Esme Patterson and Shakey Graves enjoying harmony after breakout hit
On Halloween morning in 2013, Alejandro Rose-Garcia sat in Esme Patterson’s Colorado home, where the two musicians spent a few hours writing their first song together.
Rose-Garcia, the Austin-based singer-songwriter who performs as Shakey Graves, and Patterson, known for her solo material and work with Denver indie-folk band Paper Bird, met each other on tour that previous year, but had never performed together.
Halloween night, Shakey Graves and Paper Bird played a show at the Boulder Theater, where Rose-Garcia and Patterson debuted the song, written only a few hours beforehand.
“We just wrote it and brought sheets of music on stage andwere wearing ridiculous costumes, and people just went crazy,” RoseGarcia said of the song’s debut at the Boulder Theater. “Itwas probably one of the craziest reactions to a song I’ve had ever.”
A little less than a year after its debut, that song, called “Dearly Departed,” appeared on Shakey Graves’ 2014 album “And the War Came.” It has been played more than 4 million times on Spotify, and in mid-October, Rose-Garcia and Patterson stood side by side on the “Conan” stage and played the song for hundreds of thousands of late-night viewers.
“Now I’m getting text messages from friends that they’re hearing that song at a bowling alley in Arizona,” Rose-Garcia said. “The song has caught on maybe even more than I wanted or she wants it. It’s timely for some reason. And I feel like both she and I are partially responsible for it, but the song wrote itself really fast. We did it within maybe three or four hours, and usually I’ll toil over a song for months.”
Patterson contributes vocals on two more tracks on Shakey Graves’ latest release. In each, the male-female vocals weave around one another, providing balanced harmonies withWestern, front-porch twang. Judging solely on the success of the Patterson-assisted tracks, it seems that Rose-Garcia has found the best complement to his traveling singer-songwriter aesthetic.
“It was kind of a surprise to both of us,” Rose-Garcia said of the artistic relationship between him and Patterson. “She’s been singing in a three-part harmony band (Paper Bird, which Patterson parted ways with in September) for most of her career, so she has a good ear for that. When I’ve recorded, I’ve always done harmonies with myself and I’ve never had much of an opportunity to experiment with that with someone else in a live setting.”
Patterson’s presence on Shakey Graves’ material might be part of the reason for RoseGarcia’s phenomenal success in Colorado, he said. On Dec. 11-13, he’ll be playing three back-toback sold-out shows at Denver’s Bluebird Theater. And after that he plays another sold-out show at the Ivywild School in Colorado Springs — a string of packed houses that he calls “a record.”
But, while Rose-Garcia admits that these “are Esme’s stomping grounds,” it might also have something to do with the Denver-Austin connection.
“There’s been artists that have always gone between Texas and Colorado pretty consistently,” Rose-Garcia said. “I think it has more to do with the people more than the location specifically. There’s just a similar human that lives in both of these spots.”
Along with the four sold- out shows in Colorado, Shakey Graves and Patterson ( billed as an opening act) embarked on a fall tour that included sold- out appearances in Portland, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago. It’s a tour that, with Patterson’s presence, also marks Rose- Garcia’s first run with a three-, four- and fivepiece band.
Having started as a one-man band— Rose-Garcia on guitar and vocals while keeping rhythm with a foot pedal and a suitcase — Shakey Graves has grown into a multi-musician live act.
“Iwould have done it sooner if I could have found the people or afforded to. It’s ... a project that I set up that I’m still expanding upon.
“Showing up and showing people more is definitely the direction that is going to continue. The kind of music that Iwant to continue to make, it gets harder and harder to just do it bymyself because of the sounds Iwant to get out of it.”
And in Denver, this live lineup might expand even more. While Rose-Garcia said things are still in the planning phase, it wouldn’t be unusual to see opening acts like Gregory Alan Isakov or Desert Noises join him on stage.