Sub-Brain

Present yourself to the readers

My name is Shannon McNeal and I am a folk-pop singer-songwriter out of Nashville, TN, USA.
My first EP was released in 2017 and I have released three singles since then. Just a few days ago, on July 20th, I released my first full length album called “Wilting Flowers & Blooming Dreams”.
I was a semi-finalist for the 2017 and the 2018 Nashville Rising Song competition, and was recently selected to perform in the Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival. I perform full shows, festivals, writers rounds, etc. very often in the Nashville area and around the southern United States all while self booking, self managing, recording, and writing tunes.

Your texts and your compositions?..What are they talking about ?..How does inspiration come ?

My new album, Wilting Flowers and Blooming Dreams, is made up of both happy songs and sad songs and that’s why I chose title that I did. The “Wilting Flowers” part represents the sad songs and “Blooming Dreams” the more positive songs along with my actual dreams. I wanted “Blooming Dreams” to seem much bigger than just pesky “Wilting Flowers” to symbolize that the happy overcomes the sad.
As far as inspiration goes, sometimes I write about my own situations, sometimes situations of friends, and sometimes made up situations. In the end, I always end up relating to whatever I write. Generally speaking I write the melody and the lyrics at the exact same time.

Are you day or night ?

Definitely both.

Why did you choose this style of music ?

I just kind of ended up gravitating toward it. I grew up listening to John Denver, old Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and people like that and have always really liked “singer-songwriter”-esque music. I didn’t really choose my style. It just fit. There wasn’t ever another option.

What’s your top 5 albums of all time ?

Okay so this is a really hard question for me because I focus more on individual tracks than entire albums but here is a pretty solid list of some of my favorites.
Ed Sheeran’s “+”
Taylor Swift’s “Fearless”
John Mayer’s “Continuum”
The Civil War’s “Barton Hollow”
Kenny Rogers’ “Discovery Vaults”

In the shower or in the bath, do you sing ? If yes, your songs or those of others ?

Not super regularly but if I do sing, more often than not it’s my own song oddly enough

In studio, what was the ambiance for the album WILTING FLOWERS & BLOOMING DREAMS ?...etc.…

Musically, the ambiance is Folky & realistic.
My dear friends Adam Bock and Jane Roberson recorded the whole thing in a home-studio and it came out wonderfully. Janaye and Adam both work full-time and so we ended up recording most of the album late at night. We had a lot of fun in the process. I hired my videographer friend Makayla Boling to capture a couple of the songs being recorded so you can actually see what went on. Since I’ve had some good experience recording prior to this album along with the fact everyone working on the album knew each other pre-production, the atmosphere was really laid back and fun. Don’t get me wrong, I am really nit-picky when it comes to recording and we had to put a lot of energy and work into making everything how I liked it and spend a lot of late nights completely exhausted tracking songs over and over again. The outcome was definitely worth it though and it’s also really cool to be able to look back at some of the fun times on the videos Makayla made. Here is one of the studio videos:

How does it work for the design of the CD ? and why this title ?

The photo used for the CD cover was taken by my talented friend Joey Wasileski! I really like photography a lot so I have a lot of fun doing photo shoots. I always get really excited to see how the pictures turn out. The hard copy of the CD features another photo taken by Joey on the inside, and I designed the rest of it (Fonts, photo selection, layout, CD design, etc.).
I think the physical CD casing is really cool because instead of using plastic Jewel cases, the package is made of paper and the CD tray is made from recycled water-bottles so it’s pretty eco-friendly.
(I explain the album title in question two.)

With Management and booking, how do you work ? And with whom ?

I am a completely independent artist. I am actually currently majoring in Music Business and I spend a whole lot of my time managing my career and booking my own shows. I think I am doing a decent job being thorough with both aspects. It’s time-consuming but necessary, and I’ve found that I enjoy the business side of things along with the music side.

Would you like to work with an artist ? If so who ?

Oh for sure! Anyone on my top 5 albums list, plus at least 50 other artists.

What would you have chosen as a job outside of music ?

Astronaut; something space related or quantum physics related.

What are your projects ?

I’m hoping to add a backing band to my performances soon! After a whole lot of consideration I think that a backing band might be a necessary step for launching my career forward.
Also, the US is filled with small-town festivals and I really enjoy playing at those types of things. I’m hoping to fill my schedule with them for the next few months as well as reach out to small colleges about performing for the students. That and promoting the heck out of this new album!

What do you expect from the future ?

In the not too distant future: Bigger venues and greater success. I’m feeling pretty optimistic since my latest album release. I hope this is a big push forward in my career. My goal as an artist is to be a name that people know and to make a comfortable living from my music.

What's your motto ?

Well, I don’t really have a motto. I guess I kind of just live by “work really hard” and “don’t rely on other people for your success”.

Website to remember

www.shannonmcnealmusic.com

What would you like to say to the readers ?

I really hope you enjoy my new album and I appreciate all of the support!
THANK YOU for reading and make sure to like my Facebook page “Shannon McNeal Music”, follow me on Spotify/Apple Music, and share my music with people that you know if you like what you hear. People like me cannot succeed without the support of people like you.

What question, I did not ask you and would you like me to ask you :-) ?

You pretty much covered it all! :)