Shaun Fleming: The Most Entertaining Man in Indie Music
The Diane Coffee bandleader & ex-Foxygen drummer on living in the Midwest, creative partnership, touring & the future
by Katie Ingegneri
Photography by Tim Nagle
When I meet Shaun Fleming outside the Chicago Theatre downtown on an unseasonably warm November afternoon, he is pulling his own huge, now-empty merch cart out of the venue, across the alley and back towards a huge tour bus. Shaun’s “psychedelic Motown,” indie-glam project Diane Coffee is opening for the popular multi-piece southern soul group St. Paul and the Broken Bones, and the tour bus was theirs. Shaun’s days with the big buses are temporarily on hold, as he has been focusing most of his energy on Diane Coffee after being the drummer with indie rock darlings Foxygen since the band’s inception. But I have no doubt his big bus days are just around the corner again.
Shaun is one of the nicer people I’ve met in the music world, greeting me with a hug and a soft onslaught of his signature blonde hair. After first meeting him via social media when I had a post about how much I liked Diane Coffee’s first album “My Friend Fish” and my friend Mario Cuomo of The Orwells had mentioned him in it (The Orwells and Foxygen have played together), our friends The Symposium opened for him on Diane Coffee’s headlining tour this past winter and we all took pictures with him. Since then we’ve been connected on various social media channels, and seizing on this connection to try to talk to him when he was in Chicago again (and not in the midst of promoting a brand-new album — Diane Coffee’s second album, “Everybody’s a Good Dog,” was released last September — so I figured I had a better chance of getting some of his time), he was very accommodating to let me meet him and talk before their soundcheck.
Shaun may not live in Chicago or have any major ties to the city that I’m aware of, but he’s definitely seen as a sort of older brother/godfather type to the young Chicago indie rock scene that I follow here including the likes of The Orwells and Modern Vices — all dazzled and inspired by Foxygen and now Diane Coffee as well. Like me, Shaun is a Midwestern transplant — a glam indie rocker surprisingly based in Bloomington, Indiana after leaving his native California and exhausted by New York City’s vibes.
As I write this article, it was announced that Diane Coffee will be closing out 2016 with two shows here in the same intimate venue where I saw him at the beginning of the year, the legendary Schubas Tavern — the first night on December 30 with my friends Modern Vices, and New Year’s Eve with more friends, Yoko and the Oh No’s, and a currently unannounced guest. Honestly couldn’t put together a better Houseshow-type lineup if we tried.
So back to meeting at the Chicago Theatre — Shaun leads me through the side door with the general intention of going to the green room, but I wasn’t prepared for the staggering backstage and insides of the famous theater. We walk across the stage where St. Paul is soundchecking and my breath is taken away by seeing the huge empty theatre in front of me, the same vantage point of comedian Hannibal Buress whom I had seen there a few weeks earlier. Shaun leads me up a few flights of stairs that seem to go on forever, with walls covered in tons of graffiti and signatures announcing who had been there previously.
We set up in an expansive dressing room which Shaun mostly has to himself due to just how big the theater is — St. Paul’s group has an entire wing to themselves on the other side. As he comments, “I don’t need this, but I kinda like having it. Like hey, I can do this today, I can feel like a total rock star.” As we discuss in the interview, he’s paid his dues in touring vans, had the big buses, and gone back to paying his dues — but still seems very upbeat, no matter what.
It was a treat to get to sit down and talk to Shaun, who is one of the few people I’ve talked to who is my age (just under 30 — seems like everyone these days is younger than us) and very eloquent. As he was recovering from recently losing his voice so badly that he had to cancel two shows, he spoke quietly and animatedly despite expressing his exhaustion after a long year. Since it had been months since I saw him perform, when we talked I briefly forgot about what a dynamic performer and stage presence he is. Although we didn’t discuss it, Shaun had an earlier career as both a voice and film actor in various films and TV shows, which no doubt helps to account for both his eloquence and also his absolutely stunning range as a singer and performer. His incredible capability to range from soul singer to fast-talking auctioneer during shows is uniquely entertaining and refreshing in a world of “too cool to care” hipster bands.
His chill vibes during our conversation were completely transformed by the time he was in his signature makeup (usually silver, accenting his large eyes) and flamboyant, dramatic costumes, designed by his life and creative partner Melinda, all the perfect setup to being a blur of strutting, posing and dancing energy on stage. While the two Diane Coffee albums are very good, his range as a singer means he can put a unique spin on songs like “Green” each time he performs them live — excellently illustrated in the NPR Tiny Desk concert he did with the help of a string section. When he did “Green” (from “My Friend Fish”) at Schubas in January he brought the house down — something you can also see in this video from a recent show at First Avenue in Minneapolis.
I was thinking about how it was funny that such a dynamic and talented performer like Shaun was confined to being behind a drum set during the Foxygen days, and then I realized that’s actually a parallel to another of my favorite indie musicians today — Father John Misty, previously drummer with Fleet Foxes for a while. Maybe it’s a sign more indie drummers should liberate themselves? At any rate, I’m so glad Shaun is brightening the world with his performing talent now. He’s like if David Bowie had a glam love child with Peter Pan, born radiating the California pop positivity of the Beach Boys, with the soul of Freddie Mercury and the showmanship of Mick Jagger. Seeing him live on stage is something not to be missed. I hope we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in 2017.
Read on for our conversation at the Chicago Theatre! As always in the Houseshow tradition, this is more an organic conversation than a “media interview.”
Conversation with Shaun Fleming at The Chicago Theatre, November 2016
Katie Ingegneri: I guess I last saw you when you were here in January, you were headlining —
Shaun Fleming: Yeah, was that Schubas?
Schubas, yeah. Some of my buddies played with you, The Symposium…
Yeah, they’re fun.
Yeah, totally, and that was still the “Everybody’s a Good Dog” tour?
Yeah, this is the very last push for “Everybody’s a Good Dog.” When this is done I get to go back to the studio and start writing. I’m so excited. It’s funny, I always thought like, “you know, I love playing these songs, I love doing it” but like, over a year now of playing the same songs…I can’t really write on the road. You know, small vans are pretty cramped, so I can’t really get creative until I’m back home, so I’m like, needing to.
Do you record back at home?
Yeah, I was back when we had like, two weeks off before this tour, and I already just got right back into things and started doing some demos. We’ll see. I would really like to release the record next year, but I’d have to write and record and get everything done by…February at the latest. So we’ll see.
Are you going back with Foxygen on their whole new…
No, I am stepping back —
You’re done?
Well, “done” is so finite — they’ve got a whole new thing going with their new record [“Hang”], and they’ve got big horn sections and stuff. And I wanted to write my next record, and juggling two tours again, I don’t know if I could do that again. So yeah, I just needed to step away. But they’ve got a whole new lineup and that’s really cool for them. It’ll be really cool cause I’ll get to see my first Foxygen show.
Oh yeah!
Yeah, I never got to see it, so that’ll be very bizarre. [laughs]
Were you touring with them when they were here last April?
Oh yeah. So they just did their Desert Daze show thing, and that was the very first show that I had not done with them. It was a trip cause I kept seeing stuff, there was a little panic in the back of my head thinking “oh man, I gotta get ready to go, I gotta brush up on — oh wait. That’s not gonna happen.” So it was a trip, it was very bizarre. I kept feeling like that panic dream like you’re late to school or something like that.
Oh man! But yeah, you’re just doing the whole Diane Coffee thing now.
Yeah, which is cool. I think this whole year, not juggling tours, this whole push for this record has been a lot more fun and I can explore a lot more theatrically some stuff that I wanted to do, which has been great. It’s a little dialed back now cause we’re opening and can only do so much in an opening slot, but for the rest of this year we get to do a lot of really fun stage show stuff, and that was really nice — I don’t think I would’ve even had time to prepare anything being on the road.
Yeah that must be a lot. It’s a lot of energy.
It is, it is — now I am SO tired. I am ready to crash.
[introduces Matt, guitarist]
We had our very first band together, called Infantry — they still play from time to time but I flew him out from LA to do this run. We’ve got Kate on drums, and Scott on bass, and Caleb was from the “Good Dog” run before, he’s still on keys. We got so into pocket with the last band that you could almost relax, and now we’re all on our toes again, so that feels nice.
Like a jolt of energy.
Exactly, it’s refreshing for me, and I’m sure for them too cause it’s their first run with this.
Is it just you who writes all the songs?
Yeah, there’s no “band,” it’s just me and I’ll write and record — since conception of the project we’ve had four live bands, so it keeps changing, people will come in and out. If it’s something special, you know for like the [NPR] Tiny Desk thing, we had string players come in, so it’s kind of just whatever’s necessary. I’d love to have a huge band but I’ve got a small van.
Yeah I was wondering about that when we were coming in, is it St. Paul who has the big tour bus?
Yeah that bus could swallow my van, their TRAILER could swallow my van.
They have what, a ton of people?
Yeah, it’s funny too cause touring with Foxygen they had a big bus, and it was always funny on those tours, touring with Foxygen and then getting right off the road and going on tour with Diane Coffee. It’s like — sitting back, and having a bed, and getting driven around and having a bathroom in your bus, that’s pretty cool — and then immediately getting to like, “I guess we’ll have Burger King again for the third time,” driving at 4 in the morning. We’re paying our dues, I did that with Foxygen too but it’s funny to do that and then go back to starting everything over.
Yeah, do you ever wish you still part of a bigger thing?
Well I think like, look at where we’re playing — definitely this year has been a very good year for us, and this album has done pretty well, and I’m excited to see what next year is going to bring and what the next album will look like. I have a few ideas for what I want to do — again, same with this record, I put off thinking about it until I HAVE to, like a book report you just know it’s due, and you don’t want to think about it and then it’s like *snap* now it’s time to do it.
Totally.
That’s how writing is for me.
Yeah, me too — except I don’t have deadlines, so it’s hard.
Well I don’t technically have a deadline, but I have to kick my ass or I’m not going to put anything out, just a lot of voice memos.
Do you manage a lot of the business stuff yourself?
Well I’ve got a manager, Dave, who’s been just the best and a godsend, I don’t know if I could’ve done it without him. And then I’ve got a whole team, my booking agent, and PR guys — I don’t think I could have a better team right now, everyone is pushing for Diane Coffee which is cool. I’d much rather be with a smaller company or label or management firm or whatever, that is really gung ho about the project rather than just like, maybe they’re very good at what they do but they’re all about money and the business side of things. Which is good too, I’m sure that could maybe get the music out to more people, but I’m trying to find a healthy balance cause I gotta work with these people and live with these people.
And you’re based in the Midwest now, right?
Yeah, me and my partner Melinda live in Bloomington, Indiana. And talk about another godsend, she is my creative partner as well, so she helps come up with all the stage shows, she does all my costumes, check this out, she did all this.
Did I wear the dress at Schubas? She made all that.
That’s amazing.
And on this last run too we did a whole nautical theme with sailors and stuff, she built all that stuff for that. You know how Of Montreal works, with his brother David who does all the artwork and does all the stage show stuff, and then Kevin focuses on the music, it’s sort of like that. It’s awesome for two reasons — one, that she’s got great ideas that I love and utilize and stuff, but also it’s a way — being on the road with a partner is very tough, and anyone who has that will tell you, in any industry, truck drivers, whatever it is — so to have something that connects two people to at least the thing that’s taking them away, the project or whatever, that’s huge. So that’s really cool for me to have that.
So does she stay mostly in Bloomington or does she come with you?
She works at the hospital. If I could pay to bring her on the road, that would be great, but logistically it’s just impossible at this point. But that’s like my goal at one point, I’d love to have her be around and also run other things like stage manage, or merch, make me look pretty before I go out [laughs] — you know, whatever it is, fix these costumes, or even just keep me sane on the road, that’d be great.
Yeah, definitely.
I would love to be in a small band like this, like a five-person band, but then all of us be able to like, bring significant others or whoever you want so we could have just a big touring family, that’d be fun. I dunno how that works though, I’ve always heard things like “don’t bring your girlfriends on the tour, don’t bring your boyfriends on the tour” but I think that’s with that mentality of like, old 70s rockers…I’m sure there’s pros and cons.
Diane Coffee barely pays the bills, there’s so many expenses that go into it and just paying my guys because it’s a band of hired guns. So we both need to work to keep our home and stuff. So she works at the hospital in Bloomington, IU Health, and then free time, she’s been doing a lot of stuff for me but she does big installation pieces, she built like a big house and sawed it in half and hung it up, or built a house made of people. So she’ll do stuff like that, but she’ll do weird performance art. She works with a lot of different mediums. So it’s cool, and I’m really happy that she’s taken time off from doing that to put her energy into this stuff, creatively.
How did you guys end up in Bloomington, is she from there?
Yeah she was from there, and I was out, we were gonna be recording stuff for the [Foxygen] “…And Star Power” record, and we rented a house, [Jonathan] Rado had rented a house in Bloomington for that purpose, and then — I dunno what happened, the vibe was wrong, it just didn’t happen, but we had 2 weeks there. Do you know Dub Thompson? They’re on the sister label, Dead Oceans — they released a record a few years back, like before “Star Power” came out, and Rado just ended up recording them in that place that was already set up.
So then I had nothing else to do, so I was hanging out in Bloomington, and I had met her before and I needed to get out of New York, this was after I did the “My Friend Fish” record, and she had just bought this house, she needed work on the house — knocking down walls, fixing ceilings and stuff and I like doing that stuff so I was like “I’ll give you a hand,” and she was like “I’ve got extra rooms if you hate New York that much,” and I said “yeah” — for the record I don’t hate New York, I just hate living in New York. So I got out of New York as fast as I could, we drove up and moved all my stuff out immediately. It was crazy. Then roommates became more than that, and that’s how I ended up in Bloomington. So the combination of me needing to leave and finding a really great reason to stay.
Oh that’s nice.
Yeah, it was cute.
Definitely like a break from LA and New York…
I couldn’t do it, man. I did like, LA and I lived there and grew up there and I just couldn’t keep living there, it felt like a place where dreams go to die, and then New York was too tall for me. I lived in Boston for like 6 months and that was pretty fun but I never really grew roots there.
Oh yeah, that’s where I’m from.
Yeah, I mean it’s really pretty.
It is, it’s just not that exciting.
So yeah, Bloomington is a great location cause it’s 4 hours to here, Louisville, Nashville, all those places — the crossroads of America.
Do you find you miss the cities?
I see cities so often, it’s always city-city-city, so it’s actually really nice when I go home to be — we have a place right up against the woods, so I can light a fire, hang out, it’s awesome.
I know you were sick last week?
Yeah I had to cancel two shows cause I had no voice, you can still kind of hear it’s still recovering.
Oh man, that must suck when you’re on the road.
It’s so terrible, I HATE canceling shows. I will play until I cannot do a single note.
“Everybody’s a Good Dog” came out over a year ago now — September 2015.
Oh yeah, I was just thinking about how I remembered ordering the vinyl online.
Yep, that was really intense, like we really underestimated how many people were gonna buy it. We sold out so quickly that there was a huge time gap before we had the ability to put it back out in the market. We had to re-press everything, and that takes like — an emergency re-press can take three to four months, but normally it can take six to eight months. I think we did it in like three months, but like right when you release a record and no one can get it, it’s pretty intense.
I guess that drives up the hype maybe.
Maybe, or people just forget about it and move on. [laughs.] Either way.
Yeah I think I only have the second one on vinyl, I gotta get the first one.
I think the first one is cooler on vinyl, and I dunno why I think that. I think cause it’s a little more DIY anyway, a little more lo-fi and maybe it translates a little better on vinyl. But I dunno. It was made super digitally, but it was such crappy digital recordings that it sounds lo-fi, digital lo-fi.
Do you find that it’s different now that you’re based in the Midwest, in terms of songwriting or the vibes…
Well definitely that first record in New York felt a lot darker, and I dunno if it’s cause I was sick, I think it was a combination of things —
New York is brutal.
It is, yeah, it kicks my ass every single time I get in there. It’s really hard. But yeah this one’s definitely a lot more cheery, and I mean, who knows, it could’ve just been like the budding relationship when I wrote it — it wasn’t necessarily a budding relationship, it was just starting, so it was that very energetic bit, or the new surroundings, something happier than New York for me. I don’t really know, I’m interested to see what another album, living in the same place — I’m probably gonna record it somewhere else, thinking of maybe recording it in LA.
Back to LA.
Back to LA, back home.
Is your family still there?
Yeah, my family’s still there, a lot of my old friends. So I’m thinking about — well, this is something no one else has — I’m thinking about doing the next record with my very first band, Harum Scarum, my high school band, we were a cover band. We just did hours and hours of covers, we’d play local bars and stuff like that, but they are so talented — they are SO talented. So I might do it with them, which would be really fun for me, just back to the basics. Harum Scarum, round 2.
So they were your first band, and you met like the Foxygen people?
Well, we all went to the same school. So I already knew Sam [France] and Rado and they were a few years younger than me, so like I had played with them and we had done different projects. Rado would play on my stuff, we had a little weird project going called First from the Sea, which is the worst name ever, and then Rado was doing more Foxygen stuff. Then I moved to Boston and was playing with this pop band for a little bit and came back and felt like I just couldn’t get it going, nothing was happening. Then out of nowhere I got a call from Rado being like “hey we’ve got a show, can you play some drums” and I was like yeah I know how to play drums a little bit, and that’s how I became Foxygen’s drummer.
But you’re not like a drummer by trade?
No, no, never had been — for the longest time I was playing drums and the only thing I could play were Foxygen songs. I couldn’t jam or get into pocket on anything else, I was really good at those songs. Now I can play, I played on both records.
Thanks so much to Shaun for sitting down with me for one of Houseshow’s signature conversational interviews. Can’t wait for the Diane Coffee New Year’s Eve extravaganza here in Chicago!
