When The Shades released its first EP, Miles Made of Inches, two years ago, the Chicago pop trio recorded “every single song we had at our disposal at the time,” according to Andrew DeMuro. That’s not the case with the new Draw, a four-song set that’s out Oct. 25 and premiering exclusively below.
Where its predecessor was a Frankenstein of sorts, filled out by musician friends in other cities adding parts, Draw was put together by the trio and its regular live adjunct members during a four-day session at Gravity Studios in Chicago, with DeMuro’s brother Luke flying in from New York to engineer. “Since the other two members (Phil and Mark Jacobson) are brothers, to have my brother join us made it a family affair on steroids, and we really enjoyed that,” notes DeMuro, who was a contestant on season 11 of The Voice.
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“I think just the way we write songs, it lends itself to all of those styles being represented,” DeMuro explains. “It goes back to what our name represents. When people hear the Shades, often times they think about Ray-Bans or things you wear on your face, or an absence of sunlight. We view it as shades of many different musical influences…that impact our ability as songwriters. We’ve been compared to Crosby, Stills & Nash as much as we’ve been compared to *NSYNC as much as to TLC. I think (Draw) represents that.”
The Shades — whose members by day operate the nonprofit Guitars Over Guns, an after school arts initiative for Chicago area youth — will host a release show for Draw on Oct. 25 at Uncommon Ground in Chicago. It’s also playing monthly dates as part of the So Far Sound series and has some college shows on its docket. But, DeMuro notes, “there’s not a tour planned for this particular record. I think our priority is to get back to writing the next one and hopefully not take as long to get more new music out.”