I Want Your Job

”I WANT YOUR JOB”

Written by Megan Button
FAIRLADY, AUGUST 2012

We chat to Shannon Hope, musician and songwriter who has recently released her new album Fight A New Day.

I’ve wanted to be a musician for as long as I can remember, and it was inevitable that it would be my chosen career. A school friend introduced me to a band that was looking for someone to play keyboard and sing backing vocals during my first year at varsity in 1998, and I fronted a rock band very shortly after that. Those bands were a great introduction to the industry and played an important role in preparing me for what I do now.

I launched my latest album at The Fugard Theatre in Cape Town in November 2011. It was a dream come true to perform in that space, and a watershed moment for me as a performer.

Again, the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town – it’s an exquisite space which perfectly complements what I do.

Stones

Nat King Cole, Skin (from Skunk Anansie) and Muse.

Yes, but thankfully he turned out to be quite a nice guy…

I’m still promoting my latest album, ‘Fight A New Day’, but I’m hoping to record an acoustic record in the near future. I’ve started writing the next album but I’d like to get some international touring under my belt before I get back into the studio.

The single, ‘Being Brave’, which captures so much about who I’ve become as a result of taking a few more chances than I thought I was capable of taking. It says a lot about the nature of this industry, and the courage and fight that it demands. The version on the album is everything I heard in my head when I first wrote it, and so much more, and that’s where the magic is for me as a songwriter – to create something that exceeds what you intended on various levels.

Yes, I write from my own experience of life and love and everything in between. I try to do that as honestly as I can without being too protective of my own story, so that I serve the song itself and the listener who connects with it.

There’s nothing typical about any of my days. Every single day is so different to the next. I’m self-managed, so many of my days are filled with tour management, and some are spent online updating various profiles. I could be driving across the country one day, and performing in towns I’ve never heard of the next. Some days I spend writing, rehearsing or scripting for new shows, and some days are spent in studio. It can be any combination of so many things, which certainly keeps me out of trouble.

All of it. From studio, to stage, to writing, to jamming, to planning and dreaming about what comes next.

“It’s not brave if you’re not scared.” You only get one chance to live the life you want to live, but all the motivational quotes in the world don’t make it any easier to actually take the chances you need to take, and to keep taking them. You have to be honest with yourself about what you want, and about what you’re willing to sacrifice for it, because we’re capable of more than we think we are.