Interview with The Shadowboxers

Bio

Members: Scott Tyler (vocals, guitars), Adam Hoffman (vocals,guitars),

Matt Lipkins( vocals, keyboards)

Genre: Pop. R&B, Soul

The Shadowboxers can be identified by their smooth vocals, effortless harmonies and nostalgic melodies. After listening to their song "I Can't Stop Thinking About You" which is to still on repeat we found ourselves downloading song after song of theirs and had to learn more about them. Lucky for us, they agreed to being our first ever Ebb 'n Flow interview.

The band formed after the members met during freshman year at Emory University and they have since toured with Indigo Girls as well as Justin Timberlake. When choosing the band name they explained that their music is rhythmically driven and felt that the term 'shadowboxer' represented that. The Shadowboxers post cover songs as well as their originals on Youtube and their cover of JT's "Pusher Love Girl" caught Timberlake's attention on social media. This lead to Justin being involved in the production of some of their music as well as them opening for him on his "Man of the Woods" tour in 2018/2019.

Interview

1. What is your earliest memory of music?

I remember swimming in my grandparents’ pool listening to Man in the Mirror on their outdoor sound system thinking life couldn’t get any better - Scott Tyler

2. Looking back on 12 years you guys have been The Shadowboxers, your band has grown since your formation at Emory University. Was music part of your studies and ,if not, when did each of you realise that music was something that you wanted to do as a career?

Matt and I studied music theory in school, and that’s actually how we met. But even if we didn’t take any classes, all three of us knew we wanted to pursue music as a career. We all were artists and songwriters in high school and all wanted to ride that train until the wheels fell off. Luckily we met each other and found a way to make this a career -Scott Tyler

3. Who are your greatest musical inspirations that helped you grow into the person you are?

My spirit is charged up by listening to Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and EWF (to name a few). My mind is charged up by listening to Paul Simon, Fleetwood Mac, and the Beatles (to name a few). Bill Withers keeps me cool,

Prince fires me up. John Mayer and Coldplay have helped me though my younger days. Jason Isbell and Frank Ocean help me though these more current days. And there are hundreds more -Scott Tyler

4. One of the things that we are obsessed over is your unique sound and aesthetic. How did your sound come about and how did you find it finding a place for your sound in the mainstream?

The uniqueness to our sound has always been in our vocal harmonies. That’s what clicked when we first sang together. That’s what came naturally to us from the very beginning. The interesting thing is that we’ve sometimes strayed from that in the pursuit of forward thinking, mainstream songwriting, which is a necessary process. But we’re finding now that the music that feels best to us now, 12 years in, is stuff that we were doing in our dorm room 12 years ago. More mature lyrically and sonically, more polished and developed...but at its core it’s still that harmony driven pop that we love -Scott Tyler

5. What advice would you give to other artists that are starting out in the industry?

This is a time of unprecedented access to information, art, and stimuli in general; genres are quickly blurring into one another, and while that frees artists up to feel unrestrained, it can also be very intimidating. You’ve heard this a thousand times before, but in this crazy, democratized landscape of art and culture, the best thing to do to get started is to COMMIT TO YOURSELF. Commit to learning how you work best, commit to taking some missteps, commit to failing sometimes, commit to learning from those failures, but always commit to doing all of these things while staying true to yourself. You don’t need to be the shiniest, or do the Floss better than those people on IG and Tik Tok you follow, or play guitar better than John Mayer, but when you do attempt to achieve greatness in something, just make sure you do it as yourself. That’s what people wanna see and believe in and be inspired by: you being you. -Matt Lipkins

6. The Shadowboxers have had hit amazing career milestones including touring with the Indigo Girls and collaborating with Justin Timberlake. Which three artists, alive or dead, would you want to collaborate with?

Ooooffffff, ok right off the dome i’m gonna say John Mayer, Phil Collins, and Earth, Wind & Fire. -Matt Lipkins

7. The new wave of music production is moving away from ghost writers, bought beats and coming into more experimental and out-there melodies. What is your writing and production process?

Everything is ghost written (shout out to Max Martin!), the beats are ripped from YouTube, and we stole all our melodies from BTS (we have five singles out and we’ve already been sued twenty one times)! In reality though, we write in a lot of different ways to keep things fresh; all three of us write, sometimes separately, sometimes together, sometimes only two of us, sometimes with co-writers, etc. But for this album, regardless of whether a song was demo’d out during a writing session or came to the group as a voice note on a phone, we filtered everything through Adam’s production and the same three-part harmony stack and treatment so that every song had consistency. We tried to stick to the same five or six synth sounds, guitar tones, and snare choices, but sometimes a song needs its own special sonic sauce and we’d have to search outside our canon sound group to get the song right. -Matt Lipkins

8. Finding your sound in a music industry which is gearing towards one similar sound can be difficult. What was the song which made you realise that this is the kind of music you wanted to be making?

Yeah, rap and 808 sounds are hard to avoid in 2020. When recording started, we had a strong goal in mind; consistent, classic sounding melodies, vocal harmonies, and instrumentation with modern drum production. We probably recorded seven to eight songs before finding one that hit that bullseye for us, but once we finished building out “In The Dark”, we realized that it was the best sonic example of what we’d been going for all along (which is why it was the first single). So much so that it caused us to look back at some of the material we’d already finished and retroactively re-produced it to sound more in line with ITD. With that as our North Star, the rest of the album came much easier! -Matt Lipkins

9. Touring seems to be a huge part of The Shadowboxers with your first tour with the Indigo Girls. What is one of the memorable tour memories you have and what was the best advice you had been given?

Our shows have run the gamut from playing for 6 people to playing for 80,000. But the latter is probably the most memorable experience we’ve had. We were asked to open for Justin Timberlake at the F1 event outside of Austin. This was our first show opening for JT and there were actually 80,000 people there when we started. The sun was setting over this sea of people and it was a feeling that, even as a writer, feels impossible to describe. Tom Petty had passed away recently and we played a medley as tribute. Hearing everyone singing Free Fallin while the sky burned orange and red and purple was a really spiritual experience. Best advice we’ve ever been given? No matter if there are 6 people or 80,000, imagine there are 80,000. -Adam Hoffman

10. What is a dream venue/location that The Shadowboxers would love to perform at?

Red Rocks and/or the moon. - Adam Hoffman

11. It’s no secret that artists fangirl/fanboy over other artists. What is a song that you wish you wrote?

Elephant by Jason Isbell. -Adam Hoffman

12. What five songs would you show someone who wants to get to know The Shadowboxers as people and a band?

The first five singles from this latest album would be a very good start. In The Dark, Honeymoon, Won’t Ever Say Goodbye, I Can’t Stop Thinking About You, and How Many Ways. That feels very encompassing of who we’ve always been and who we hope to be. -Adam Hoffman

Stream their music on Spotify and Apple Music!!!