“It was great to start off that young, but that was a different time. The first show I ever did was opening up for the band KIX, they were huge at that time, so my first show was in front of about 1000 people at Keystone Palo Alta in California,” Shawn remembers. “It was the height of the whole punk glam movement in San Francisco, and a lot of drugs, a lot of partying going on, so I was put into a lot of different situations at a young age. I grew up seeing things that a lot of kids at that age never see. I wouldn’t change a thing, but I think it affected me all around. There were a lot of bad things that happened, a lot of friends being lost along the way.”
Shawn played with numerous bands in the following years, including a Steven Adler (Guns & Roses) /Davy Vain project called Roadcrew and with the rock band, ‘Heavy into Jeff.’ Along the way, Shawn discovered his talent for songwriting. “I started really writing while I toured all over the world. I was touring constantly, wherever I could.”
Eventually songwriting became more than a hobby, it became his vocation. The television landscape is sprinkled with his work, “I’ve written songs for and stuff for Touchstone, Access Hollywood, America’s Best Top Model, American Idol, American Gladiators.”
With a successful career writing for television as his day job, Shawn recently left the glitter of L.A. behind and moved to Nashville to try his hand in Music City. “People think Nashville is just country, it’s not, you have a lot of other genres here. There’s always an opportunity for songwriters. In L.A., usually you have a lot of roles to take on, producer, and writer, almost discovering the artist, trying to take them from the bottom up to getting them a record deal. You have to involve the artist somehow. Here in Nashville, you just write the song and walk away. Other than in television and film, I think the opportunities in Nashville are much more broad and in reach than in California. I am really writing here in Nashville, just trying to leave a mark. Nashville is such an open, warm city, that when you get here and you pay your dues and people see you working hard, it means something. In LA, that doesn’t mean anything. I like it here!”
Shawn currently has numerous artists around town playing his music. One of those is Shawn’s girlfriend, Deanna Johnston, who appeared in the show Rock Star INXS. Shawn says of Deanna, “She is an unbelievable entertainer. We write every thing for her, together. Hopefully, she is on the verge of a deal here pretty quick.”
Keeping focused day in and day out is hard, but Shawn prefers the creativity of songwriting to the pressures he felt as an artist, “It’s hard to stay that creative, there’s no doubt about that. I sometimes have to take days or weeks away from that process. It’s hard to keep that momentum going as a songwriter, but I think it’s harder to keep it going as an artist, because you can get so many slaps in the face. There are so many things you have to do. Are you in shape? Are you young enough? Do you have the right connections? Do you have enough myspace friends? Are you touring enough? Being a songwriter, you just have to basically write from the heart. I think it’s easier to stay positive as a songwriter than as an artist, much easier. If you are writing something that means something and is real, eventually you’ll get noticed.”
“I have a daughter who is 12 years old; she started on the piano probably about 2 ½ years ago. I thought she was just playing piano to become a musician, but she’s turned out to become more of a songwriter. She enjoys showing me songs she’s written more than how capable she is as a musician. Years back, my whole career was spent as lead guitar in bands. I saw myself as an artist. I put all that down to be a songwriter,” Shawn says, thoughtfully, regarding the satisfaction of writing a song, “You have to do it 100%, and you do it honest and real. Don’t ever be afraid to say something in a song because what you say in that song might be embarrassing. There’s always someone that feels the same way as you do. You are never alone. I think it’s a matter of being true to who you are. Don’t ever let anybody tell you about ‘the box’, as far as simply trying to write for radio, or trying to write for this or that. Write simply for who you are and what you are. That’s when people will come to you for your originality.”
| written by Debbie DuBois Miller
