It's a “real honor” to still be performing for fans 25 years later, says Shapeshifter founder Sam Trevethick.
The pioneering live drum and bass band formed in Christchurch in 1999 and is celebrating a quarter of a century of performances around the world.
Trevethick and co-founder Nick Robinson spoke Music 101's Charlotte Ryan – a “very early fan” and the band's former manager – on the highs and lows.
The original members of Shapeshifter were attending Christchurch jazz school in the late 1990s when they bonded over a shared love of drum and bass.
The genre was “huge” at the time, says Robinson, with people queuing in the street to hear British drum and bass DJs at the Ministry nightclub.
Back in the day, Shapeshifter had an old synthesizer “so thick it would rattle the walls of the old jazz school,” he says.
Drum and bass is “more scientific” than rock or electronic dance music, says Trevethick, and Shapeshifter's point of difference was the presence of a live drummer – then Redford Grenell.
“We did a lot of improvisation in the early years of the band. We'd just have a bass line and maybe a sample and some chords and that would be the composition of the song. We kind of knew how it went and then… we'd see how it went.” go [on stage] … If people really felt it, we would rise up and keep going. If we had to tear it down, we would.
“When you're in a situation like that, the whole place comes together in a kind of synergy that's electric. Nothing is predetermined. It's a subconscious connection that you don't get from DJing so much or playing pre-recorded music .
“[A live sound] was our intention and it still is. We don't put things in order. We're still trying to make it as alive as possible.”
Shapeshifter wasn't really accepted by the drum and bass establishment, Trevethick says.
“I remember going to places all over the world and saying, 'Maybe you've never heard anything like this, just look at our drummer'. Just knowing that we had something, something unique. We believed in it. We did never did.” We regret it, but we certainly felt frustrated at times because we weren't accepted into the brotherhood of drum and bass.”
Grenell was like a “human drum machine, only better,” Robinson says.
“He could just play any kind of drum and bass break… and he could play it with more swagger than any other time you had ever heard it.”
In the first few years of the band's existence, before the Internet, Shapeshifter had a very limited palette of samples to work with, Trevethick says.
“You'd sit there day after day going through all your sounds, you know, your 100 sounds or whatever, and say, 'What can I do with that?' 'Oh, that's inspiring'…
“Now you can use an AI voice prompt to say 'I want an 80s sounding synth' and boom – you have one at your fingertips.”
Compared to DJs and all-electronic dance music acts, Shapeshifter had to carry a lot of heavy gear in the early days, Robinson says.
At the EXIT Festival in Serbia the band shared the bill with the American DJ Skrillex.
“That guy just travels around the world with a USB stick, and we have drum cases and old suitcases with straps around them to keep them together… There were definitely times when you thought, 'Well, we do it all the time '.hard way, for sure'.”
“Coming from Christchurch, Auckland was the bigger centre. We always felt… not underdogs, but you know. The industry is largely based in Auckland and we had a bit of a falling out.
“The fact that we ended up on the Boiler Room stage with the crowd going crazy is a really fond memory. It was also quite early in our career, so we were just absolutely buzzing.”
Looking back, Robinson remembers a real sense of connection with the people from the band's early years.
Not everyone followed Shapeshifter's evolving sound, he says, but the musicians had worked hard not to repeat themselves.
“With every album we fought not to say to ourselves, 'What was the formula last time? Let's do that again.'
Many great bands strive to reinvent themselves, Robinson says, losing fans and gaining fans.
“We did [hit 2006 album] Soulstice. It's finished. It never goes anywhere. People can always enjoy it as it is. Let's do something different.”
If you listen back to their earlier music, there's an element of “ooh, we wouldn't do that now,” he says.
“But there were also other elements of 'Wow, we were brave and that's cool' and almost being inspired by our younger selves or other selves at the time. So there's a little bit of inspiration in there too.”
Trevethick says he's very lucky that Shapeshifter still has an enthusiastic audience.
“We're very grateful for that and we don't take it for granted. It's really an honor to step into a creation mode and think 'man, we gotta do our best work.' That's a real honor.”
He and Robinson now live near each other and are both parents.
While the passion and energy are still there, time off is a different story, Trevethick says.
“Of Soulsticewe went to Kaikōura and spent six months eating crayfish, making bass lines and dreaming, same with The system is a vampire [2009]. But that won't happen again.”
Robinson feels “energized” for another 25 years of Shapeshifter.
“It's only when you walk past the mirror or remember your age that you're like, 'Oh shit. That's right. I forgot.'”
One of the things he's most proud of is that some of the original band members have stuck it out together.
“We're still, you know, brothers. We love working together. I still get excited when we're about to go into the studio together. So yeah, I think it's a great achievement.”
Over the years, he has developed “great trust” in his Shapeshifter bandmates.
“Of [2013 single] 'In Colour' I thought 'This doesn't fit the album. This is a weird song on the album and I don't think it should be there.” The other guys thought, 'No, there definitely has to be that.' So I'm glad I didn't get my way with that. I like the song now.”
Trevethick admits that it was a slow process for him to really listen to his bandmates' ideas.
His advice to aspiring musicians is to try to put aside their own passionate feelings about what needs to be done.
“I wanted to have a lot of control and that's why I ended up in the producer's chair quite early on because it was a way to express myself and I had some kind of control.
“It took me a few years to realize that I needed to listen more, and that was a source of tension. I think the rest of the band did a really good job of tolerating that.”
“More hands on the wheel” usually results in a better product, Trevethick says.
“Like any relationship, just try to listen. If you don't get your way, it won't all fail. And don't leave the band.”
To celebrate 25 years, Shapeshifter has reissued all of his previous albums on vinyl and will be playing them shows around Aotearoa this June.