Musicians Shawn Legaspi and Willow Leavey met while attending the same secondary school. However, there is some internal dispute over exactly when they met, with Willow recalling First Year and Shawn recalling Third Year. Regardless of this historical dispute, they both agree that what brought them together was a mutual friend’s The Jimi Hendrix Experience-, AC/DC-, and Led Zeppelin-inspired school band.

 “We weren’t really close until Transition Year. That’s when a mutual friend of ours wanted to start a band,” Shawn tells Post-Burnout. “At the time, I could just about hold a note, vocally, and there was this song-writing workshop or whatever – because in T.Y., you just fuck around, basically – and he heard me singing and said, ‘Do you want to join this band? My friend Willow’s in it,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, Willow! I know Willow!’ So, we joined the band.”

Willow adds, “It’s funny, because, basically, I had left a band around the time – like my first band that I joined when I was thirteen – and that friend and I were like, ‘We should start a band together,’ because we both knew that we were musicians. He played guitar and I was new to bass at the time; I was just playing drums at the time, properly. I remember him just texting me, like, ‘You know Shawn? He’s in our band now.’ I’m like, ‘OK!’ [Laughs]”

“Yeah,” concurs Shawn. “So, that band lasted until the summer after we finished the Leaving Cert.” “It did and it didn’t,” corrects Willow. “The last official rehearsal for that band was around that time, but he hadn’t been in rehearsal at that point for, like, a year-and-a-half.” “So, SHALLO had started,” Shawn continues. “With that band, we didn’t even do gigs; we did, like, school shows. We were really a secondary school band.”

After secondary, Willow, Shawn, and their bandmate enrolled at BIMM. “We got into first year of college, and, at that point, we hadn’t really done anything,” Willow recalls. “We did have one performance together in college, actually. Was it for one of your exams or one of his?” “No, it was definitely mine,” responds Shawn. “Like, end-of-term audition/exam thing.”

“Like, right at the beginning of first year,” continues Willow. “That was kind of the last thing. Basically, when that was definitely no longer a thing for the three of us, I remember that Shawn had a song out on Spotify called ‘Queen of Deceit,’ and…” “It’s not good!” asserts Shawn with a laugh.

“Relax!” responds Willow before continuing. “And it had been out for a year or two at the time?” “I think so, yeah,” confirms Shawn. “And I was like, ‘Oh, this is a really cool song. The drums you wrote are fucking terrible!’,” laughs Willow. “Because Shawn can write a good drum part, now – he has – but, at the time, he had no idea what he was doing!

“And I think I brought it to you, where I was like, ‘Hey, I like this song. We can do it for one of your exams,’ because it was like a bass-and-drums rock song. I was like, ‘I’m rewriting the drums!’ [Laughs], and he was like, ‘Yeah, sounds good!’ And we really liked it. That was kind of the beginning of SHALLO, but it wasn’t yet officially called SHALLO; it was just Shawn, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m playing drums for my friend Shawn’s song.’

“Then it was kind of after the halfway point of first year where Shawn brought this song to me that was very different at the time, called ‘Search Within.’ Even though we worked on a song beforehand, to me, that’s the first SHALLO song because it was the first song that we worked on together, properly. And we had one rehearsal, where we worked on that, and, after, I remember Shawn texted me, like, ‘Hey, are we a band?’, and I was like, ‘I think we are!’”

This project would be dubbed SHALLO; a portmanteau of their names with the last “W” in “Willow” (and, by extension, “Shallow”) cut off because it sounded cooler or more unique. The arrangement features Shawn on bass and vocals and Willow on drums and vocals.

Now freed of the shackles of the classic rock vibe of their school band, the two had to decide on a direction for this new project. Willow recalls, “When Shawn and I were introduced to each other in that first band, I think at the time, Shawn was listening to a lot more pop and singer-songwriter music. I’m watching him to see if he’s nodding. He just nodded.

“I remember Shawn liked Sabrina Carpenter before it was cool to like Sabrina Carpenter. That sort of thing. I was always into heavier music. I think at the time that Shawn was getting introduced to rock ‘n’ roll, I was introducing myself to death metal. Then Shawn was like, ‘I really like this Royal Blood band!’, and I was like, ‘Yeah, they’re pretty cool.’

“Muse is another big one for the two of us. I think a little more so for Shawn, even though I really like Muse. I think Muse is a bigger inspiration for SHALLO’s bass parts than Royal Blood actually is, even though Royal Blood is more accurate to the physical set-up of the band, of a bass and drum duo.”

Shawn adds, “Growing up, my dad listened to a lot of Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, that sort of rock, and I heard it on the radio, and they still slap, but, yeah, before I joined a rock band, I was kind of like, ‘Oh, Ed Sheeran’s cool.’ [Laughs] I still think he’s cool; I just don’t listen to his music that much, anymore.

“In BIMM, though, I was introduced to metalcore and stuff. My taste gradually got heavier and heavier, and now I’m very comfortable listening to, like, deathcore. I don’t listen to Slaughter to Prevail, but that sort of music. Now, the bass riffs are way more like metalcore guitar riffs mixed with that sort of Muse, pop-rock aesthetic.”

 “I remember there was a point, kind of earlier in the SHALLO days, when it was a little more rock than metal,” adds Willow, “where I was like, ‘The bass riffs are cool. There’s a lot I can do over them.’ And, with some of the more recent bass riffs, I’m like, ‘Shawn, what is that?’ [Laughs]”

When it comes to crafting their tunes, Willow says, “Most songs with SHALLO tend to start with Shawn. Having the melodic instrument, it’s a little easier. Though there have been a few songs I have started to [write], a lot of them will start with Shawn, who will bring them to me.

“Recently, they’ve been getting a lot heavier. To me, there are two phases of SHALLO songs. To me, the second phase started after the halfway point of third year, where we started getting way heavier.” “It’s hard to start writing a song on drums,” says Shawn. “You can have really cool ideas that can be turned into songs once you add other elements in, but I feel like on bass – at least that’s how it’s been for the last four years [Laughs] – I’m sort of the one starting the writing process.

“It used to be a lot more of just me, then I’d bring it to Willow, but now that Willow’s become more of a vocalist in the band – like, it’s two lead vocals in the band now, basically – if I decide I’m going to write a song, I’ll have the bass riff or whatever. I’ll write the lyrics, as well. Most of the time, it’s me just writing the lyrics, with Willow’s feedback after the fact. But there are some songs where I might have written the lyrics, but I didn’t write a melody, and I’m just like, ‘Willow…do something there!’ [Laughs]”

The two feel that their unique fusion of genres and influences makes them an idiosyncratic act, but one that they admit can be difficult for promoters to place on line-ups. “I think we, generally, have the ability to stand out in any scene,” Willow says. “For example, at Queer Fest, it was not purely a rock or metal gig, so we stand out there because we’re a metal band. Where, when we’ve played at gigs where it’s a lot of heavy music, there’s a contrast there, both in terms of the dynamic of the band and in the music.

“Obviously, a lot of heavy bands have at least four members, often more. We have half that. We’re a pair. And even in the music, we have a very distinct sound to me, that, even if it was put on a different instrument, I would still recognise them as SHALLO songs.

“It’s this kind of modern metal sound, reminiscent of, like, I Prevail or a little bit of Ice Nine Kills. [Laughs] That’s just me! I like Ice Nine Kills! I feel like we’re almost too pop to [be] like, ‘OK, we’re death metal,’ but we’re also way too death metal to be like, ‘OK, we’re a rock band.’”

In April 2023, the band dropped their first single, “Mirror,” which was then followed by a live recording of their song “Coin,” performed at The Bunker Studios and released that October. Since then, there have been no new releases from SHALLO, but that will change on this day next week, when they issue their latest track, “Betrayal.”

“We mentioned earlier about an ex-friend we had,” Shawn says of the song. “The lyrics of it are, basically, just talking about the downfall of that relationship between us two and him. The main beef, I guess, was between me and him, but Willow was sort of caught in the crossfire.

“Not to sound like the good guy, but in that situation, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry about that,’ blah, blah, blah, all of this, but he was like, ‘No! You’re an asshole!’ I was like, ‘That’s fine. You’re free to feel that way.’”

“I think one of the biggest themes of that song is how people can handle the downfall of relationships,” Willow adds. “The fact is, him and Shawn weren’t going to be friends anymore, and I could’ve been fine. The biggest reason why I’m not friends with him anymore and I am friends with Shawn is because of how the two of them handled it.

“As Shawn said, I was kind of caught in the middle, where I was like, ‘OK, shit. My two best friends are upset with each other,’ and I was trying to be there for both of them and one person was being way nicer about it, where I never felt like Shawn was upset with me for still being friends with that other person, which I can’t say was the same way for the other person.

“And that kind of comes back to a lot of the lyrics in the chorus. For example, that last line, Did you even see her?, is Shawn referring to me, or I’m not the one you hurt. Shawn and this person hadn’t been friends for a while at the point of us writing this song, but Shawn was like, ‘I don’t care about this. You’re hurting your friend who still cares about you.’

“Then the bridge comes along, where I sing the main vocals. I love the bridge. I just enter with, Hello, it’s me. Where the entire song has been Shawn talking to this person, then, at the bridge, I come in, and it’s like, ‘I don’t recognise you anymore.’ Then in the last chorus, we’re singing together.”

“Betrayal” began as part of a larger EP that Shawn was to record with SHALLO for his Final Year Project at BIMM, but due to the time restraint and stress of having a full EP completed by the end of the semester, he asked his lecturer if they could release a single instead, which they agreed to.

However, SHALLO still plan on releasing their first EP after the demands of college are off their shoulders, which they expected to release sometime this year. “Next week, [Editor’s Note – This interview was conducted at the beginning of March] we’re going to be recording drums for the upcoming EP,” Shawn says.

“The rest of the stuff – like, vocals and bass – I can record here, at home. I mean, I have my mic set up here. I have a mini-home studio thing. […] The EP[‘s release date], we’ll figure out once we get the drums recorded and stuff. But, yeah! We’ve got music out soon!”

“With the EP that we have, I don’t think there’s a specific concept we’re going for,” Willow says. “It’s more like highlights, or different songs through different eras of SHALLO so far. Obviously, it’s featuring ‘Search Within,’ which is an old song. It’s featuring ‘Mirror’ and ‘Coin,’ which are kind of staples for us because they’re already out. And there’s a couple of songs that are more recent for us. So, I think rather than having a specific concept, it’s like, ‘We’re finally releasing an EP! Here’s a bit of what we’ve been doing throughout the past four years.’”

Despite their first EP yet to come out, SHALLO are already looking towards its successor, which they hope to coincide with the band’s quinquennial anniversary next year. “I think for the fifth year, we can drop the second EP,” Shawn says. “Which, actually, does have more of a theme, I think. It’s that…, as Willow mentioned, …second-generation type of music. Mostly the heavy stuff.”

Beyond their commitments to college and their jobs, both of SHALLO’s members have other projects, with Willow also drumming for the alt-metal trio Raining in December and Shawn playing bass for the indie project BedHead. Yet, both find their mutual respect and the relative ease of operation to signify SHALLO’s longevity.  

“It’s very easy to work in SHALLO,” Willow says. “It doesn’t take any energy for me. Not that other bands do and I don’t like it; I just think the nature of SHALLO that we have, I find very easy, so I don’t see that slowing down. […] [Doing an old-timey “Noo Yowk” accent] So, there’s lots in store for SHALLO!”

SHALLO will release their new single, “Betrayal,” on April 11^th. You can find the band’s music and social media accounts through their Linktree.

Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight at 21:00 (IST) to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.