. I grew up listening to bands like Evanescence and fell in love with the melodic elegance of piano, synth, and string atmospheres surrounding a heavy rock sound, so I’m very excited to start bringing that into my own music. Maybe we’ll even add a live string player. In terms of dreams and long term goals, I’m basically living my dream right now, so I’m feeling on cloud nine already. Perhaps a European tour with One-Eyed Doll?

AG: Honestly, with the music I’ve been listening to and the direction I want to move towards, I’d love to record with a symphony or an orchestra. I’d also love to get to a point where I’m able to play way more instruments on record and contribute to a denser sound.

We are heading out on our first tour this summer. We’ll be touring the west in early June, look out for dates and venues TBA on our website and Facebook page.