It’s been a decade since Shakey Graves released ‘And the War Came.’ When it was introduced to the world, the genre-blurring brilliance of Shakey Graves, the alter ego of Austin-born singer-songwriter Alejandro Rose-Garcia, took the Americana world by storm
Now, to mark the album’s 10th anniversary, he’s hitting the road for a celebratory tour that brings him to Cleveland on May 10—one of the first artists to take the stage at the city’s brand-new venue, Globe Iron, developed by AEG. Once the show wraps up, it will go down in history as the largest crowd and most acclaimed show in the venue’s history. (It opens eight days before he takes the stage! No disrspect to you, Mushroomhead or The Damned.)
With his signature blend of folk, blues, and rock, and a reputation for dynamic, unpredictable live shows, Shakey Graves promises an unforgettable night in a space built for next-generation performances. We caught up with him ahead of the show to talk tour memories, the evolution of ‘And the War Came,’ and what fans can expect from this milestone performance.
This interviewer loves tours celebrating the anniversaries of great albums. Some of my favorite artists, including Jack’s Mannequin, Green Day, and Weezer, have all toured to revisit a now-classic record.
Will Shakey Graves perform the album tracks sequentially?
“Yeah, we are,” he confirmed. “That’s kind of finally breaking the mold of. Usually, I do a big mix of music across all sorts of stuff. Even when I’ve done tours to release new records, I usually don’t play it all the way straight through for very long. So this has been a fun thing to do. We start with that and go straight through it. And then I do a solo section for a little bit where I do some of my one-man band stuff and some acoustic music, and then we do some more full band from just an assortment of other stuff.”
A decade can change anyone’s perspective on life. For folks who keep a diary or journal, it’s likely hard to relate to thoughts and feelings of yesteryear. This is even more true for songwriters. Think about the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson and Mike Love passed the 80-year-old mark several years ago. Yet, they still sing their songs about high school, surfing, and picking up young women. That’s not who they are now. (Neither of them EVER surfed, but that’s besides the point!) Rose-Garcia was questioned on if the meaning of his songs from ‘And the War Came,’ have a different meaning to him a decade later.
“They’ve all kind of changed,” he confirmed. “That’s been maybe my favorite and kind of the most intense part about all this, looking back on my mindset when I made the record. And the one part that I think that didn’t change, that I think was correct in the sense that this is what I thought the record was kind of about. And in looking back, I think it was more true than I even knew, ‘And the War Came,’ was kind of the first time that I had agreed to have any help doing my artistic stuff. I can be very controlling about my art, and I can be kind of flippant, making it seem like it’s just something I make. I care so much about it, and I really pour so much of myself into it, and all the way down to being a one-man band for so long, because it’s like I can control my own fate in some ways.”
“I live and die by my own sword. But this was the first time that I had a label involved,” Rose-Garcia continued. “It was really the underlying theme that seemed to be about a young man or young person realizing that they did want to let people into their life. I think you can only be a loner for so long on purpose. That’s kind of what this was about. And I think looking back, all the way down to having a family 10 years ago, I fantasized about that, but it’s like I hadn’t met a person who would seem reasonable with, and my wanderlust was so strong and so important to me that it just seemed impossible. But I think I had just kind of started that conversation with myself of wanting to be responsible for being a part of something bigger than myself. So that was accomplished. I still feel that hearing these songs, along with a lot of other things, has changed.”
Rose-Garcia was unwed when ‘And the War Came’ was released. He tied the knot in 2023 and welcome his first child in 2024. He was asked if that changes his perspective life and influences his future songwriting.
“Yeah, it has to,” he confirmed. “I write personally, but I don’t really write confessionally per se. It’s a little bit more of a broad-stroke situation. And in the past, it’s like the stuff that’s really kind of messed with my mind the most was heartbreak and finding my place in the world. The last record I put out was a little bit more about the world being inturmoil. It was a little more like me feeling disenfranchised with external stuff, but I always kind of write third person omniscient. It’s from through the eyes of a character a little bit. It’s yet to be seen what subject matter I’d be writing about right now. It’s had such a profound effect on my life anyway, and in the way I view myself and the world in general, it’s like it is my whole world. So I don’t think there’s really any way to escape having that be involved in my songwriting. The nex record might be a whole 15 children songs about poop for all I know. I’m definitely open to the changes, too. I think that that has to come with the time that I’m in. People have kids at all sorts of different points in their life, and this has made me realize how hard or easy or advantageous or disadvantageous this can be at any stage in your life. Having a kid when you’re 18 versus 38 is like, that couldn’t be a bigger spectrum. I’m on one strange part of this journey, and I’m happy that I’m able to take it all in right now.”
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