Shake

Thoughts All In

Hooks

What We Do

Toll Free

Crisper

Producer: Brody Bergholz
© Shook Twins - 2016
All Rights Reserved

Shook Twins have never been sonically confined to the indie-folk world in which they’ve become well-known artists. Identical twins Katelyn and Laurie Shook have always harnessed an adventurous spirit, never shy to incorporate beatboxing, banjo-head drumming, vocals using a repurposed telephone microphone, and other ambient sources within their arrangements. On their latest single, “Call Me Out” (Release Date: August 19, 2016), Shook Twins once again take another leap from the acoustic music scene with a vibey, pop-infused soundscape with a poignant message ready to be embraced by the masses. Lush harmonies, delayed banjo pickin’, deep drums, and multi-layered lead vocals draw the listener in to this intimate breakout summer 2016 single. 

Call Me Out

Shook Twins "Window" avail at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/window/id436420450
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Time To Swim

Long Time

<p>Shook Twins "Window" avail at: <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/window/id436420450" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/window/id436420450</a>
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Window

<p>
<p>Shook Twins "Window" avail at: <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/window/id436420450" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/window/id436420450</a>
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Ting Ting

The Portland-based indie folk group Shook Twins has released their track “Mad Scientist” today via No Depression.  The track appears on their forthcoming EP, 2, out November 03, 2017. The EP finds the group strip down from a full band to inherent power of the group’s namesake duo—identical twin sisters Katelyn Shook [vocals, guitar] and Laurie Shook [banjo, vocals]. Listen to “Mad Scientist” here.

“Mad Scientist is a song written by our friend Vance Bergeson who lives on a mountain in north Idaho and makes guitars from local trees,” says Laurie Shook. “We heard him play it at an open mic 13 years ago, and have been playing it ever since. It's a beautiful song about being a small time luthier and a farmer, and holding on to the simple things in this life. His words make us think of home, and dirt and the amazing hard working good people in our lives.”
 
In early 2017, Katelyn and Laurie Shook holed up alone in a room with just two voices and two instruments and cut the seven-song collection live to tape, serving up bare bones renditions of fan favorites, covers, and one new tune entitled “Safe.”
 
“Musically, it differs from our other studio albums, because it’s just two twins in a room performing on two instruments,” explains Katelyn. “It’s much more raw emotionally and almost vulnerable. It’s nice to hear our growth as a duo and notice our individual grooves. It showcases these songs in a different way than they had been or will be recorded. It’s just a taste of the simplest core of our band: The Shook Twins.”
 
“It goes back to the very beginning,” adds Laurie. “When we were 18, we started writing songs together, just the two of us. We practiced how to blend our voices and instruments, trying to make our 2 voices and 2 instruments sound like one thing instead of 4 separate pieces. That’s how we started this whole musical life. We wanted to go back to that for a minute and remember.”

The group emerged in 2008 with their independent debut You Can Have The Rest followed by Window and 2014’s What We Do—which garnered acclaim from USA Today and more. Organically stirring up a buzz, they engendered fandom in fellow creators such as Langhorne Slim, The Lumineers, Mason Jennings, and iconic best-selling author Neil Gaiman who claimed, “They make music that twines through your soul the way vines cover an abandoned shack in the woods.” Along the way, the full band, including Niko Slice [electric guitar, mandolin, vocals], Barra Brown [drums, vocals, drum pad], and Josh Simon [bass, vocals, electric guitar, synth], has shared bills with everyone from Ryan Adams to The Indigo Girls.

Shook Twins are currently on tour to support their forthcoming EP and ready their next body of work. See below for full-announced tour dates.

Mad Scientist

The Portland-based indie folk group Shook Twins has released their track “Safe” via Earmilk. The track appears on their forthcoming EP, 2, out November 03, 2017. 

“I've been feeling a lot of unsafe love in my life lately. It's just hard to fully trust anything right now,” says Laurie Shook. “So I really resonated with the first line "all I want is a love that feels safe" when Katelyn started singing it from the living room in a cabin by a river. I was making breakfast and I stopped and sat down and continued the song because I knew it was going somewhere. It goes on to reach the ones out there that are having a hard time letting go of a love that they had dreamed up in their head. Sometimes, you just have to let go of the dream, and be open to a new one.”

The EP finds the group strip down from a full band to inherent power of the group’s namesake duo—identical twin sisters Katelyn Shook [vocals, guitar] and Laurie Shook [banjo, vocals]. In early 2017, they holed up alone in a room with just two voices and two instruments and cut the seven-song collection live to tape, serving up bare bones renditions of fan favorites, covers, and one new tune. 

“Musically, it differs from our other studio albums, because it’s just two twins in a room performing on two instruments,” explains Katelyn. “It’s much more raw emotionally and almost vulnerable. It’s nice to hear our growth as a duo and notice our individual grooves. It showcases these songs in a different way than they had been or will be recorded. It’s just a taste of the simplest core of our band: The Shook Twins.”

The group emerged in 2008 with their independent debut You Can Have The Rest followed by Window and 2014’s What We Do—which garnered acclaim from USA Today and more. Organically stirring up a buzz, they engendered fandom in fellow creators such as Langhorne Slim, The Lumineers, Mason Jennings, and iconic best-selling author Neil Gaiman who claimed, “They make music that twines through your soul the way vines cover an abandoned shack in the woods.” Along the way, the full band, including Niko Slice [electric guitar, mandolin, vocals], Barra Brown [drums, vocals, drum pad], and Josh Simon [bass, vocals, electric guitar, synth], has shared bills with everyone from Ryan Adams to The Indigo Girls.

Shook Twins are currently on tour to support their forthcoming EP and ready their next body of work.

Shook Twins Tour Dates
10/05 - World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA
10/06 - The Purple Fiddle – Thomas, WV
10/07 - The Festy Experience (10/07-10/08) - Arrington, VA
10/9 - The High Watt - Nashville, TN
10/11 - Off Broadway - St Louis, MO
10/12 - Knucklehead Saloon - Kansas City, MO
10/13-14 - Basin Springs Park Bandshell – Eureka Springs, AR
10/15 - The Bluebird Theater - Denver, CO
10/25 – Humbews - Arcata, CA
10/26 - Hopmonk Tavern - Sebastopol, CA
10/27 - Hangtown Music Festival (10/27-10/28) - Placerville, CA
10/29 - Applegate Lodge - Jacksonville, OR
10/31 - Volcanic Theater Pub - Bend, OR
11/03 - Hi-Fi Music Hall - Eugene, OR
11/10 - Liberty Theatre - Astoria, OR
11/16 – Neumos - Seattle, WA
11/17 - Rhythm and Rye - Olympia, WA
11/18 - Wild Buffalo - Bellingham, WA
11/24 – The Pearl Theater – Bonner’s Ferry, ID
11/25 – The Panida Theater – Sandpoint, ID
12/09 - Wonder Ballroom - Portland, OR

For more information on Shook Twins, please contact:
Taylor Haughton, taylor@girlie.com, 212.989.2222 x119
Pam Nashel Leto, pam@girlie.com, 212.989.2222 x111

Safe

We wrote this song 4 years ago and its meaning is even more poignant. it's about the pending natural disaster of the Cascadian Subduction Zone shifting off the coast of Oregon and causing a catastrophic earthquake that could end us all in the NW. The world is currently overtaken by greed and money and natural disasters. As we wrote this song, we imagined a good hearted couple surviving the disaster, starting over from scratch and rebuilding their lives with their own 2 hands, and this time greed doesn't win, and a different world is born. It's interesting to hear this song so stripped down as just a duo, i think it's more about the story this way. ~ Laurie Shook

"This song is for anyone who is stuck living a life they don't necessarily want to be living. So much so that this current 'life' is taking them away from another life they once had or they dream of having. This song is meant to inspire people to find their inner wild in order to find a way to be more free and more themselves." Katelyn Shook

Stay Wild

The 1st single from Shook Twins upcoming album "Some Good Lives" out Feb 15, 2019 on Dutch Records. 

"What Have We Done is a social commentary. We wrote this in 2016, during a writing session in our friend's spare house when Bernie Sanders was still in the race and was shining a light on so many truths. He inspired us in so many ways and we felt compelled to write something sort of as a thank you to him. And when I sing the line "we can all do a little bit better" it reminds me over and over (and hopefully everyone listening) to BE better now that we KNOW better."
~ Katelyn Shook

"This song started with me looping a simple beat on the banjo head. The first line fell out as "You got a lot of those feelings, bottled up in that JAR" cause I was sitting in my friend's spare house staring at a Jar on the shelf. It's funny how an entire song can come from just spacing out basically. The beat and melody had a sort of motivating quality to it. We didn't intend for it to be a political song at first, but when we wrote the bridge, "working hard and broke and broken, working less and rich and ruling" it really lit a fire in front of our view of the corporate mentality, and how some CEOs can watch their employees work so hard full time and still struggle to pay their bills and insurance and do nothing but watch their bank accounts grow. The wealth in this country is so far unbalanced and feels so far from a solution sometimes. Singing "we can all do a little bit better" somehow helps. We are still Feelin the Bern!" ~ Laurie Shook

What Have We Done

New Single from the upcoming album "Some Good Lives" out 2/15 on Dutch Records. Preorder now --> http://bit.ly/SGLpreorder

This song strung itself together gradually. One that doesn't start with an idea or concept, but unfolds as the lines fall out one at a time. It has a wintery loneliness to it. To me it's about integrity, and a willingness to let yourself continuously learn, even if it's learning the same things over and over. We don't always "figure it out" the first time so we must allow ourselves to "Figure it out again some more."

We recorded this song with all the rest in Portland at Hallowed Halls. Then I took it to Colorado and added a lot of texture and ambiance with Gregory Alan Isakov at his studio. He has such an amazing way of creating emotional soundscapes. It was fun to try my hand at engineering as he showed me how to move the noises around until they made sense and sounded right, then Niko helped hone it in even more. This was a really collaborative song. ~ Laurie Shook

Figure It Out

Born and raised in Sandpoint Idaho, Shook Twins are an Indie folk-pop band now hailing from coniferous forested Portland, Oregon. Identical twins, Katelyn and Laurie Shook, Kyle Volkman and Niko Daoussis form the core quartet. Central elements of the Shook Twins' sound are a wide range of instrumentation, including banjo, guitar, electric and upright bass, mandolin, electric guitar, electronic drums, face drum (beatbox), glockenspiel, ukulele, banjo drumming  and their signature golden EGG. Beautiful twin harmonies, layered upon acoustic and electric instrumentation coupled with Laurie’s inventive use of percussive and ambient vocal loops, and Katelyn’s repurposed telephone microphone, set their sound apart, creating a unique and eccentric blend of folk, roots, groove and soul.   

Each Shook Twins song tells a story, distinctive, sharp, genuine, and well – sometimes quirky. Drawing from their life experience, select subjects include, being potters’ daughters, imagined superpowers and a chicken named ‘Rose’ they befriended. Shook Twins also pull out unexpected takes on classic hits, retellings of their musician friends’ songs, heartfelt ballads and rhythm driven dance numbers.   

After releasing their first album "You Can Have the Rest," the twin sisters moved to Portland in December of 2009, conceptualizing their 2011 release "Window" (featuring Bonnie Paine and Bridget Law of Elephant Revival). Both albums were recorded and produced in Santa Cruz, California, at InDigital Studios. Favorable reviews, extensive radio airplay and a busy tour schedule have created an ever growing fan base & kudos from many major musicians. Shook Twins and their full band, including Niko Daoussis (mandolin, electric guitar, vocals), Kyle Volkman (bass), Anna Tivel (violin, vocals), and Russ Kleiner (drum kit, percussion), recently finished recording their third album “What We Do” (releasing 4/8/14) with Grammy nominated producer Ryan Hadlock at Bear Creek Studios as well as partnering and recording an album, with fellow Portland musician Ben Darwish on his epic concept piece, "The Clear Blue Pearl."  

National and regional press accolades have poured in since the April 8th, 2014 release of "What We Do," including USA Today touting, "The Portland, Ore., folk group is ready to rattle the music world with its 'What We Do' album." Acoustic Guitar Magazine says, "'What We Do' is a nearly flawless album that pushes the band into unexplored sonic territory…this is a band that packs a tremendous amount of artistry and talent into their compositions." Indie-music mecca Portland, OR's weekly newspaper Portland Mercury states, "'What We Do' is the sound of two preternaturally talented siblings making the music they want to make with a wide-eyed sense of wonder and the good sense to absorb whatever the world puts in their path."  

Shook Twins have shared the stage with artists including: Gregory Alan Isakov, Elephant Revival, Langhorne Slim, Laura Veirs, Indigo Girls, Mason Jennings, Ryan Adams, Blitzen Trapper and many more!

Eclectic, amusing and whimsical, Shook Twins' laid-back and fun stage presence draws the listener in, allowing them to take the audience away on the adventure that is their live show.


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