Shelby Earl Bolts Music-Biz Day Job to 'Kick Ass' as a Solo Artist

Posted on Nov 11th 2011 4:00PM by Eric R. Danton
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Genevieve Pierson

Shelby Earl spent the better part of eight years promoting other people's music before she decided it was time to focus on her own.

So the Seattle singer-songwriter took a leap. She quit her job as a record-label liaison at Amazon -- the latest in a series of music-related corporate gigs -- and waited tables while she worked on what became her solo debut, 'Burn the Boats,' which is out now on Local 638 Records.

"To be totally honest, I was pretty unhappy those last couple years doing the 9-5," Earl, 35, tells Spinner. "I would seriously be in staff meetings thinking of lyrics and writing them in my meeting notes. Finally I listened to my gut, I guess, and thought, 'This is ridiculous.' I basically had been putting my own opportunity to grow as a musician aside and spending all my energy in this other direction."

'Burn the Boats' isn't Earl's first foray into music. She sang in pop groups as a teen in Los Angeles, where she also worked as a backup dancer.

"This was in '90s L.A., when everyone was listening to R&B and hip-hop and it was weird, because I am super, super white, but I was a hip-hop dancer for years in L.A.," Earl says, laughing. "People kept encouraging me in that direction, but I wanted to be a singer."

Shelby Earl Performs 'Burn the Boats'

Soon enough she was, performing in the Seattle band Pope after finishing college at the University of Washington. Her partner in the band did the songwriting, though, and it wasn't until the group fell apart a few years ago that Earl began singing songs she had written.

Obviously it was time: 'Burn the Boats' features simple, elegant tunes that showcase a voice that rings with confidence on 'Under Evergreen' (a song she says she wrote to convince herself to quit her day job) and takes on a dusky, wistful feel on the more somber 'Made of Sand.'

The early tunes weren't all gems, though.

"There are songs on the cutting room floor, for sure," Earl says. "That freedom to be bad was really important to me sitting in my living room. I had to tell myself that no one would hear these and to just go for it."

Earl had made plenty of connections on the local scene during her years working in the music industry, which helped her find collaborators including John Roderick of the Long Winters. Earl asked him to play bass on a couple tracks, and he and bandmate Eric Corson ended up helping Earl shape her songs into 'Burn the Boats,' producing and mixing the record, respectively.

"I needed ears, for sure," she says. "I was just having trouble knowing what I had on my hands, knowing if it was any good."

Earl had initially self-released 'Burn the Boats' earlier this year for family and friends, and gave a copy to Visqueen's Rachel Flotard in an attempt to entice her to play at Earl's record-release party. Flotard liked the album so much she offered to release it on her Local 638 record label.

"I was trying to woo her and I got the best text from her ever," Earl says. "It said, 'I'm sitting in my car listening to "Burn the Boats," crying. You f---ing did it, Shelb.'"

As for the album title, 'Burn the Boats' came from something Earl overheard her stepfather say midway through making the album, when she was questioning the wisdom of having quit her day job.

"He said, 'Shelby's kicking ass. She pulled all the boats ashore and she burned them,'" Earl says. "He was all fired up about it, and it was exactly what I needed to hear."

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