Emerging from the DIY venues and bar shows of Atlanta’s underground music scene, local garage rock band Shake Awake has quickly garnered a reputation for their energy and thoughtful lyricism. Over the last two years, they have integrated themselves into the city’s underground alternative scene, playing house shows and iconic Atlanta venues like the Masquerade and Smith’s Olde Bar. Most recently, they played at Center Stage Vinyl on Feb. 21 alongside a lineup of Forrest Isn’t Dead, NITE and Aestrea.
The band is made up of Joseph Hawkins on vocals and bass, Tiernen Callahan on guitar and Alejo Guerra on drums. The trio has released three songs thus far, “Pithy,” “Kudzu Cutter” and “Shorthand,” and they are set to release their debut album this summer. If their show at Vinyl is anything to go by, the record will be chock-full of raging guitar licks, rocking drum fills and their signature clever lyrics.
Before the show, the Technique got the opportunity to sit down with the band and talk about their upcoming album, their musical inspirations and the ins and outs of Atlanta’s DIY music scene.
How did you all meet each other?
Guerra: I met Tiernen on a bench. We were in class together. I really wanted to look for people to jam with. I met Joseph through our KSU program’s music mixer. I wanted to perform, and he was like, “I can be a bass player,” and we played “Song 2” by Blur. That’s how I met him, and then I met Tiernen.
Callahan: What you don’t remember is we met like, three times.
Guerra: Yeah, but my first memory of him is on the bench. I just went to talk to him and said, “Hey, you play guitar. Let’s just jam and see what happens.”
Hawkins: Classic, from a jam session. We just jammed with a couple other people, and then we ended up sticking together. We didn’t know what we were going to do, or what we’d sound like, or what we would play. We were just like, “Let’s jam.”
How did you go from that to eventually releasing your first song “Pithy”?
Hawkins: We played shows before we even released anything which is kind of goofy.
Callahan: Yeah, but we played a couple shows just based on people we knew in the scene that were like, “Hey, do you wanna open up?” and we were like, “Why not?”
Hawkins: Tiernen has been around the scene a lot longer than we have … Our first show had an insane bill; it was with good bands.
Callahan: A lot of people showed up.
Hawkins: There were a lot of people there. We play shows now where there’s less people than were there that night. That was like, okay, this is a real thing. We can play for real. We can play well together enough to get by. I’ve been playing music for a long time, but by myself, so I had a back catalog of songs that I got to bring to these guys and make them into the sound that we have now.
Guerra: We had five songs, I remember. … Then I went to study in Madrid for six months. … When I came back, we recorded “Pithy.” That was our most popular song, … and we recorded it in a basement. We started with five songs. We have ten now.
Hawkins: Yeah, only three released, but we have an album planned. We’ve been saying that for a long time, but we have eight songs tracked for this record, so we’re almost done. I’m very excited about it. It’s definitely going to have a summer rollout. We have some shows set up in May and July, so we’re going to try and do a June-ish release.
In “Kudzu Cutter,” there’s a lyric that says “shake awake” in it. Is that where the band name comes from?
Hawkins: I wrote that song when I was probably about 17 or 18, and the song was called “Shake Awake” for a long time. … We spent weeks where we were like, “Damn, we need to figure out a f***ing band name.” Then Alejo was like, “Well, let’s just call it ‘Shake Awake.’ Just use that name.”
Guerra: We all liked it…
Hawkins: We just had to rename that song. “Kudzu Cutter” is not a line in the song, but it’s representative of the lyrics of the song.
Guerra: I feel that song doesn’t get as much recognition as it should. I love it. “Pithy” overshadows “Kudzu Cutter,” but I love “Kudzu Cutter.”
Hawkins: I feel like most of the time when someone comes up, they’re like, “I really like ‘Kudzu Cutter,’” which is funny because “Pithy” gets all the streams. … There’s a remix of “Kudzu Cutter” coming out.
Guerra: It’s going to sound much better.
On your Instagram, you describe your music as “garage rock.” What does that mean?
Callahan: Messy. Most of the bands we play with are incredibly talented, just off the damn wall. We are good, Joseph’s a good songwriter. Instrumentally, we may be challenged.
Hawkins: I like that. We’re instrumentally challenged. We call it scrappy, sometimes. At least from the recording aspect, we have this philosophy of “if it can’t be done in real life, we don’t like it on a record.” Garage rock is jamming in a garage, … so in the recorded stuff, we don’t like to do super clean, perfect takes because it’s not [who we are].
You’ve made a name for yourself in Atlanta’s local music scene. How did you get involved in that?
Callahan: In high school, I just went to every local show I could find. Most weekdays and weekends, I was going to shows every night. I was in a band previously called Bummer Hill, and being in that band was how we got Shake Awake’s first gig.
Hawkins: Bummer Hill is awesome. They’re killing the game.
What was your first show together like?
Hawkins: Our first show was good. It was really good. If it hadn’t gone so well, we would have been less inclined to keep going. It went really well, except Tiernen had a little issue.
Callahan: Well, that was a gear issue. The bill was Shake Awake started, and Bummer Hill ended, and somewhere in that between point, my amp s*** the bed. The Bummer Hill set was not as good or as fun.
Hawkins: He played two sets that night.
Callahan: That was our best show for a long time.
Hawkins: It was.
What are your favorite aspects of local music?
Hawkins: The cheesy answer is to say the community of seeing bands support each other, but I think that there’s an immense amount of talent. As a songwriter, seeing other bands that write these really amazing songs and knowing them personally, it shows you how real it really is.
Speaking of [the Atlanta music scene], who are your favorite local bands and artists?
Hawkins: The Outfield Clovers are one of the bigger bands, for sure. I’m a big fan of Recess Party. They’re dope. Their album “Foot.” [The title track] is a fire song.
Guerra: Pinto Sunshine. The drummer is amazing. The whole band is amazing.
Hawkins: Yeah, they are some world-class musicians. [Getting into local music] takes a minute. We’re fans of Kapoorhouse. They do a good job of reporting on what’s going on [in the scene]. That’s where we started getting into things. We would check out Kapoorhouse to see who’s playing, shows of the week, posts they make. It’s useful stuff. I also follow @atl.diy on Instagram. They post show posters every week of what’s coming up.
How has being in Atlanta shaped your music?
Hawkins: These other awesome bands.
Guerra: I feel very blessed that we are in Atlanta. … If I lived in Nebraska, there wouldn’t be [as much] opportunity with music.
Hawkins: There’s venues that we love here too.
Callahan: There’s multiple underground venues. That’s huge. Rather than like, one dive bar.
Hawkins: We get to play stages that I’ve been going to since I was young, like the Masquerade. I was going to shows, seeing … national artists there, and then we got to play there because we live next to it. We’ve probably played the Masquerade more than any other venue, like six or seven times.
What are some of your musical inspirations, both artist-wise and genre-wise?
Callahan: I really like Ty Segal, like stoner doom, doom metal type stuff. It’s the only type of riffs I can write, at least currently. I like surf punk stuff, like Beach Goons.
Hawkins: I’m huge into stuff like that as well, but I’m really into things that have really great songwriting. Car Seat Headrest is my favorite contemporary band. I say that every time anyone asks; I love that band. Pavement is a huge inspiration, a lot of late ’90s stuff I really like … Pavement, Pixies and Modest Mouse are some bigger names that really inspire the way we do our instrumentation.
Guerra: I don’t listen to much rock at all. I grew up with EDM. I started as a DJ. Deadmau5, college music is what I started with. … Turnstile was the only band I listened to, but I would see videos on YouTube of the drummer playing drums, and I said, “I have to be as cool as him.” I started [during] quarantine … when I was 20, kind of late, but I saw him play drums, and his way of playing is my way of playing. So Turnstile 100%. Daniel Fang. He’s just very passionate when he plays drums. I like that.
Your latest song is called “Shorthand.” Tell me how that came about.
Hawkins: Originally, it was called “Pirates.”
Guerra: Because it sounds like “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Hawkins: Yeah, that opening riff that Tiernen wrote, Alejo goes, “Yeah, sounds like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.'” Not to get too lofty, but a lot of the Shake Awake lyrics are based on language. The way you use language affects what you mean and what you mean affects what you say. Shorthand, the word, means writing something in a way that you can read specifically, but pithy means expressing a big idea in a short phrase … “Shorthand” is another language song. [Some lyrics are] “I don’t speak carefully. … Destiny is a clever thing.”
Callahan: [Joseph’s] songwriting is really good. We don’t do it justice with the instrumentation.
Hawkins: That’s what’s cool about it, man.
Guerra: I disagree. I actually think the simplicity of our songs actually favors us. We’re not as talented as many other local musicians, but simple works, and it sounds good.
Hawkins: It lends itself to songwriting as well. Like, it’s easy to write a song and really dig in [with the] lyrics over chords that aren’t super crazy.
Do you have any fun memories from the shows that you’ve done?
Callahan: We did a Halloween show. [Joseph] was Bob Dylan.
Hawkins: We did do that. That was our second show ever. Alejo was out of town for that, so we had to have a fill-in. I was Bob Dylan because I’m a huge Dylan fan. Tiernen wore a dress; he was Debbie Harry. It was awesome.
Guerra: When we play, sometimes we get very into it. [The crowd] can all feel it when we play “Ghost of the Mantis.” There’s a certain riff we all play, and we’re all tuned in. You can tell we’re all locked in.
Hawkins: It has a riff that we are really big fans of. It’s going to be the last track on the album, and most likely, [that’s what] the album will be called.
Do you have a favorite song to play live?
Guerra: “Shorthand” because that’s where the drums [get to shine].
Hawkins: Me and Tiernen both like to play “Mantis.” It’s the longest song, too. It has a few time changes and stuff.
What’s next for you guys? You mentioned the album, any shows [or] projects that you’re looking forward to?
Hawkins: Well, we’re going to be on Georgia Tech radio, WREK. We are playing the 18th of March, so that’ll be great. Then we’re going to get to the studio to do some other recording. We’re going to probably track these two songs in the studio soon, and then we’ll be done. That’ll be really awesome. I’ve handed off most of the stuff to our producers, so it’s almost there … We’re hoping for a mid-summer release so we can play a bunch of shows during the summer and promote it. We’re very excited about it.
You can stream Shake Awake’s music on Spotify and Apple Music. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming album and new shows on their Instagram @shakeawakeband.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.