shawnsmith.jpgOn a recent evening before inexplicably under-the-radar Seattle singer/songwriter Shawn Smith was to play a short set at the reinvented Crocodile Club, Sound met with the man who fronted Satchel, fronts Brad (with Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard on guitar) and most recently, the riff-heavy All Hail the Crown. The enigmatic artist remembered Satchel’s The Family (for Sound’s July issue), then moved on to other projects, including his funky Pigeonhed pairing with local producer extraordinaire Steve Fisk, his hard rock work with Andrew Wood’s brother Kevin, and his current and upcoming solo endeavors. The conversation only strengthened the conviction that Smith remains one of this city’s unsung musical treasures. For not much longer, hopefully.

SOUND: What’s going on with Brad?
SS: We did an album over five years ago, and I don’t really understand why we haven’t put it out. It’s mixed and everything.

SOUND: Is it a label issue?
SS: It’s not in my hands, I’ll just say that. I just want to put it out—put it on iTunes or something. It’s been so long. I started saying something about it a couple of years ago on Myspace, and fans were just like, “Whatever.” [Laughs] Now they don’t even ask me anymore. “I don’t know” is all I could say. Now that the business has changed so much, I’d just as soon give the fucker away. You know what I mean? Just get it out there, so the fans and people who want to hear it can hear it.

SOUND: Any chance Pigeonhed could be reborn?
SS: Steve [Fisk] and I did a record—partially did a record—in early 2000. It didn’t really work out that well, but but we’ve been talking. He found the tape. It was done on some kind of computer system he had that went away, so all we have are these roughs. But he found some program that can recapture it or whatever. So we might remix that stuff and throw it out there. And we’ve been talking about getting together and doing another record.

That’s one of those things where—for the initial record, there was an innocence there. It was my first making of a record. Steve had a place down here on Western, and I would just go in the afternoons from like three to six. We’d smoke tons of weed, he’d have beats, and I’d play things over them. It’s something we can’t recapture, you know. I can’t go get stoned every day. [Laughs] But we’ve been talking. It would be so great if we could go somewhere for two weeks and work. Go somewhere where we’re away from everything. We’d need to be really focused in the studio. I would like to make another Piegonhed record with Steve.

SOUND: How’d your band All Hail the Crown come together?
SS: I really like the band. It started when Kevin [Wood], the guitar player, left me an email that said, “I’m in the studio tomorrow with Regan [Hagar] and I’ve got some lyrics. Would you sing my stuff?” I was free, so “Yeah!” I get down there and I was ready to sing Kevin’s lyrics, but it turns out they were Andy Wood’s lyrics from when he was young. And they were great. So the first record, I just used all these stacks of Andy’s lyrics. And all those songs are really good.

One thing led to another, and we got a different drummer. It sort of moved off to be a new band. Still doing the stuff with Andy’s lyrics, but we’re working on a new record with my lyrics. We’ve been doing it for almost two years as this new band. It’s still Kevin, and our new bass player Rob Day has brought in some riffs, too. The cool thing is I don’t even have to go to practice—they’ve recorded the music already, and I just go in and sing.

SOUND: How do you write lyrics for those songs?
SS: I’ve been going in by myself, whenever we have a place to record. I just start singing and writing right there. It’s kind of like three or four hours a song. I’m excited about the new stuff. I still have about five songs to finish, but all the music [for the new album] is recorded.

SOUND: And you’re self-producing?
SS: Yeah. We have this guy Don Gunn who’s been cutting the band, and I think he’s going to mix it. It’s taking time because of the lack of money. We squeeze it in when we can.

SOUND: I assume you’ll keep playing around town.
SS: Yeah. It’s really fun. Satchel was a rock band that was more of a psychedelic kind of thing. But this is like hard rock. [Laughs]

SOUND: Kevin gets into it, too.
SS: You gotta reign him in—sometimes it’s a little too crazy. [Laughs] He will solo forever. But it’s awesome. The riffs he comes up with are just wicked. I just keep thinking guitar magazine would love him. They’d eat him up. Just need to get us out there.

SOUND: You’ve been in so many acts and bands. Everybody should know your stuff.
SS: I’m not dead yet. [Laughs] It’s frustrating. But it’s a lot of my doing, through inaction. But I really feel like it’s turning a corner. I feel like a have a focus, even though I’m doing so many things. I have a new understanding of what I really want.

SOUND: And what is that?
SS: To really be in control of my vision. There’s always been compromise through the years. I started out as a solo artist, then I worked with people. And I just like to control … you know, how the website works, stuff like that. It’s not fun for me when I let things go. I like to sort of take control of those things. But everyone I’ve been playing with, they’re really mellow. There’s just little things that I’m learning I like to do.

SOUND: Sound vs. Silence picked up your previous albums. Will you stick with them?
SS: Well, that’s basically this guy Aaron in town, who wrote me a year ago. He just wanted to put out the records. Nobody cared whether they made money or anything. That was really cool. They put out my two solo albums and my live album.

SOUND: You mentioned websites, and yours changed recently.
SS: Yeah, like the other one [before it], it’s a fan site. My other guy walked away, and we’re in the process of redoing it and changing the domain name. I think it’s gonna be shawnsmithsinger.com. I’m going to try and offer a whole bunch of stuff for free. I’m really excited about it. I didn’t play that much of a role in the other one, but for this one, I’m going to play a bigger role. It’s been nice to do the Myspace thing, but I don’t even know if people pay attention to Myspace anymore.

SOUND: And what about solo shows?
SS: If you live in Ohio, you can jump in your car and play all around—you could play New York and Philly. But here, you go to Portland and then it’s a day drive anywhere. Last time I did a west coast tour with friends, I lost whatever money I had. On the hotels and the drive. The crowds weren’t big enough to pay for it, either.

I really need to get a touring thing happening. I played England and that went really well. And played with Arsenal—they’re kind of strictly Belgium. I guess Satchel’s The Family was successful there. Specifically. So I was actually well-known there. It was super fun. I sang on Arsenal’s single. The crowds were like [throws up hands]. Yeah! I played one solo show over there and got like five grand. They have high taxes, but I guess the state pays for stuff like that.

SOUND: What do you think of this Seattle City of Music thing?
SS: What’s that?

SOUND: Greg Nickels declared this major musical movement in the city.
SS: You mean after he tried to shut everything down? [Laughs] I’m confused. He came down on the clubs for noise or whatever. I don’t know a whole lot about it. But I was in an elevator with him, at the opening of that sculpture park thing. I just had that moment where I wanted to say something: “What the fuck, why are you messing with the community so much?” But I didn’t. It was weird. [Laughs]

SOUND: What’s this I hear about a dance record?
SS: It’s a record I’ve been making for about a year. It’s not disco. It’s just funky. I’ve been working with this guy Joe Veneziani. It’s all synth-based. I started it in December, and some of the tracks are older than that. If we had money, we could focus for two weeks and nail it down. But on some level, it’s getting better and better, so maybe it’s a good thing.

So I’ve got the dance record and the hard rock record, and I’ve got all these songs for what I’m calling “the hillbilly record.”

SOUND: What’s that?
SS: I’m doing it with this friend of mine in Los Angeles. It might be one of those things where fans pay to help me record it. I just need plane fare and food and lodging. I might do that. I don’t know what I think about getting fans to pay first and then giving them stuff. [Laughs] We’ll see.

SOUND: Wow. You always have a lot going on, but—
SS: More than ever. I want this stuff to work. I want to go do it. I’m excited.

See Shawn at the Crocodile on Thursday, 6/25, with Jon Auer and Lorelei. $12. Doors at 8pm.