Desi Making Waves

By Elaine G. Flores

Shaheen Sheik: A Star Bright Indie Music Artist on the Rise

If you're looking for a little motivation in the new year, take a gander at singer/songwriter Shaheen Sheik. The Cleveland, Ohio native, who now admits to being "100 percent totally L.A." is working on her third album in four years. Rock Candy debuted in 2005, and she followed up with Revolution in 2008. She's a featured dancer with the Rangoli Dance Company of Los Angeles and also teaches dance. Sheik, who has her law degree from the University of Virginia, has been on a roll:

- Her song "Wildflower World (Wild Orchid Remix)" was released last month on a Sine Music compilation: Chillbar Volume 1.
- The video for the title track to Sheik's second album Revolution makes its world premiere on DesiHits! this week.
- Revolution is currently being submitted to Internet, college and community radio stations in North America, with airplay commitments coming in daily.
- Tracks from Revolution will be spun by DJs at DROM, one of New York's top world music clubs, during the APAP Conferences Showcase.

And with all that going on, she still even finds time to read. We recently chatted with Sheik about how she does it all.

You're working on your third album now.
We released the second one in May, Revolution. Now, I've started to think about, “Okay, what do I do next?” It's kind of hard as an artist not to want to continue to create, so I started the whole process again, which for me usually begins with reading a lot–a lot of books, a lot of magazines.

I have this sort of journal that I keep, where basically I take a bunch of magazines and I cut out words and images that strike me, not knowing why, not really analyzing why they do and I just start building a collage. What usually happens is when I start thinking about the lyrics or the theme for the album, I think all of those things inform me. And when I go back to the collage, I start to notice, “Oh, here's the theme. That's why that image really stuck in my mind.”

So, it's all very intuitive.
In terms of that process, it's all very intuitive. Whatever catches my eye or pierces my heart in some way.

How often do you do that project?
It's usually a few months before I sit down to write lyrics.

Where did you get that idea?
It happened by accident. Somebody suggested it, not related to music. It was just a suggestion for life. If you can visualize the things you want in life and you can actually put them down in pictures or words, it actually helps you get clear about what it is that you want. And so I started doing it in that context. It just started as a little book of aesthetically pleasing things, just words that meant something to me.

But then I found [that when] I went to write my album, so much of what went into my album was coming from this book. So now it's actually become a part of my routine, my creative process. Those are the beginning steps. I think, conceptually, I've been really affected by a lot of the politics that are happening lately—the world politics and American politics. I was one of the many who were obsessed with our election. I've always been interested in politics and Revolution started that discussion artistically for me, but I think I want to go further than that thematically with the new album. It's something that's on my mind a lot.

And then, of course, musically, we have a big picture, staying in that same vein as Revolution, staying in that electronica genre. And I'm a classically trained Indian dancer and a classically trained Indian musician, and we want to bring a little bit more of that out there into the music, although, in a non-classical way. These are things that me and my band are talking about and grappling with. It's really an interesting process.

How long is the process from scrapbooking to getting it into the studio, laying down tracks and getting it produced?
With Revolution, it was a total of eight months, but it spanned over a year; I took a break for about four months. Because nowadays all of us musicians pretty much have some sort of a home studio—some have fancier ones than others—we can do a lot of the sketching and a lot of the recording right from the get-go. So when we have an idea, we go straight to our lab, basically, and start putting down things. So that has really changed the process a lot. We're not held back by “Oh, we have to book studio time.” It's changed the dynamics a lot.

My first demo, I had a finite amount of money and I had to go to the studio—this is when I was living in Virginia, in law school—and they didn't have a digital setup; it was all analog in there. That meant everything was going to tape, and you only had a finite amount of tape for the cost you were going to spend. And if you made a mistake, there wasn't this going back quickly and redoing it. You had to re-record the whole thing over again, or they would have to do what they called “punch in.” They start the tape, give you a little bit of lead time and the guy is pressing record over that section then stopping it, just to catch that little bit of the mistake. I remember I spent 13 straight hours, and that's all we could afford. We could afford 13 straight hours in the studio and that included mixing it...

From that stage where you're really trapped, you're constrained time-wise and the engineer is always looking at his clock, to now where there is so much more freedom. I can take as long as I want on a small section of a piece of music and never have to worry about running out of time. I think it's fabulous. It really has expanded our ability to be creative and experiment and explore for independent musicians.

Back in the day, you had incredible production budgets when you were signed to a major label, which was one of the biggest reasons you wanted a label—for the production budget and your marketing budget. When you had that production budget, you could go and sit in the studio forever, but independent musicians didn't have that option. You'd steal time at 3 o'clock in the morning because the studio would give it to you for dirt cheap. Of course, now having these home rigs, you don't really need a label much these days. It has really given us a lot of creative control and opportunity.

How would you say this third album is going to be a departure from Rock Candy and Revolution?
We can quickly distinguish Rock Candy. It was much more [of a] straightforward “singer/songwriter, an acoustic guitar and a band behind me” kind of a sound. It had a time and a place and those were the songs I was writing when I wanted to talk about love ... a lot. And broken hearts and all of the things that you talk about when you have a guitar in your hands. But I got tired of it, to be honest. And every time I picked up the guitar, I felt trapped by it. I love my guitar but felt trapped by it in a sense because every time I picked up my guitar, I started to write brokenhearted love songs.

I just thought, “I've got to write about something else or have a different sound.” Because I'm a dancer, when I started to write and record Revolution—and that one I did with no musicians—it was just me, myself and my little studio for a year, just to see what I would come up with. It was a total experiment: “Let me see what's in my brain without any creative filter.” That turned into what we hear now, this very quirky, electric dance album. A lot of the songs were happy accidents; I didn't know what was going to come out of me.

I think now that I have a clear vision of what I'm capable of after these two albums and having produced this one myself—meaning arranged and composed and all that kind of stuff—it's a total different game. With Rock Candy, I just would write the structure of the song and take it to a producer. And they would help me fill out the music and all the various parts. And this one I was doing by myself and it gave me a lot of confidence, I think, because now I understand music, and particularly my music, on such a different level. With the new album I think it's going to go more that direction of Revolution in terms of electronic. It'll probably be a more mature and collected sound. It's not going to an accident. I have [a] clear idea of what I'm capable of and what I want this sound to be.

You're part of the Rangoli Dance Company and also teach dancing. How much time do you get to spend on your music?
It varies. I think if you did an average for the year, I'd say probably 10 to 15 hours a week creating music. Not to discount the fact that my mind is always on it, but actually sitting down, working on it, playing my instruments or practicing, it's probably a few hours a day.

That must take a lot of discipline. How do you manage the time to get it all done?
I think mostly it's the drive and it's really fear [laughs]. If I don't do it, I worry that somehow, everything that I worked so hard for will just disappear. I read this book called The War of Art—it's by this fellow named Steven Pressfield. I remember reading it when I was going through the struggle of, “How am I going to find the time? Where am I going to find the time to finish an album? I don't even know where to begin.” Your days are just packed. Everybody's life is so busy. And at that time, I was holding down a part-time job in order to pay for all the equipment I needed, to do the album. I was like, “I'm going to have the equipment, but I'll never be able to sit down and use it.” The book had this thing of just saying, “Get over yourself.” It was a great kick in the ass because you can make all the excuses you want.

At the time, I was at my job at 7, I got home by 2, I ate lunch and then I was at the studio from 3 to 7 and that's how I did it. Every day. That allowed me to have my weekends and my nights free for friends and just kind of chilling, so that I didn't burn myself out. But you're right, I was super disciplined. I was uncompromising on that schedule, and I think that's what it takes, because we're all busy and we all have tons of reasons why we can't do what we want to do, and sometimes we just have to suck it up.

Where do you turn when you need daily inspiration?
That's a good question. When I'm feeling depleted, I just take walks. I think that helps me a lot. It clears my head … just be able to observe daily, normal life, like kids playing in the front yard. Sometimes I take my iPod and sometimes I just walk. I think the other thing I do is I start reading. I read other people. I get out of my own head is basically what it is.

Since it's a new year and people are going to feel very motivated about their dreams and what they'd like to accomplish, do you have any words of wisdom for other women who have something in their heart that they'd like to see happen?
You know, I don't know “words of wisdom.”

How about just plain words.
I think I would say to them, now is the best time to start anything. Today. Just do it and don't be afraid and trust. Trust yourself that you'll be able to manage all the different things that come up, all the different obstacles that come up. You've managed to come this far, you might as well be doing what it is that you love to be doing. And it may not look like what you think it's gonna look like. For example, with my music career, I didn't know it was going to be this ... fluid. It comes in and out of my life. Sometimes I'm all-consumed by it and sometimes I'm not. It's just not whatever you expect I guess is what I'm saying, but that's fine. Don't get discouraged that it doesn't look like what you think it should look like on TV or something. And be kind to yourself and do the things that you love.

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