BobbyCast Presents: Unsigned & Independent: S.2 Ep. 6: Shaylen - From Pop to Country

00:00:10
Speaker 1: It is time for another season of Unsigned and Independent. Five episodes are back with Kevin O'Connell aka Kickoff Kevin aka how are you finding these people?

00:00:21
Speaker 2: Various ways? This recent one, A couple ones so far this season are actually through Scuba or some other connections, whether it's Mike or people dming me, all kinds of defroids.

00:00:30
Speaker 1: Do you ever just go out?

00:00:31
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I have that too. Yeah. On the next one, there's some of that.

00:00:34
Speaker 1: Do you ever go and you're like, I'm gonna go check this person out and see if want to bring them on? And they're not very good, so you don't bring them on.

00:00:41
Speaker 2: I have had similar, not necessarily that, but yeah, something similar.

00:00:45
Speaker 1: So here we go.

00:00:45
Speaker 2: This is Shalin Shalen. So tell me about Shalan So Shalen. She has quite the story. Actually, she's actually signed to Young Money, Cash Money Records. Back in the day, she was part of a pop group. I don't want to say too much here, but very unique. She's been all around from l to Hear Dallas, and she's back in Nashville for little under a year now.

00:01:05
Speaker 1: And how'd you know about her?

00:01:06
Speaker 2: I found her. I came across on Instagram and then I saw some of her stuff and I liked her. And then actually Scuba mentioned her about a month or two ago and he's like, hey, do you know anything about Shalen? And I said no, true, long story short, and then here we.

00:01:18
Speaker 1: Are speaking of past artists that you've done. Here. I saw the girl who does like.

00:01:22
Speaker 2: Punk country h Royal Lynn.

00:01:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:01:26
Speaker 1: I saw her on TikTok.

00:01:27
Speaker 2: It was really good. Really yeah, she was really good. She's great on TikTok.

00:01:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:01:31
Speaker 2: What's her name again, royal Lynn?

00:01:32
Speaker 3: Royal Lynn.

00:01:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she was really good.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go. So season two, episode six, it's kickoff Kevin Kevin O'Connell with Shalen on Unsigned and Independent Shalen, How are you doing?

00:01:46
Speaker 4: I am great? How are you?

00:01:47
Speaker 2: I'm doing good? Doing good. I wanted to get right into your background here. When I grew up, I played a lot of sports growing up, Okay. I bounced around from whether it was in the fall, is football, spring, baseball, winter bath, and it never stopped. I was going for practice, to practice, game, the game, my dad, mom, everybody was taking me everywhere. I was curious. You said you got into music early. What was your upbringing?

00:02:11
Speaker 4: Like?

00:02:12
Speaker 3: You know, what's crazy is like my whole family does like no one's in music, Like my parents are FBI that's how they met.

00:02:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, weird.

00:02:19
Speaker 2: I don't know.

00:02:20
Speaker 3: I know my dad was like a really pretty crazy undercover agent.

00:02:25
Speaker 4: Now he's retired.

00:02:26
Speaker 3: But and then like my other brothers like they did like ones a firefighter ones, like he does like construction work.

00:02:33
Speaker 4: So it's no one did music. And I just.

00:02:35
Speaker 3: Remember coming out of the womb pretty much. And I actually don't remember coming out of the womb. That'd be weird, but I do remember the fact of like I was in church for the first time and I was singing in the choir and I remember like they had an offering moment where like you somebody sing a solo and I was like, I want to do that. And I was like six or seven, and Miss June gave me the opportunity to sing the offering that day for all three services and it's called bringing the Sheaves, and I just remember for like those three minutes, I was like, oh my god, I have to do this for the rest of my life. Like I don't know what it was of like whatever feeling that was whatever, like looking at people in the eyes, like while I was singing, and I was just like this, this would have to do.

00:03:17
Speaker 4: So after that, I was it was just I was hell bent.

00:03:22
Speaker 3: So my mom all of a sudden, I was like, I need a piano, I need to be in vocal lessons, I need to do this, and they were just like okay, like chill, like let's take this one step at a time.

00:03:32
Speaker 4: I did do sports on the side.

00:03:34
Speaker 3: My family was very like my parents were the best as far as if I wasn't good at something, they told me, they told me right away, like volleyball, no, absolutely not, don't let me touch one.

00:03:45
Speaker 4: We tried it failed.

00:03:46
Speaker 3: So the music thing, when we started to do that, my mom was like, Okay, this is this is what she's passionate about. So I started doing musical theater at playing on children's theater. I started doing all the school plays. I really thought I was gonna end up on Broadway because musical theater is like one of my passions. And then I started doing like a private master's class at this place called Septian Entertainment Group, and we then I got into this pop group and that was my life. Like I would go to school and then I would do anything that I could afterwards to focus on music, piano lessons, vocal lessons, anything I could possibly do.

00:04:22
Speaker 4: And my mom was amazing. She was there for everything, and so you.

00:04:26
Speaker 2: Did that your whole life. Were they big on music, like they didn't obviously work in it, but were they big fans of music? Country music, any kind of music? And did they know or were they just kind of going along with a ride for you or with you?

00:04:36
Speaker 4: My family loves music.

00:04:38
Speaker 3: My dad played everything from cher Elvis, Ella, Fitzgerald, all of these different people and then country like I remember my one of my first CDs that I ever got, Wow, that feels weird to say. Britney Spears was one. And then I was obsessed with Uncle Cracker, obsessed love that, and my mom bought the CD and my dad came home.

00:04:59
Speaker 4: He's like, Peggy's suit, what are you doing?

00:05:00
Speaker 3: This is an X rated album where something since that explicit and it was like this whole thing, and I was like in the and I was thinking follow me, not knowing at all what it was about till years later and I was like, man, that's kind of kind.

00:05:11
Speaker 4: Of messed up, but I love this song.

00:05:13
Speaker 3: It was a big Uncle Cracker fan. Then Brad Paisley was one of my first concerts. Taylor Swift was opening for him with Kelly Pickler, and I just I was like, I love country music so much. I love country Whiskey, Lullaby, stay By Sugarland, like those are staples in my life. That was just like, these are some of my favorite songs ever. And I grew up on country music and I absolutely love it.

00:05:36
Speaker 4: Church and country music.

00:05:37
Speaker 2: Those two all those go hand in hand. And where did you grow up?

00:05:40
Speaker 3: Partially Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then I moved to Dallas the rest of the time when I was like seven and grew up there, and then I moved to LA when I was seventeen.

00:05:48
Speaker 2: When did you move here?

00:05:49
Speaker 4: August?

00:05:50
Speaker 2: Okay? From La? Correct? From in La a little bit? Then if you don't mind you move We're out there for how long?

00:05:58
Speaker 4: Ten years?

00:05:59
Speaker 2: Wow?

00:05:59
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:06:00
Speaker 2: Okay?

00:06:00
Speaker 4: Yeah? I was pursuing pop music out there.

00:06:02
Speaker 2: Okay. What made you pursue the pop? Was that something that you were just into at the time?

00:06:06
Speaker 4: So it was interesting.

00:06:08
Speaker 3: I was in a pop group when I probably when I was turning like twelve, I got into this Christian pop group.

00:06:14
Speaker 4: We would tour churches all over Texas.

00:06:17
Speaker 3: And then like two three years later, like it became a little bit more serious.

00:06:20
Speaker 4: We kind of like became just a pop group.

00:06:23
Speaker 3: There was this lady, Jordan Spicer, who then found us somehow created a little sitcom around us that we filmed the pilot at the Fellowship of the Woodlands in Houston and we it got picked up by Stars, Kids and Family, Like it was really successful overseas on like ABC three in Australia. In fact, a lot of the people that follow me are like fans from those days, Like it's really wild. And then all of a sudden, we have this TV show pop off. We filmed twenty six episodes in Michigan at the time. So I leave high school, I'm homeschooled for the rest of the time, and I'm turning seven teen and Young Money Cash Money signs us, which doesn't make any sense when I'm looking back on it. Like they wanted to branch out on the pop side of things. So NICKI had just put out Starships with Red One, okay, and they were like, we want to do this pop group thing, and I was just like, oh, like this is crazy. So Slim and Birdman flew us to La Oh Yeah, it was wild.

00:07:20
Speaker 2: I was huge. I mean, this is what year was.

00:07:22
Speaker 4: This was twenty eleven, okay, twenty ten.

00:07:25
Speaker 2: That was a huge. I was very into that. Lil Wayne, the whole crew.

00:07:29
Speaker 3: It was like like when I tell you we met Drake, we met Nikki, we were at all the YMCMB parties, and we're just these little kids, Like it didn't make any sense.

00:07:38
Speaker 4: It didn't.

00:07:38
Speaker 3: They flew us to Paris to do the album with Red One, and I'm just like, I'm just sitting there like wait, I was just in high school yesterday and now I'm doing an album in Paris with.

00:07:49
Speaker 2: Red One, Like how did those two world?

00:07:53
Speaker 3: It was they found us on YouTube or something like somebody sent them our stuff and they were like, we're really interested in being our first pop group. It was a disaster because they spent Like, first of all, we did need to go to Paris. There was five of us with a whole entourage because we're underage, so we have to take her manage, Like that's thousands of dollars.

00:08:14
Speaker 4: Then we did this music video that was just massive for the single.

00:08:17
Speaker 3: We had this partnership like with Young and Reckless at the time, all these different things and then it came time to like actually put out the music, and there's like no budget or anything for radio, Like there's like it's it's a disaster. Like it's not like you can put pop music on daptpith dot com or makes tape dot com Like oh yeah.

00:08:38
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.

00:08:38
Speaker 3: I was a big dat pif girl. I was a big, big fan. So we we get shelfed like that. And I just remember We're still in Texas at the time, and we would go back and forth to LA and Miami to work at the Hit Factory, and I just remember I was like, you guys, we got to go out there.

00:08:55
Speaker 4: We gotta get in their face.

00:08:56
Speaker 3: And my parents were just like what your dirt eighteen, Like, you're gonna go out to LA.

00:09:02
Speaker 4: But there's no stopping me.

00:09:03
Speaker 3: Like once I like, once I have decided something, that's it, Like you can't and my parents know that.

00:09:09
Speaker 4: They just know that, so they were very supportive about it.

00:09:12
Speaker 3: They were like, listen, if this is what you gotta do, but like, you realize how expensive it is to live out there.

00:09:16
Speaker 4: I move out there.

00:09:18
Speaker 3: I live in two hundred and thirty two square foot apartment. There's no kitchen, there's no nothing. I'm working three jobs at the time, I'm signed to one of the biggest labels in the world. My life was six months before that, traveling doing a tour in South America, like and then six months and I am working three jobs, I am living in a box, I have no money to my name, and I am stuck in a contract. And I was stuck in that contract. This is my release, states key back to my freedom. I have it tatted on me because it was.

00:09:49
Speaker 4: A big day.

00:09:49
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:09:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, my group's put up like probably two years later. They were like, this isn't like we're stuck, this isn't working. And I it was the most depressing but also such a humbling experience to know how bad I wanted it. I was like, oh yeah, like I really want this. My group went back home. They all do like once a pastor now like they all have kids and they have beautiful lives.

00:10:16
Speaker 4: And I was just like the lunatic that was like, I have to do music. I have to make it work.

00:10:20
Speaker 3: So I stayed stuck in the contract for a couple of years and then I got out of it started really figuring out my way as far as like being a songwriter. I got really heavy into the DM world. I would message pretty much the only way I learned how to write a song was messaging all of these SoundCloud producers and was just like, I need you to send me a track, You send me a track, like cause no one would really work with me because I was affiliated with Cash Money at the time and they were going through all these lawsuits, so no one really felt comfortable knowing that that was my label, and so I just had to message all these SoundCloud producers and I would just sit in my room for hours. I would study Max Martin, I would study all these different people, and I was horrible at first trying to write a song about myself, and then I just got better and better, and then I wrote my way to my first publishing deal out there. I flew to Korea a bunch to do a bunch of K pop for K pop artists, and then I landed my record deal with Republic in twenty eighteen for pop and they were amazing. It was always great, and then COVID happened. I took a step back. I also was surrounded by people that it was just not good. It was not it was not a good situation. They were at the point where then in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, it was like, you're never gonna work. You need to stop doing the artist thing. You need to just write for people. And I was broken hearted.

00:11:37
Speaker 4: I was devastated.

00:11:39
Speaker 3: And then I met my now manager, who's incredible, Tommy Hubbard, and he brought me out to Nashville. But it was under my old management was like, she's not going to do an artist thing, like she needs to be out there and write for people. And I wrote my first song called what If I Don't at nine am with Phil Barton, Lindsay Rhymes, and seth Ennis and I remember leaving that session bawling my eyes out, and I was.

00:12:02
Speaker 4: Like, I have to be here. I have to be here. So I went back.

00:12:05
Speaker 3: I asked Republic like they were amazing. They're like, whatever you got to do to win, we support you, like you you can walk, and.

00:12:12
Speaker 4: They let me walk.

00:12:14
Speaker 3: I fired my old team and I turned my life upside down and moved out here in August of last year.

00:12:19
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:12:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, So that's like in the nutshell, that is a lot. It's a lot. There's so much more to it, but that's like the Cadets And.

00:12:28
Speaker 2: That was over a decade span, so you touched all genres, You hung out with every kind of crowd you can think.

00:12:39
Speaker 4: You have no idea.

00:12:41
Speaker 2: What was the difference then, because I used to live in LA before I moved out here as well, and I was wondering, I wasn't I was working in sports at the time, so I wasn't really involved in the music industry. What's the biggest difference other than you know, it's more poppy out there and obviously more country here. What do you think of the biggest difference is trying to do music there and surviving in the music world there compare to Nashville.

00:13:01
Speaker 3: It's crazy because they're both equally, Like there's so many talented people there, and there's so many talented people here. But I will say, like Nashville is like, uh, you come here and like every day I wake up and I try to like become better at my craft because there are so many talented people here. And I think that the live show aspect, I think that it's such about the music, whereas like LA is really about the networking. It's about the networking and what can you do for me and how can I get ahead?

00:13:31
Speaker 4: And that's amazing. That's cool, it's necessary.

00:13:34
Speaker 3: But I feel like here is really about the music first, and if you're good and you're writing great songs, like.

00:13:42
Speaker 4: It's like respectable.

00:13:43
Speaker 3: Whereas LA, I feel like, if you're really good at cloud chasing, yeah, Ben, you know it.

00:13:48
Speaker 4: And I love I love La, don't get wrong.

00:13:50
Speaker 3: But uh no, I just I love Nashville. I wouldn't I It's so funny. I was supposed to come out here when I was twenty one. I was like approached by manager and he was like, you need to come back act and come back to your roots. And I my old team was like, no, if you do that, you're gonna ruin your career and all this stuff.

00:14:06
Speaker 4: So like I was supposed to come out years ago. Yeah, but the timing of it, you can't really yeah, right.

00:14:12
Speaker 2: And at the same time, you learn so much at your time out there. If you've moved out here when you were young and twenty one and you know fresh and thousand, person knows where you'd be right now and your mentally wouldn't be the same spot. So it's always it's always one of those take the good with the bad and learn from what you can and try to move on and just better your life and more than anything, especially professionally. Yeah, you talked about your song what If I don't. I'm gonna play a little clipper here in the Okay, So that song I saw today has over nine million streams.

00:14:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.

00:14:54
Speaker 2: What is it about this song that you think? Because when I first heard it, obviously it connects with anybody. We've all been through the heartbreak. Oh god, ugly break up, this sad breakup, and it's one of those you things, it's the end of the world. You just want to crawl up in your bed, and you have the lyrics, you know, what if I don't like? What if you move on? And what if I don't? What if I'm doing this? And what if you don't? Because you always think they're living a better life.

00:15:16
Speaker 4: Oh, it's the worst feeling in the world.

00:15:17
Speaker 2: So that's what connects with me and probably nine plus million other people that have down there crazy And what did this song? How did it come about for you?

00:15:24
Speaker 3: You know what's crazy is I was at the lowest point of my life when I wrote that song. I was my relationship at that time, was the person I thought I was gonna marry, and it was like we were taking time apart, and I we thought like it was gonna like I thought that we were working on being better people, and there was a whole different agenda on his end, which is fine, but he ended up having like this whole girlfriend that I found out about. As it was, it was a mess, but basically, like in this time period, I was just like, he's posting this girl. He looks so happy, like he's doing all the things that he didn't do for me, like and not that posting or anything matters, but it was just like he looks proud of this relationship. He looks he looks happy, and I was just like, am I forever gonna feel this way? Am I forever gonna like drink a glass of whiskey and like want to call him? Or like the first time I hear good news, like I will say, for like a good year. Every time I got good news about like all of this stuff happening here, the first person I wanted to call was him. And that's the worst feeling in the world, because you share so much with somebody and he becomes strangers, and it's that feeling of just.

00:16:35
Speaker 4: Like like it's so hard, it's so hard.

00:16:38
Speaker 3: And I love him as a person, but it's just I was I was at rock bottom and I just remember coming into that session thinking that I had to write for other people, and I just remember leaving there and I was like, no, nobody can sing this song, like this is my song, Like and I love pitching songs. I love like anybody can take them, but there's a few songs that like, no, that's my story and I have to tell it.

00:16:59
Speaker 4: I'm so freaking glad I did because I put.

00:17:01
Speaker 3: It out independently and it's I've never had a song ever do what it's doing.

00:17:05
Speaker 2: Did you think it was going to be that successful? I had no.

00:17:07
Speaker 3: I was just so excited to put music out for the first time in like a year and a half, And like I was nervous because I was like, I'm making this transition. I don't know if people are going to be, like how they're going to feel about it. I don't know if this world's going to accept me. I was like kind of nervous, but I was also so excited because it was something new that I felt like I was so connected to it for the first time in a long time. Because I will say like I fell out of love with music for the first time during COVID, Like I it was the first time in my entire life I'd questioned is this still for me?

00:17:40
Speaker 4: And that broke my heart, Like I've never questioned that before. So when I came here and.

00:17:46
Speaker 3: I made this music, not to mention so much music that whole week that I'm so excited for it to come out, but I just remember falling back in love with it, and even though I was heartbroken and sad, that feeling kept me going. And I was just so excited for the world to have something that I was excited about. And I feel like, once if something's so authentically you, I feel like people can't not connect to it. And that's it's crazy to me the stories that people will will message me about of like, because I didn't even think about it this way. Of a lot majority of these are yes, relationships ending, but people passing away. Yeah, and that's like a big one that I didn't even think about. I was just like, WHOA, this is crazy. Yeah, it's crazy what a song can do.

00:18:32
Speaker 2: It really is And I truly mean it when I first heard it, and I was just like, I mean, I kind of went through a similar I thought I was gonna marry somebody broke up and that was four or five years ago, and it still kind of brings you back, But like now you're moved on and I'm fine and all that, Yes, but you still you understand the song and you can relate to the song no matter how long it's been, whether it's been last week or four or five, ten years ago. Yeah, because we've all been there and that thing all been there. When you hear that song and then you can hear it in your voice, and then now I can hear you talking about it. It's just a great song. I appreciate you, and I'm not surprised by the success it's doing, for sure.

00:19:03
Speaker 4: Thank you.

00:19:03
Speaker 2: When you go into writing a song, do you have something in mind that you want to put out or is it something that you're feeling that day, something that you wake up to that morning.

00:19:11
Speaker 3: Typically I'll have concept, like I just got to write this song that I've had the concept in my phone since like March, and I had a situation with the same ex that like happened recently, and I was just like I had this concept and I remember there's a few sessions that I know going in like if I've worked with them before, I'm like, okay, like this is the concept today. But there was one last Friday that i'd had it. We were talking about the story and it all came together and like it's like my new favorite.

00:19:40
Speaker 4: What if I don't almost like I'm so excited, but the song out, but it was.

00:19:44
Speaker 3: I'll usually have like the ideas that I want to walk in with and I get really I have the chord progressions or like what I wanted it to sound like, and I get really excited because people would like to collab with everybody and just hear their ideas, and the song writing process itself is so exciting.

00:20:02
Speaker 2: Do you know going into writing a song, whether you're gonna write it for yourself or somebody else.

00:20:06
Speaker 3: Typically I just always go in writing like as if it were for me, because I think when I unless somebody's like, hey, we're looking for X, Y and Z, and I have like a job that day. But I typically, no matter what, write a song just telling my story and then if that resonates with somebody else's story and they need to sing it, great.

00:20:25
Speaker 2: Is that Do they do they reach out to you and ask you for a song, or is it. You kind of put a song out there and that's up for if somebody wants it for the taking, or you cut it yourself.

00:20:36
Speaker 3: I typically cut all the songs, and then if somebody's like pitching records and they're like, somebody's looking for this kind of song, do you have anything?

00:20:44
Speaker 4: And I'm like, yeah, like, let's see if this works.

00:20:46
Speaker 3: And if I know I'm not putting it out of my artist stuff, then I just send it and see where it goes.

00:20:51
Speaker 2: Do you have a favorite co writing session out here in Nashville that you've done so far?

00:20:55
Speaker 4: Oh my god, there's so many.

00:20:58
Speaker 3: I will say my most recent favorite is Michael Whitworth and Lindsay Rhymes that was.

00:21:02
Speaker 4: What a day? What a day? Indeed.

00:21:06
Speaker 3: I love Jess Caine, I love I love Phil Barton, I love Lindsay, I love Elliot Tishinski, I love I just love everybody I.

00:21:15
Speaker 2: Work out here.

00:21:17
Speaker 3: I could honestly like Andie Albert said that is everybody.

00:21:21
Speaker 4: I just love them. I really have not had a co write where I'm just like, and I love that.

00:21:27
Speaker 2: Do you know a lot of it? I'm always curious about this, no matter who the artist is. Do you know these people going into when you're going to write a song with them, because I feel like I've never written a song, I've never been in a co writing room anything like that. I feel like some people know who they're going to write with or they don't, And if you don't, is that kind of awkward or no majory.

00:21:44
Speaker 3: Actually, every session that I've ever been in, unless I've worked with you before, I'm going in not knowing these people, and it's kind of like a blind date where you like bear your soul and you bear everything, like and I'm an open book, so like I really go into detail about what's going in my life, probably a little bit more than I should. Kind of comes back to by being the butt sometimes, but I really lay it all out and then you talk through it.

00:22:08
Speaker 4: You talk through like the things that are going on.

00:22:11
Speaker 3: And you make a song and then you hope that that song does something. It's the weirdest concept where the people who are like, so, what's a session, I'm like, it's kind of like speed dating.

00:22:22
Speaker 4: Like you really just sit down. You don't know these people.

00:22:26
Speaker 3: You're hoping that the energy and everything clicks it does you make a great song, the song perhaps change your life and that's it's weird.

00:22:34
Speaker 4: It's just weird.

00:22:36
Speaker 2: I've always had this thought in the back of my mind where like I kind of want to would like to sit in on one of those should see what it's like. You should just have a better idea, because I don't think anybody really understands. No one in that room, Like you don't know how a song comes about. You hear this song, but you don't really know.

00:22:49
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, most of the time, when I leave a session and I hear this song, I'm like, did we write that? Like it's almost like I'm channeling something that's just far beyond me that I couldn't even I don't even know how to describe it, because it's something far greater than it's just crazy.

00:23:06
Speaker 4: It's really cool. You should come in. I'll have you come in.

00:23:14
Speaker 2: Did I read a story about you with Dave Matthews? He said, you have there.

00:23:18
Speaker 4: It is the love of my life, David, if you ever listened to that.

00:23:22
Speaker 3: So I'll make this short. So I was in my group at the time. I was probably I think I was eighteen. We had a show in Washington, d C. I'm a big Dave Matthews fan like Big Dave Matthews. I've been to like seven of the Dave Matthews Band.

00:23:37
Speaker 4: Shows, but I was so obsessed.

00:23:40
Speaker 3: With the first time I'd ever seen something of him, it was I'd seen his show, but then I'd seen this video of him and Tim Reynolds at Radio City Music Hall, and I was like, I have to see one of those shows, which they rarely play, just them two together. And I remember we had a show in Washington, d C. And he was doing a Jane Goodall event at the time. That was a private show with him and Tim Reynolds, and I was like, I have to go to the show, so we stayed an extra day. I at the time, I'm explaining this for a reason. I had bright red hair, bright red hair. I'd just gotten the carrotin treatment done, which the carrots and treatment you couldn't wash your hair, you couldn't wet your hair anything for the first three days. And this was fresh off the press. I'm talking like straight spicy. I was feeling myself. We were going to the show. I was feeling great, and we were sitting in Washington, d C. Having lunch right before the show, and we're paying the bill and I just feel this like massive thing go down the side of my head and HiT's bird poop.

00:24:43
Speaker 4: Like I'm not talking like a small thing. I'm talking like this bird just ate a.

00:24:47
Speaker 3: Small animal like it just and then it just dropped it on my head. And I'm talking smelly, I'm talking like crusty and like all the things that you could think of poop. It was on the side of my bright red head, and I couldn't wet it, I couldn't wash it.

00:25:05
Speaker 4: I couldn't even put it up in a ponytail.

00:25:07
Speaker 3: I had to sit there and like smudge it into my hair to get it to come out.

00:25:11
Speaker 4: So now my hair's like clumping together and you can.

00:25:15
Speaker 3: Fully see the crusty outline of the white and grayish colors on the red. And I'm devastated. I'm sobbing. We're like thirty minutes from going to this concert. I'm like, I can't go. I smelled really bad, like it was a smell I've never known.

00:25:30
Speaker 4: And my other group member was.

00:25:32
Speaker 3: Like, just suck it up, like it's fine, we're gonna go. I was like, no, this is a disaster. So we're walking, We're like in the city. We're trying to find the concert hall. I'm sobbing my eyes out. We walk into what we thought was the concert hall and it right there in front of us is Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds, and Jane Goodall doing.

00:25:52
Speaker 4: A private meet and greet.

00:25:53
Speaker 3: And I like, stop because the concert hall's over here. And we walked in the wrong place. None the security saw us walk in, Nobody did. Nobody was looking if we had a pass. And I was like, get in the line, now, get in the line. We're going to meet him. I was like, I don't even care if I get arrested.

00:26:09
Speaker 4: Get in the line. Totally forgetting that I have poop on the side of my head.

00:26:14
Speaker 3: So we get in the line. We walk up, we meet him. I'm like, mister Matthews, it's such a pleasure. And he's kind of looking at me and I can tell now he smells me.

00:26:23
Speaker 4: He's probably like this poor girl. It is like like something's wrong with her. And he's like, stay strange, my friend, and that's all he said.

00:26:31
Speaker 3: And we take a picture and in the picture you could see the outline of the bird poop. And I don't even say a word to Tim Reynolds or Jane goodall because I'm so starstruck.

00:26:39
Speaker 4: I walk right past them. I go to the show.

00:26:42
Speaker 3: I the best concert I've ever seen, and it was I guess the saying bird pooping on you is good luck?

00:26:48
Speaker 4: Was that was the thing that day. I'll never forget it.

00:26:53
Speaker 3: See.

00:26:54
Speaker 2: See that's such a da Matthew.

00:26:58
Speaker 3: It's so Dave Matthews, strange, my friend.

00:27:01
Speaker 2: And just probably like this monotone too.

00:27:03
Speaker 4: Truly and like a weird voice. I was like, are you high? Am I high? I don't know? I realized, Am I hallucinating right now? Yeah? It was one of the best days of my life.

00:27:16
Speaker 2: Good for you. I'm glad it turned into a good story. At the end.

00:27:19
Speaker 3: I'll never forgive that bird, but it's fine, It's okol he had it out for me.

00:27:25
Speaker 2: Well, what else do you have in the works for the rest of this year? You got a lot of stuff going on music, I do.

00:27:30
Speaker 3: I have a single coming out, so I'm really freaking excited. I just signed with CIA on touring, so I am that's like a dream for me that I have since I was like twelve, I've been I love.

00:27:43
Speaker 4: I'm just so excited. Potentially an album at the end of the year.

00:27:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then a really cool little little feature coming up that I can't say anything about, but I'm very excited about it.

00:27:56
Speaker 2: That's very exciting. Congratulations on all your success. I'm sure you're only what a year and a half of this in the nast.

00:28:02
Speaker 4: Not even a year already? I literally like, but what if I don't hasn't even been a year?

00:28:07
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:28:08
Speaker 2: See great song by the way, if you didn't hear it early, got download. And now I want to finish this off real quick and do some rapid fire questions to get to know you a little bit and if you don't mind, If you don't mind, my manager is sitting in the corner looking. She's like, no, let's see. No, they won't be too bad.

00:28:24
Speaker 4: I'm ready.

00:28:25
Speaker 2: It'll be just to get to know you a little better.

00:28:27
Speaker 4: I'm ready.

00:28:28
Speaker 2: Number one. We'll run through five of them. What's your favorite hobby outside of music?

00:28:32
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, I really love working out, big workout, fiend working out and my dog. Anything to do with my dog dog. Yeah, he's cocker spaniel poodle and docks.

00:28:44
Speaker 2: And you show me the tattoo there.

00:28:45
Speaker 4: I literally haven't dat it on my arm because I'm crazy.

00:28:49
Speaker 2: Who is your favorite artist of all time.

00:28:51
Speaker 4: Oh, you can't do this to me?

00:28:52
Speaker 2: Three?

00:28:53
Speaker 3: Oh God, Shanaia Twain, uh Adele and and Share.

00:29:01
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, okay, I feel like that wasn't fully.

00:29:05
Speaker 2: It's okay, we're gonna we're gonna go with that.

00:29:06
Speaker 4: Oh in Dave Matthews Scott, I feel like.

00:29:09
Speaker 2: He was honorable mention. We en't have talking. Yeah, okay. If you had to watch one movie for the rest of your life, Sex and the City. Is that a movie too?

00:29:17
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Sex in the City the movie.

00:29:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the best. Oh really, it's the best. When she poops her pants, it's my favorite part, favorite part, let a boob boop.

00:29:27
Speaker 2: If you weren't into music, what do you think you'd be doing.

00:29:30
Speaker 3: I'd say a veterinarian, but only the good parts of the veterinarian, which is like really like just seeing the animal Everson. Other than that, like I always was like I'm gonna be a veterinarian until I realized what all came with.

00:29:41
Speaker 2: That's almost like a volunteer, literally, just.

00:29:43
Speaker 4: I'll be the front desk and check the animals in make sure they're good.

00:29:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Okay, last one here, describe yourself in three sentences.

00:29:52
Speaker 3: Very resilient, I love to entertain people, and I'm a psychopath in the best way possible.

00:29:58
Speaker 2: Well, there you go. You heard it here, Shalen. She's a psychopath, but only in the best way possible.

00:30:04
Speaker 4: At least I know it.

00:30:05
Speaker 2: That's awesome, Shalan. Thank you so much. Where can they find you? On social media?

00:30:08
Speaker 3: You can find me all over Shalan official on Instagram, Shalen Music on TikTok, Shalen on Twitter, and then Spotify just Shalen, Apple Music, Shalin.

00:30:18
Speaker 2: All right, Shalin s h A y l e N. By the way, go search her, go streamer music, support her. Shalin, thank you so much. It has been a lot of fun.

00:30:25
Speaker 4: Thank you.