“As for any band, I’m sure, we all have our disagreements,” Cedric Morrisey notes of the seven-piece outfit Goodbye Shivers. “We tend to have a majority rules-type vote, and though sides can be drawn at times, at the end of the day, it’s understood each member has in mind what’s good for the entirety of the band.”
Once called “The Shivers,” the Wilmington-based rock ‘n’ roll group recently changed their name around the time they were preparing to drop a self-titled EP. But they ran into a small problem: Another band by the same name had it copyrighted.
“So we went back to the drawing board,” Morrisey continues. “We thought it best to keep ‘Shivers’ and settled on Goodbye Shivers with definitive meaning: simply for the listener to decide. Someone once asked Zach [Saffo] if the name change meant the band was separating, to which he responded, ‘No, Goodbye Shivers is saying goodbye to everything that left you down, and in a sense, stuck in the gloom.’”
Despite having a small army of talent—Morrisey, Tanner Richards, Zach Saffo, Sam Messer, Henry Cutting, Preston Lennon and Skyler Davidson—there isn’t an overt sense of having too many cooks in the kitchen … err, too many members in the band room, so to speak. They delegate various responsibilities. For instance, Saffo and Messer handle social media and advertising. Yet, songwriting is a free-for-all for anyone who wants to try it. Their sound is influenced from gospel and jazz to rock ‘n’ roll and blues.
Messer, Saffo, Richards, and Cutting started the band in 2015, to which they added Lennon and Morisey in December of 2016. “Sam and Zach both went to school together, and after acknowledging a mutual love for rock ‘n’ roll and blues music, they began to play different songs,” Morisey notes.
Goodbye Shivers is now preparing for a full-length follow-up to their EP. Folks can catch them Friday night at Reggies 42nd Street Tavern with Sibilant Sounds and Wendigo Highway. encore spoke with Morrisey about the latest music on the horizon.
encore (e): Tell us more about your varying musical backgrounds/differences and how they come together.
Cedric Morrisey (CM): Well, we’ve all been around music for a majority of our lives. We took lessons at a young age, and I guess that desire to play and perform has always been present.
I’d say our many influences have given us a broader pool of styles to choose from. I grew up in a Baptist church, so I’ve always been around gospel, as well as classic genres, like soul and R&B.
Preston has a trained classical style, to which he has incorporated an immense love for jazz progressions.
Henry knows it all; he listens to literally everyone and every style, in order to increase his knowledge of drumming concepts, and of music as a whole.
e: Tell us more about your forthcoming album.
CM: On the new album, we have chosen to work with the same producer, Dr. Holt Evans. He is extremely knowledgeable in the field of music and has just about every sort of tool for recording imaginable. He is a huge asset for us, in terms of music-making.
We’re hoping to have the album released by the end of August and are still deciding on a name. We want it to accurately reflect the content, as well as where we are as a band.
Right now, our graphics artist is Nolan Craven, a fellow Wilmingtonian who studies studio art at Appalachian State University. Everyone in the band is equally excited and eager to be finished with the project to get it out to our listeners.
e: Speaking of the EP, will the full-length be a continuation of the EP? Or a completely separate entity?
CM: We consider the album as an entire new season for Goodbye Shivers. Tanner will be leading a majority of songs, and the overall work will be guitar-driven and heavy on the rock side, as opposed to the EP, which had a softer, beachy vibe. Several Shivers originals will also be included.
e: The song “Cruisin’” is interesting because, lyrically, it’s about an ending relationship but, musically (and with the delivery), we get the sense everything’s OK. Tell us the story behind it.
CM: “Cruisin’” has a bit of a jazz basis in it. The main progression in the song was composed by Preston Lennon and then given to me. It spans from a relationship I had, in which I was cheated on. I guess for every circumstance like that, there’s a grieving period where you just get mad at everything and everyone, but there’s also a time where you become content with the situation, and accept what happened. That’s what “Cruisin’” was about.
A lot of our songs serve as a cry out to the current state we as individuals are in. For instance, “Falling,” an original off the new album, is written from Tanner’s perspective. He sees himself trying to catch a loved one through their various struggles. At the end of the day, I think that’s the sole purpose of music; to help people heal and identify and just have a good time. That’s all we’re trying to do.
e: What songs can Wilmingtonians expect to hear during your show?
CM: For upcoming shows, the setlist is set to be a combination of older songs, (Shivers originals) more recent ones off the EP, and new songs from the upcoming project. As is typical Shivers sound, the music will have a beachy/bluesy vibe.
e: You mentioned a new festival of sorts at Waterline on July 7…
CM: So the [Home.Grown Festival ILM at] Waterline Brewery was proposed to us by a friend, Chase Farnitano, a guitarist for a the local band Volume. So far, the lineup includes Volume, U.N.I.T.Y., Sibilant Sounds, and Goodbye Shivers. We think the festival will be great for each band involved and increase the amount of exposure for all parties. We also are excited about the variety of music fans will get to hear.
Shannon Rae Gentry 