Shots Fired

Three new songs from Kansas City’s Finest.Shots Fired, 2004 Demo wastes no time, gets to the point, and delivers the goods like an adrenaline shot straight to heart. Focused around explosive rhythm, thick riffs, and intense vocals, Shots Fired offer up three tracks that will please any musical palette. This demo simply does what it is supposed to do; it showcases an amazing band on the verge of becoming a household name. - Destroy the System

Holy f**king s**t - If Shots Fired isn't the most pummeling new band out there. I felt like I just walked into a blind line for an ice pick lobotomy. F**king white knuckle right out of the gate. It brought me back to the days of Barkmarket scrawling tales on the rodeo clown college bathroom wall. Knee Cutting
Intensity!
- The Zone

Great bands in general don’t come from great cities. You there is the time and concentration for a great band to get it while there’s the distraction of big lights around? No. Was Manchester what it is now when Joy Division/Smiths picked up their guitars? Saddle Creek groups gaze in puzzlement why anyone would want to move to Omaha. If you want to create something worthwhile, do it for yourselves, it’s a process that has always worked and will continue to do so.

Kansas City in America is perhaps one of those cities in the making. From the outside… nothing, well apart from Dorothy and tornados, yet reports from new-found friends over there suggest a city that is, as city heroes The Get Up Kids could testify, secretly a great place to be in a band. The story reads of a buzzing creative scene within the city, continually throwing up exciting new music and hard-working bands. Shots Fired are one of these bands and as singer Zach states of the city, “Potenial bad sides? Spend a week; the bad sides reach full potential here in KC. I think that is why music has always fared well here, apathy.”

Along with singer and guitarist Zach, there’s Trent and drummer Billy, and according to Zach the formation and group development goes a little something like this: “we have been playing together for 2 years I think but really haven’t had anytime to get to know one another…. One time our drummer got his finger stuck in the punch clock on the wall of our practice space and we talked for a bit while he was trying to free himself. He seemed like a nice guy, very modest, meek.”

When they do get together to play, Shots Fired stick on the alt-rock sounds of Quicksand or Fugazi and mix them with the unapologetic moments of Thin Lizzy. Yet resting underneath the broad influences of rock are splashes of the homegrown, running through their track ‘Celebration’ is a guitar melody that is more Hank Williams than Angus Young, and on another song ‘Scenics’ the rock sound is reduced to layers of acoustics, losing none, in-fact gaining, the band’s levels of intensity. It’s no surprise then to hear an old sour tale has influenced the bands angsty vibe: “I found my way here by following my high school sweetheart to college and had the pleasure of watching her turn into a cocaine saint right before my eyes. You just don’t leave a town like that!”

She did him a favor though, I’ve heard their new record and it’s awesome. So when will it see a proper release? For now the band seems content to wait for something perfect. “(We) will sit on it until we turn blue if the label is not right. I think they call this shopping? I call it sifting through endless piles of trite thieves.” (DH)

Can’t wait? Then go to www.shotsfired.net.
- Play Dead Magazine

Seven Degrees from Center followed perhaps the most impressive act of the night, the Kansas City-based Shots Fired.
This nuclear-power trio resembled a post-grunge version of 1980s indie-rock heroes Husker Du.
When vocalist-guitarist Zach Aaron wasn't squeezing off rounds of devastating rock, he insulted and/or complimented his onlookers for appearing too straight to hook him up with any post-show drugs.
- Indianapolis Star