The Nautilus Studio M31 Files interview High Desert Strays (part 1)

Studio owners Yves LF Giraud (Studio M31) and Mr Bill (Nautilus Studio) interview High Desert Strays ' Shane Queener and Jessica Munn (part 1). 

Find out more on High Desert Strays here: 

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Instagram: @highdesertstrays

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Well guys, welcome to the Nartelo Studio M31 Files. And today our guests are High Desert Strays. Shane, I'm gonna start with you. Can you tell me where you're from and how you got into music? We'll just start with that.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Oh, where am I from? From Mama. Um I was born into a home of a Pentecostal preacher. So we moved around a lot. So I was born in Florida, then we moved to Alaska, then to North Dakota, then to Montana, then to Wyoming, and then I graduated high school in Wyoming and went to uh Cleveland, Tennessee for college and uh got a two-year music degree there. But growing up there was always music in the home, music in the church. Right. I started playing the bass when I was 10, I think. Uh playing in church. Uh started playing in school band in the sixth grade and played the trombone all the way through college. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

You can you still play the bone?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

You know, before I moved out here a couple years ago, I found it in the back of a closet. Oh, you did?

SPEAKER_04 1:47

You still have it, huh?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

And it it hadn't been played in 30 years, so I I donated it to a school music program. Really? Did you even try to blow it? I did, yeah. Uh anything came out? Uh the the the upper lip went numb instantly.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

Yeah, it sounded like that saxophone player at the end of uh Seinfeld uh that was Did you see the upper phone? It's the funniest thing you'll ever see in your life. Elaine was dating uh a musician, a saxophone player. I thought she dated a maestro. She dated all of them. No, I'll tell you, this is the funniest thing you'll ever see in your life. Get it on YouTube. Elaine and the saxophone player, the end of the night when he's playing. Okay. Anyway. Okay. Okay. Back to the story.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Well, that's interesting because I wanted to play the saxophone. Yeah. Uh-huh. And my parents couldn't afford one. So they they found a trombone at a yard sale for $5 and said, Well, this is what you're going to play. I want to play the saxophone.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Wow. Wow. So, yeah, it probably wasn't a Selmer or the highest quality $5 yard sale deal. Well, it was a con. Oh, it was a con? Yeah, but it was it was in rough shape. Yeah, I bet.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yeah. Took some emory cloth and oil to get it working right.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Sliding there, yeah. Nice. So stallion base and trombone. Yeah.

unknown 3:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Cover Test. Where are you from and how did you end up doing uh Pangaton?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Well, I was born in England and then moved to Texas. Then we lived in Venezuela, and then lived in Colorado, northern Colorado, and then back to Texas. And I started playing the last time we moved back to Texas. Really? That's what that's what made me play. Yeah, I didn't ever want to play.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

Would you have to stay at home uh when uh you couldn't do it?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

I just my foot was black and blue and swole up, so I couldn't get around really quick.

unknown 4:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

What were there to bite you?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Oh my ankle.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

Really? And messed you up pretty good, huh?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah, it was um it was pretty gnarly.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Wow. Wow, but you t totally recovered from it? Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, but I had some time to be inside.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

How old were you back then? 13. I guess. Oh wow. That was a right little snake. No, uh a cotton mouth. Oh, but uh one of the few vipers we have in our country, and uh not quite as bad as some of the rats.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

No, it was just and so wow. I'm both my aunt's guitar and learned to play the blues because you felt so sad.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

Yeah, and I just started playing blues clubs in Dallas, and that's kind of how I learned and just well y you had to uh establish uh some playing to be able to play these blues clubs, did you? Did you learn that on your own or did did you uh have somebody kinda helping you along there?

SPEAKER_01 5:04

I just played by ear and I think I played that first club when I've been playing about six months, I guess. And I just fell off in there and then those guys kind of gave you the thumbs up, said hey kind of took care of me and they taught me sort of. I just started playing with them and learned from those guys.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Shane, where is it that you could restarted actually playing outside? Like how did that happen?

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Um in in the secular world, I mean it I was playing out with with church functions. There would be conferences and conventions and um so they would pick up players from different parts of the country and put a band together. So I was I was doing some of that, but I uh I was following this band called Wiley in the Wild West out of Montana, and they had been around for quite a while, and Wiley was his own bass player. And one day on social media he p said Wiley in the Wild West is looking for a bass player, and so I sent him a message, and within 24 hours I had a plane ticket to go audition. Wow. Two weeks from that time. And so I ended up on the road with him for two years, I think.

SPEAKER_05 6:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Yeah. Where were they that that you had to fly to the other?

SPEAKER_02 6:35

They were in Montana, and I was in Tennessee. Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_04 6:39

What part of Montana was that out of?

SPEAKER_02 6:42

He's out of Conrad, but I flew into Billings because they were playing a show in Paradise Valley. Um, and my uh my audition was soundchecked for that show. Wow, that's and by the end of the show he's like, I think this will work. Cool. Oh, that's awesome. And was he playing country uh he uh he plays kind of an eclectic mix of some some swing and western swing and uh I think somebody dubbed it as uh surf punk cowboy music or something like that. Oh, I like that. But he's a yodeler.

SPEAKER_04 7:25

That sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

He's a yodeler.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

And um, so lots of Yodel leads. He calls it high octane yodeling.

SPEAKER_04 7:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Is he on YouTube? He's all over. Is he? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

He's got 20 albums out. Wow. So you did two years with him? With another album?

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Two years with him, and I was the only band member that didn't live in the northwest, so it was a plane ticket every time. Oh my gosh. Every time it must have paid okay then otherwise. Yeah. But he finally he finally got to the point where the he said the plane tickets were getting in the wallet a little too much. So it was it was a fun run. I bet, yeah.

unknown 8:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Yeah, sure. And so how did um I'm interested in seeing how you got from playing with people and church and then this to becoming a songwriter.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Okay. So through through Wiley in the Wild West, um he plays a lot of the cowboy poetry gatherings around the country. Uh the big one being the the National Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada.

SPEAKER_05 8:31

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Um and he would get booked for that quite often, and we'd always end up playing two or three times during the week, and usually played the midnight dance at the end of the whole event. And uh so I'd kind of dabbled in some poetry up to that point, some kind of cowboy poetry.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

But being kind of submersed in that world through Wiley, um, I met I met a lot of cowboy singer-songwriters, and it it all just kind of resonated with me. Um so yeah, I just started playing the guitar a little more and trying to trying to write some songs.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

Right, so it kinda kinda gave you uh a taste for it. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I can do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

So you were kinda r uh playing to uh songs that are poetry that you wrote, uh trying to you know, most of the carb uh cowboy poetry is real humorous and and and typically A lot of it is yeah, a lot of it is, yeah. A lot of it's just about life being a cowboy or a cowgirl. But uh did you uh uh add the music, uh write write the lyrics first, is kind of what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yeah, so a couple of the a couple of my early songs were started off as poems.

SPEAKER_05 9:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Um I kind of gravitated to that vein of of music and poetry, but I don't know that I would call what I do cowboy poetry or cowboy music.

SPEAKER_05 10:05

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Um I've always kind of just thought of it as like a Western, like a Western folk style.

SPEAKER_05 10:11

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Um stories of the West, people of the West, not not necessarily just cowboy stuff. Americana encompass that or I think it would fall into the Americana. Yeah, that's a big umbrella. It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Yeah, and uh Jessone had to say anything. It's time to tell your story. Right. Um kind of the same idea. Uh I don't know enough about you to really be able to comment, but I haven't seen you sing. Do you sing? No. Okay. And is it is it by uh so you're not interested in in singing?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

I mean, a couple people have heard me sing.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

It's really bad.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

And you've been told don't quit your day job.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

It's yeah. I mean, I broke a couple, you know, windows. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Can you yodel? No.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

No, you don't even yodel at the cows until I'm not a Yodel fan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

So in terms of in terms of so guitar obviously, uh apparently, unless I'm mistaken, be became the one the one instrument you play and the one you focus on.

SPEAKER_05 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Um so we when you were in Texas and you started playing out with with these bands and and different people, uh huh. What what was your um like how how much of did you become full-time or were you doing it a lot uh occasionally on the weekend?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Like how was uh uh I mean pretty much most weekends, but I was still in school.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

Well what were you yeah, and you could get in the bars in the school? Uh huh.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Uh huh. Yeah, yeah, I played played lots of bars.

SPEAKER_04 12:03

And what was the main town you were uh uh in?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

I didn't live in Dallas, but Dallas is mostly where I played.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

You were pretty close to Dallas?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah, it was I don't know, an hour and a half out of it.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

It was yeah, I didn't live in town.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

And were you driving at 14 there without any the first that's how I learned to drive was driving down to the middle of Dallas, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

So yeah, it's how how many years so uh what age were you were you there until if uh until old are you?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

I did that until I was probably I don't know twenty something, but I kind of started I got into swing and jazz, went to a Johnny Gimbal camp, and that kind of changed my whole life. I was like, oh I need to learn this this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

Oh, very cool.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

So then I uh through that a fiddle player I met out there had me come, they were putting together a swing band, Western swing band, and so then I played with that band for twelve years.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Oh wow, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

And so at that point I was kind of playing some blues, but those guys we played kind of more gigs that kind of was kind of my full time, I guess. I was going to college too, but I was driving from Stephenville to Dallas and wherever else we played. So kind of just lots of no sleep, you know. Lots of sleeping in the Whataburger parking lot and going to class and not going home from kid to class.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

Musicians, that's that's what we do. Yeah. What are you gonna graduate? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah, my animal production degree. No, I took one music class in college and it was an epic failure. Well, yeah. They caught me with my sheet music upside down and never learned to read it, and I faked them out. I'm like, you're you're not doing right. Yeah, yeah, that didn't go good for me. So I went with horse stuff. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:17

You made the right move. Those little dots and in the city. It's a what's this? Linda told me. Linda cut it down. I think that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, I'm just trying to act so serious, and he's like, You're gonna have to go. This is all I didn't like people telling me what to do either. That was they didn't know what I did.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

That's nice to be able to live your life too uh as long as you can without people telling you what to do. Yeah, I'm pretty big on that. Pretty big on that. No, no, um uh Johnny Gimbal's uh thing, uh that's Linda's related to Linda's. Yeah. Um that symptom.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, so I guess it'd be Johnny's brother Gene, be her dad. Yeah. So that played with Gene sometimes. He's way cool, yeah. Yeah, all those gimbal.

SPEAKER_04 15:17

And and and Linda knew Johnny then uh uh did you talk have you talked to her about it?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

We haven't got too much. We gotta get together. You gotta I can't imagine that.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Yeah, totally. Yeah, so yeah. Um I'm I'm gonna stay with you for a second and and go to Shane. How did you end up here?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

What what was the oh and and when like why or well I mean it's your question Are you looking for help?

SPEAKER_03 15:55

What was that? What about what?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Well, I guess it kind of started because I I got divorced and I just decided to take my horses and camp out in the forest. We just took off.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Still in Texas?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

And no, and uh outside of Creed. Okay and met just well, I stayed out there and just camped out for months and met some people and ended up here.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

We you know, we won't deal with secrets. I mean, this is the idea. You gotta choose words carefully on this. Okay. Yeah, okay. I haven't broke it for it. This is interesting. And um, so you ended up in in Mancas then somehow?

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Oh, yeah. Outside of Cortez, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

When was that?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

I guess I've been here a year and a half, maybe. Okay, so not too long. Yeah. I came first came up here, it's been a few years ago when I first came to visit. But you didn't stay at the yeah, I was just wandering around with my horses at that point still.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

All right, okay. And Shane, so how did you end up here?

SPEAKER_04 17:17

Um There's some inside. We want the whole truth. We want the whole truth to end up the truth. You can handle the truth. Give it to us, come on.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Oh, okay, okay. I'm gonna give it to them. Oh, yeah?

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Well, unless you feel the people involved, you don't want to.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

No, it's it's okay. Okay. Um I was a part of a group called the Outside Circle Show, which was a group of uh cowboy and cowgirl singers that were having trouble being accepted at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. So they set up they started this rogue movement, yeah, yeah, and it took off. Um, so they have their show every year in Elko at the same time the gathering's going on. And the guy that started that was a friend of mine, and he cowboyed every summer in Creed, and um they had two events in Creed where they would do uh a ranch roping and then have music in the evening, and it was the same kind of group of outside circle artists that would come be a part of that. And through that, um I was going through a separation, uh, headed to divorce, and I met a lady that was there, a part of that ranch roping thing, and she lived in Dolores. So after my divorce, I moved out to Dolores because we were we'd kind of become a thing at that time. And so I'm gonna go back to her story a little bit. When she was when she was camping in Creed in National Forest, my friend that was working cows on that national forest least just randomly came across where she was camping.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And I hadn't seen anybody all summer there. I was we pretty my stud horse was hobbled and ran over and tried to mount his mare. I had to throw clothes on, it was just a whole shit show.

SPEAKER_04 19:35

Wow. Where was uh were you on a ranch up there at Creed? Just in in the National Forest?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

What what creek were you on? I I know that area. I fish that area all the time.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Way up there, as far as I can.

SPEAKER_04 19:47

You or above the reservoir?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Uh just above or any furthest dirt road I can find. Really? You don't even know where you were, do you?

SPEAKER_04 19:57

I didn't have a minute.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

I drove until I heard water and there was enough room for my horses to get. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

That's uh that's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

That's uh survivor.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

That guy came across my camp.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Yeah, so he came across Jessica camping in the woods, and then the same gal that I moved to Dolores for, she was driving up on the weekends to do to kind of try to learn how to cowboy from this guy. Okay. So then she met Jessica, but at this point it was like the only common denominator was the guy that was working in the Creed at the time. Okay, right. So it's kind of the same lady as how we both ended up here.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Because I didn't even I never I didn't know about this area at all. And she's like, I'm in. So anyway. Right.

unknown 20:51

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

Alright. So um I know I met you both in different uh um at different times at the open mind, which is a great way for me to connect to you guys. Um but how did you meet how how did that happen there? Because oh my god, I can't.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

No, so the lady that I had moved up to Dolores for, Jessica had came up to visit, and it was the week that I was gonna do my first um listening room at the zoo, and Jessica and I got the guitars out and played a played a few tunes, and there was just some cool chemistry there. So when I So you had met you had not met yet at that point?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

We met in Lubbock, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

We did meet once in Lubbock, but we didn't play our own. So how did you play together on that that date? Like one of you had said, Yeah, uh, can I play with you?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Well how did that Well uh the zoo thing was coming up. Right. And so she had her guitar with her, so I said, Would you be interested in playing some tunes with me at this? Listening. And she was like, sure. So we went over a few songs, and then that first listening room that I did, I did an the first hour by myself, and then brought Jessica in for the second hour. Okay. And it was uh some it was some pretty cool chemistry. So basically basically unrehearsed. Yeah, yeah. She doesn't need to rehearse.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

When you've been playing twelve what, twelve years with a country swing band, you don't need to rehearse. Yeah. You know? And I know you don't. I mean it's my timing's off. That's not involved at all. I was just I'm the same way.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

I live for today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Yeah. Primarily today. What's going on with you? Uh gig-wise? Anything coming up?

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Any uh We are playing Saturday night at the Makus Brewery. Oh this coming Saturday, I think that's the 29th. I won't have the next one after that is December the 20th. Uh listening room at the zoo again. Oh gallery.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Well, that this will definitely be out by then, so that'll be a little promotionful. Yeah. Never mind.

SPEAKER_04 23:17

Oh, are are you guys yeah, never mind. Suspense. Yeah. Now now, since you two have been together, are are you co-writing anything yet?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I'm not a new kind of writer.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

Okay, okay, so so when when you kill Paul's. Shane, are you bringing up some new stuff that you hadn't put that's new since you've met uh you guys have been together? Oh of course Jess can jump in on anything you you show her there.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

New as yeah, new as in we're learning some new cover tunes. Cover tunes? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

You guys?

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Which which we do a lot of cover tunes. Yeah. But you know, I I I love the original, so a lot of them are pretty obscure, so they might come across as a cover. Well, that's the best.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

You know, you don't have to say this as an original or as a cover. It went playing.