Seattle songwriter Shelby Earl recently released a new album, Swift Arrows. It is a beautiful, dramatic album she put together with the help of Seattle folk hero Damien Jurado. Shelby’s voice echoes and cascades, her lyrics poke and skip away. It really is a fine record. Shelby took the time to answer a few questions for The Monarch Review and, as a preface, we thought we’d offer her video here for the title track from her new album (live at the Fretboard Journal):

Three Questions for Shelby Earl

Jake Uitti: In a piece I did about you for KEXP, I compared you to Jesse Sykes, noting you two were in the same lineage of Seattle songwriters. What was your reaction to this idea? Do you follow Sykes’ career much?

Shelby Earl: While I have to admit I haven’t tracked Jesse Sykes’ career closely and was a bit surprised by the comparison (you’re the first!), I am fairly familiar with her music and certainly take the comparison as a compliment. I might disagree with your idea that we’re of the same “lineage” – I think our overall musical styles are pretty different and would bet that our influences are quite different as well. BUT, that said, she is a bold songwriter and performer. She is a woman who isn’t afraid of being indelicate and she doesn’t shy away from the dark places in her art. She doesn’t whisper or cower – she’s a grown-up and she makes the music she wants to (which is totally beautiful and spooky!). Not to mention that she surrounds herself with other musicians who ROCK. These are all things I aim for myself and I like to think they might be the things you see as alignments between us.

JU: There is a sort of breathy darkness that Damien Jurado has in his production that is so alluring. Did you feel this  working together on your new album? How do you think it overlapped with your writing?

I had 13 songs already written before I went into the studio with Damien, and a 14th song in the works. He chose not to hear any of them ahead of time because, as he said, “These are YOUR songs and you have to be happy with them at the end of the day.” He didn’t want to make me sound like him, he wanted me to sound like ME. I asked him to produce because I believed he would get these songs and would know how to produce them. And he did. He knew exactly when to intercede with suggestions/changes in the studio and when to just let me do my thing. And while I know what you mean by the “breathy darkness” in Damien’s sound (I love it too!), I think our songwriting styles are fairly different and I’m not sure how much of that ended up on my record. But I do like to believe that the meeting of our two styles/sounds created something uniquely beautiful and magical.

JU: You get away with so many double meanings in your songs as a result of your pacing, tone and, especially, your language. What songwriters inspired your writing in this way?

I am a lover of words. Always have been. There are so many songwriters who use words brilliantly (and playfully) and who’ve influenced my art over the years, but the ones I’ve probably listened to most along the way are Rufus Wainwright, Jenny Lewis, Bob Dylan, Neko Case, Ryan Adams, Glen Hansard (of the Frames) and Bjork. Some of those, I realize, make more sense in light of the kind of music I write than others, but all have played a role in my current output.

You can find out more about Shelby here.