Oakland band Shannon and The Clams made their mark in 2009 as a party band, with plenty of soul in the mix. They built their sound around the simple, emotion-drenched sounds of the ‘50s, overlaid with their own modern post-punk garage rock ethos. While their music echoes the past, its modern sensibility looks brightly toward the future. “Most of the emotions in today’s pop music don’t seem real,” says singer and bassist, Shannon Shaw via phone from her home in Oakland. “I know it’s a blanket statement, but songs used to be so unique and real. Today’s music is so restrained. It doesn’t sound like they’re singing about genuine feelings.”

Shaw, who is from the Bay Area, grew up listening to the now-defunct oldies radio station, KFRC. Listening to oldies, especially from such a young age, has largely influenced Shaw’s musical tastes and singing style. “Those sounds are ingrained in me,” she says. “It’s my default style, but it’s not even conscious. Every time I think I’ve gotten away from that ‘60s sound, I haven’t. There’s always a hint of it.” Shaw is particularly drawn to harmony-laden ditties from girl groups and what she calls “teenage car crash songs.”

Shaw started Shannon and the Clams as a solo project with only voice and guitar at open mics. Cody Blanchard, who plays guitar, keys and percussion for the band, as well as lead vocals, was impressed with Shaw’s lyrics and asked her to join a band he’d assembled for a house party. The current trio, which includes Nate Mayhem on drums, keys and percussion, formed soon after that and “just took off from there,” Shaw says. The fact that both Blanchard and Shaw are writers was a coo when it came to writing songs, and the two discovered a shared passion for the same kinds of tunes and music.
On Gone by the Dawn, the band’s fourth studio album, the trio continues to transform the sounds of the ‘50s and ‘60s into something bright and modern. Girl group grooves, sharp R&B progressions, sultry vocals, surf guitar, spooky sci-fi keyboards and punk-fueled rhythms come together to produce gems that reflect their fascination with the music of the past.

When Shaw started composing the songs for Gone By The Dawn, her emotions were raw and candid. As generally happens when she’s writing an album, the songs reflected what she was going through at the time, and, in this case, it was a recent break-up. “My partner was a baker [and] he’d get up at dawn to go to work,” she says. “When we broke up, I had this repeated vision of him going down the steps of our house and walking away, into the dawn. That image haunted me and appears in the songs.”

When the band plays live, the intensity of their emotions is both a visceral and palpable experience. They run the gamut from tearful, soul stirring numbers to uncontained rockers, creating an atmosphere that draws you into the music. They generate a whirlwind of sound and color with their sparkling costumes and Blanchard’s homemade animatronic animals that are often accompany them onstage. “We’re basically doing what we were doing when we were little kids,” Shaw says. “We let ourselves go and have fun with the audience. Why go see a band if it’s not fun and exciting?”

Shannon and The Clams will be co-headlining a New Year’s Eve extravaganza with Sonny and The Sunsets at 9:00 pm on Wednesday, December 30 and Thursday, December 31 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. More info at www.shannonandtheclams.com/tour.