D.C. based alternative electro-pop trio SHAED have released a video for their hugely successful single “Trampoline”. The track is an exhilarating mix of electronic soundscapes featuring delicately calm clicking and a captivating rush of keyboard.
The visuals begin with SHAED vocalist Chelsea Lee dressed in all white with her face covered and surrounded by a white background. Then her face is no longer shielded, but she’s still in white next to a muscular sculpture reminiscent of Michaelangelo. Later you see her and her bandmates styled as if they were lifelike statues. Throughout the video there’s also moments of gliding through the air as if they were springing off a trampoline.
“Trampoline” is off their EP entitled Melt with this concept that things melt away, but also come together. “Our title track ‘Melt’ is about my experience on a major label. I struggled for many years trying to figure out what kind of artist I wanted to be and with SHAED I finally feel like I'm doing what I love. When we all moved in together the bad experiences I'd had seemed to be melting away. At the same time, we were spending everyday together, and at times it literally felt like we were melting into one creative entity,” Lee explains.
Their band name SHAED is a reference to a fictional cloak woven out of shadow. “We all pass around books, and one of our favorites authors is Patrick Rothfuss. In his book Wise Man's Fear, a shaed is a cloak woven by a goddess made out of shadow and light. Everyone perceives it differently, but they can't deny its beauty. We really loved this idea, along with the og shade meaning - shades of color, shade from a tree,” she reveals.
SHAED is comprised of powerhouse singer Chelsea Lee and multi-instrumentalist twin brothers Max and Spencer Ernst. Lee’s soft yet mighty vocal tone seamlessly compliments the twin’s exceptional talent for production and sound design. SHAED’s refined, distinctive sound has landed the trio syncs in national TV spots such as Apple’s MacBook Air, on FOX for the NFL NFC Championship Game and Victoria’s Secret.
The band is known for their danceable, deeply electro-pop sound. Though extremely infectious, their music moves from light and dark with sparkling synths, but highly emotive vocals.
Friends since high school, Lee describes how she began the extraordinary musical collaboration with Max and Spencer. “We met when I was 15 and quickly became very close. At the time, we were in different projects, and were more about being friends than making music together. When I got out of my record deal, we spent more and more time working on music together. At first, it was tough for me to crack the twin code. They had been writing with each other for so long, and I had to remind them that I was in the room! But eventually we really gelled creatively, and I've never left”.
Moving into a house together last fall, the band has cultivated an even closer bond, taking their sound to a whole other level with a positive creative rebirth. Max and Spencer were making more Americana music before the band was formed. Lee explains, “When we found a retro Casio keyboard at a garage sale. The sounds were super inspiring, and right around that time a friend introduced us to Ableton Live, which we still use to record. We were also listening to a lot of Radiohead, particularly KID A. All of these things were big factors that lead us down the path of creating more electronic leaning music.”
Their hit single “Trampoline” came to fruition in a fascinating way. “We had just moved into our home outside of DC. Trampoline was the second song we wrote in our new spot. Max and Spencer were watching home videos and there was one of them bouncing on a trampoline when they were 3 or 4. It had this dreamlike quality, and that's what lead to the opening line "I've been having dreams, jumping on a trampoline.” We wrote the rest of the lyrics in our backyard. It was fall, and leaves were falling from all the trees, and it was so beautiful.”
The band declares their greatest accomplishment is their EP Melt. Now that they are on a healthy regiment, waking up early everyday and spending all their time in the studio, it’s only made them that much more of a powerful force. They also reveal they are incredibly proud of the friendship they’ve built as a trio. Their hope is to continue on this path of creating uniquely crafted sounds as their connection becomes even stronger.
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