The Shondes

Hi everyone!!

We are making a little zine to go along with The Garden, including photos, lyrics, stories, and more, and we want YOU to send us cover design submissions!

The guidelines are simple, just check out the album themes below, and make a piece of art (self-defined!) for a 1/2-size zine cover (half the size of an 8.5x11” piece of paper) — collage, paint, draw, photo, whatever you want. Just be sure to include the words: “The Garden: A Zine by The Shondes.”

THEMES

Brokenness + wholeness, integration + recovery, growing up (again and again), staying strong + remembering who you are, dreams, hope, faith, loss, and the idea of innocence.

Send your questions and/or submissions to info@shondes.com by June 1 for a chance to be featured in, or on the cover of the zine!!

xoxo

We are so thrilled to announce that our fourth album, THE GARDEN, will be released on September 17, 2013 on Exotic Fever Records. Produced by Tony Maimone, founding member of seminal experimental rock band Pere Ubu, at Brooklyn’s Studio G, THE GARDEN is truly the beginning of a new era for us.

It is with hearts both heavy and hopeful that we say goodbye to Temim (only as our drummer, of course!) and welcome the legendary ALLISON MILLER to the band. Allison has previously backed Brandi Carlile, Ani DiFranco, and Natalie Merchant, among others, and is currently touring in support of her modern jazz album No Morphine, No Lilies. We are honored to have her on board for THE GARDEN, an album that we promise will give you all the Bruce Springsteen-meets-Bikini Kill singalong anthems you need.

It’s been a fun, full year and a half since the release of SEARCHLIGHTS. We went on two lengthy U.S. tours and our first in Europe, which were met with critical enthusiasm and the support of a growing, loyal fanbase. We had the honor of being compared to punk heroines The Go-Gos in Entertainment Weekly, sang a Hedwig song with John Cameron Mitchell at SXSW, went to synagogue with Judith Butler in Berlin, and were even blessed by the Chief Rabbi of Poland while on tour in Warsaw. We were so blessed to have Temim at the heart of the band for this amazing period, and we will miss her as we embark on the next chapter!

Though THE GARDEN won’t be released until September 17, 2013, you can look forward to an album trailer in June and the first single and video later this summer! Stay tuned, everyone!! xoxo

Dear friends,

After seven years of playing drums in The Shondes, I’ve decided to pursue other creative projects.

It wasn’t an easy decision. After years of extensive touring, epic shows, equally epic post-show brunches and profoundly gratitude-inspiring fan support, it’s hard to imagine life outside of this band.  

I will dearly miss this band. I will miss the ways we worked together, sweat together, played together, traveled together and celebrated together. There is so much momentum that it’s hard to jump off, and so much goodness around the bend for my friends in this hard-working band. I am so excited to see what comes next for them and I will certainly be cheering them on from here.

It was 2006 when we decided to start The Shondes. I had never picked up a drumstick in my life, and suddenly there I was, playing real live songs with a real live band. We were onstage and in the recording studio, and I was getting to experience some of the most electric artistic chemistry I ever have. Chemistry between us onstage, chemistry between us and the audience, and just the kind of chemistry you feel internally when you’re making art that means something to you, that fills your heart.

So, to Eli, Louisa and Fureigh I say with all my heart: Thank you. Thank you for being with me and letting me be with you in such a fiery, ambitious, wonderful, whirlwind, long-term collaboration. I wish you more adventures and wild successes than ever before, and I have no doubt at all that you will see both. The music you write and play has always moved me so deeply, in the most important ways, and brought out music of my own — music I didn’t even always know was there. I am so glad that you are doing what you do and I can’t wait to see what this band continues to become.

And to anyone who’s listened to and supported the band: There is no adequate amount of thanks I can offer you all for your part in this chemistry, nor for your unending energy at shows, your material support and, most importantly, your ears for our music, for my music. I will miss this project deeply and I will miss playing for you. And honestly – I can’t wait to be standing next to you and cheering loud in the audience of a Shondes show sometime soon.