Q&A: Meet Shiro, the Synth-Rockers Carving Their Path in the Los Angeles DIY Scene
☆ BY Aleah Antonio ☆
Photo by Devonte Johnson
HANNAH PARK OF SHIRO TELLS ME ABOUT — the time the band played at a laundromat in Highland Park. There’s photos of the crowd sitting on the folding counters, Park sprawled on top of a washing machine. I tell the duo, Park and Steven Spillane, how this reminds me of bands that play at Denny’s or on public transport. For some reason, there’s something very communal about artists playing in places they normally wouldn’t and claiming parts of the city as their own.
Park and Spillane are quickly finding their community in Los Angeles. Their experimental synth-rock project, Shiro, is carving out its own niche. The duo have already played the likes of Junior High, Echo Park Rising, and the Moroccan Lounge, as well as venue mainstays in their stomping grounds of Long Beach.
After meeting at a party in 2011, neither could deny their artistic chemistry. They quickly began writing songs together, but it would take seven years for these songs to see the light of day. Shiro released their self-titled EP in 2018 as a four-piece band, a project that calls to post-punk with a Björk-influenced vocal style. Their 2020 EP, Remain, leaned into a more electronic and ambient tone, while their newest single, “Delusion,” pulls from George Clanton and Broadcast.
Park, Shiro’s main songwriter, grew up playing piano before becoming enlightened by contemporary music. “Whatever was on the radio, really” pulled her out of her classically trained upbringing, from 2000s hip-hop to dance music that her cousins introduced her to.
Spillane spent his high school years as a member of various bands and as a sound tech until enlightened by bass, which he taught himself to play.
Shiro doesn’t hesitate to experiment sonically and keep pushing the envelope of what their combined efforts can create. The duo are quickly defining their sound through their exploration of grief in a personal and political world.
Read our chat with Shiro below as they explore their seven-year gap between meeting and making music, incorporating identity into sound, and their new single, “Delusion,” out now.
LUNA: Steven, what made you pick up bass?
SPILLANE: I was really into the band Interpol. Carlos D., especially on Turn On The Bright Lights, his bass playing is so amazing. I was like, bass can be more than just the background instrument. Growing up, everyone talked crap on bass. They’re like, “Oh, bassists don’t know what they’re doing, they’re just the reject guitarist.” I was like, “No, this guy is great, and there’s a lot of great bassists and this is a really interesting instrument.”
LUNA: Even in my favorite songs, bass is what leads it. I can see that even in your own music, something that’s very beat-driven and rhythm-driven.
PARK: Thank you! We both play bass … so we both love to lead with that first.
LUNA: Hannah, what hip-hop were you being introduced to as a kid?
PARK: Mostly it was ’90s, 2000s stuff. Tupac was really big in the house. For me, it was [also] dance music on the radio that helped a lot. It was basically whatever was on the radio, honestly, at the time. I remember feeling like, “Oh, this is so cool.” I didn’t realize how much of it was … using old samples. I think in the 2000s they were using a lot of Indian music or world music … and putting in beats and stuff. I thought that was really fascinating.
LUNA: I like seeing that influence because, when it comes to the alternative genre, hip-hop is a little separated. It’s cool to see the genre diversity a little bit.
PARK: Yeah. In general, we love all different kinds of music. I feel like, for whatever reason, especially with indie music, it started off as a genre of pushing genre. Lately it’s been more like a certain sound. I’m not quite sure why that’s happened. I think people who make music, we should try to innovate and put in whatever. We shouldn’t be like, “It needs to sound a certain way,” so we were really into that.
LUNA: Is it easy for you guys to intersect these interests with your music?
PARK: I think it is easy for us. A lot of the time [it’ll] just be whatever we’re into at that moment. For example, with our previous single … “Burning,” we were listening to a lot of drum and bass playlists at the time. We were like, “Why don’t we just try to make a rock song but also add that drum and bass beat?” Then we ended up doing that. I get a little bored trying to do a certain sound. A lot of times I think naturally we just try to make something a little different with it.
Photo by Devonte Johnson
LUNA: You two met in 2011 and started making music in 2018 — what’s a big gap. What was life like in that gap between meeting and making music as Shiro?
PARK: To be honest, at least for me personally, it was very turbulent… I was in an environment where I feel like I wasn’t seen a lot, especially because of my identity as a Korean American. I’m also queer, too, late-diagnosed neurodivergent — I have PTSD — and there was a lot of [turbulence] because I lived in a very big caucasian, but also racist, city. I just didn’t think, because I didn’t see a lot of people represented in the media that looked like me, that I was even allowed to take up space in that kind of community. Even though I made music all the time and it’s something that’s extremely important to me, I just didn’t think that people would want to hear it.
2018 was the point [when] I was like, “Okay, I’m moved out now.” We were living in Long Beach at the time. It’s more diverse, finding friends and having more of a community, so might as well try and make this a thing, you know?
SPILLANE: Also, during that time period we were working a lot and going to college simultaneously. The amount of time and energy you have at the end of a full work week and you’re balancing school, it’s so little. On top of the social pressures, we were like, “Do we even have time to do this?” We ended up graduating and having more time [and] energy… We moved out, and we’re just like, “Let’s give this a try.”
LUNA: You share a lot about your music on Instagram and Bandcamp. Is that something that’s important for you? For people, or your audience, to understand what’s behind what you’re making?
PARK: For me personally, yes. A lot of music for me is reclaiming my identity and some of the stuff that I’ve been through. I want people to know that the music we make is different for the reason that, if you want to create a new world, if you want to create something for yourself out there, you need to do it for yourself. I wanted to be really intentional about the message we’re sending forth and why we do the things we do.
LUNA: Some of the lyrics are about grief and trauma and what it’s like to grow from experiences like that. What’s it like to put such experiences into songs?
PARK: In the studio, it feels natural for me. I write 100% of the lyrics. It’s easy, but then putting [it] out there is the hard part. It’s like, “Okay, now I need to be perceived as a person… I have to let go of the fact that everyone’s going to have a different opinion about what this means.”
There’s also the cool thing where people can gauge their own ideas of what it means to them, specifically in their experience. But sometimes the ego gets involved… I still think it’s best to talk about the things that are important to me and help people. That’s what I feel like art should be: helping people navigate some hard feelings.
LUNA: Has it gotten easier with time?
PARK: Definitely, yeah. It’s a two-way process. I get uncomfortable, but then I get more comfortable, which makes me more likely to talk even more about in-depth personal things.
LUNA: It’s a big thing to do. Even when you’re not speaking directly, like sharing details, even the themes are hard to put into art.
PARK: Especially if it’s slightly taboo on some level. I feel like grief is still really taboo. People can get really mad, weirdly enough, even if it’s more obscure what you’re actually talking about. Something that I’ve noticed as a lyricist and putting our music out there, sometimes people will talk about it in a negative light. “Why do you need to talk about emotions all the time?” That’s just how I make things and why I make things.
LUNA: How do you deal with reactions like that?
PARK: I just tell myself that’s just where they’re at right now. If the message is not for them, it’s just not for them.
Photo by Devonte Johnson
LUNA: Tell me about your new track, “Delusion.” Where does that song start for you?
PARK: When we go into our little home studio, we will have some idea in mind of what we want to achieve. I think specifically we're talking about using a sample… The main sample you hear in the background is actually a vaporwave song by ESPRIT 空想, which I think is the side project of George Clanton before he became George Clanton. We flipped that, pitch shifted it, made it backwards. That's what made the big backing track along with some choral music, and [we] put that in there. Then [Steven] did a lot of the main production, added some keyboards; he had a guitar. That's when the lyrics came in, which was just like this general feeling of capitalism.
LUNA: Yes, “capitalistic nihilism” as the press release says. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
PARK: We're both workers. We worked in a school district. I'm an instructional aide, so is he. We worked a lot of behaviors, a lot of kids that have gone through the system, and it's kind of fucked up to see it, you know? It was a lot of pressure always having work on top of doing the band and feeling like we don't make that much money, even though we both have degrees and stuff. It was just anger. Feeling like even with all the little steps you take and the milestones you achieve, we're just in the system.
LUNA: Has there been anything inspiring your music and your process recently?
SPILLANE: I've been really interested in trying to coalesce the broad influences we have. How do I make this really accessible to people, in a way. We still want it to be broadly accessible and listenable… but still make it really interesting and challenge people's perceptions. I think that's been really inspiring me personally. Going about it in a philosophical way.
PARK: I'm really, really influenced by Broadcast… [Trish Keenan] had a way of doing writing — I think they call it automatic writing — where you just write whatever comes to mind. Almost like a spirit portal into what your subconscious is thinking about, and that becomes the lyrics. That's been really inspiring to me. Relationships and being out in the community and living in a city has been really inspiring for me as well. Just living, living.
