The Shears

Inné Aguilar just might be the baddest gal in town. Decked in a red dress, leather jacket and a pair of stilettos that had us wondering how she could strut like she was, the Shears’ frontwoman dazzled in front of a locked and loaded crowd as dusk settled over Oh Snap! Festival. The Shears’ kept the power-pop flying, too, launching a high-octane set of tracks off their self-titled EP, including the bouncy wonder of “Take All Of Me”. - Austin Music Weekly

Inné Aguilar just might be the baddest gal in town. Decked in a red dress, leather jacket and a pair of stilettos that had us wondering how she could strut like she was, the Shears’ frontwoman dazzled in front of a locked and loaded crowd as dusk settled over Oh Snap! Festival. The Shears’ kept the power-pop flying, too, launching a high-octane set of tracks off their self-titled EP, including the bouncy wonder of “Take All Of Me”. - Austin Music Weekly

The Shears live from 12th and Chicon. If you're wondering about the helmet(s) in the crowd, TNSR (Thursday Night Social Ride) rock and rolled in about 200 deep. Over at Club 1808, there is no line, no buffer, no need for any space between the band and the crowd. If you haven't seen The Shears, watch them here, listen to them here then get out to a show.
- Austin Music Weekly

The Shears live from 12th and Chicon. If you're wondering about the helmet(s) in the crowd, TNSR (Thursday Night Social Ride) rock and rolled in about 200 deep. Over at Club 1808, there is no line, no buffer, no need for any space between the band and the crowd. If you haven't seen The Shears, watch them here, listen to them here then get out to a show.
- Austin Music Weekly

How does Austin’s premier dance rock outfit celebrate the release of their new EP? Easy. They throw a massive party at the Parish. They invite rappers like Parking to drop verses on “Blow You Up.” They piece together badass covers of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Heads Will Roll.” Most notably, though, they dress singer Inné Aguilar in wildly elaborate hats, because The Shears know nothing tips the scales like elaborate headwear. Nothing. - Austin Music Weekly

How does Austin’s premier dance rock outfit celebrate the release of their new EP? Easy. They throw a massive party at the Parish. They invite rappers like Parking to drop verses on “Blow You Up.” They piece together badass covers of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Heads Will Roll.” Most notably, though, they dress singer Inné Aguilar in wildly elaborate hats, because The Shears know nothing tips the scales like elaborate headwear. Nothing. - Austin Music Weekly

The Shears have quickly broken out in the Austin music scene with their danceable pop rock. These guys have been playing together since the summer of last year, have played around 10 shows and were already named one of the top 10 Austin indie bands by the Austin Music Awards. Carter and I got a chance to talk to The Shears this past weekend at their rehearsal space in North Austin. They even played a couple songs for us. Private mini concert with front row seats — we’re loving the perks of being music bloggers. We talked to them about how they formed, where they’re going, how they feel about the nineties and more. Check out snippets of the interview below.

Ovrld = Carter and Dan

The Shears = Aaron – Guitar/keys Inné - Lead Vocals Jon – Drums Albert – Keyboards Tommy – Bass

Ovrld: So how did you guys come about?

Aaron: Well, I actually placed an ad on Craigslist. I had a lot of demo songs I was working on. I had gone through thirty or forty people … And then Inné responded when I was at work and she was like, something to the effect of, “You don’t know it yet but I’m the singer for the band your starting.” And I was like who is this crazy girl? And then I sent her “Defibrillator” and she turned around and sent it back to me with vocals in less than 24 hours. Then Jon called me a couple days later and asked me if I was looking for a drummer and I happened to be. And we had played in a previous band together. We just started writing a bunch of songs in the middle of summer last year, and we played a couple shows as a three piece. Then we needed more people so we didn’t have to deal with backing tracks and so forth.

O: You went through 30 or 40 people on Craigslist?

Aaron: Maybe more, actually including all the emails. Most of them were: “Hey man you want to play some Skynard?” Did you even read the ad? You know as a musician, you’ve experienced the terrors of Craigslist. It’s horrible. So we’re really lucky.

O: Some of you guys have been in bands around here before right?

Aaron: Yeah, I think everybody. We’re all veterans of the Austin scene.

O: How is this band different than some of the other ones you guys have been in before?

Inné: It’s amazing.

Albert: Yeah, it’s awesome.

Inné: We keep writing stuff that is just awesome. I don’t know if you guys have been in the situation where you’ve been in a band and are like, “Eehhh, this music is ok.” But this one’s like “Fuck. Yes.” Our music is awesome. It’s great everybody here is so talented and brings it.

Jon: Yeah, I think we were careful not to add anybody that might screw up the awesomeness. That’s why we started up as a three piece. We didn’t even know if we wanted to add anybody else. It’s like the mafia; we’re only gonna add certain people in it. It just started working from the beginning and then we met these guys and within a short amount of time we knew each other and it just worked.

O: With the new members of the band how did the sound change?

Aaron: When I was demoing songs, obviously I’m not a drummer and I’m just a half-ass keyboard player and bass player. So, now we have people devoted to that and Albert’s like a near virtuoso level piano player. And I can walk over to the piano and hack away at some horrible chords and he’s like oh you mean like this? (makes crazy virtuoso piano sound)

O: You guys have associated yourselves with a lot of hype-heavy bands like Speak and Fresh Millions. How did you guys do that?

Inné: I don’t know it kind of fell in our lap. I think the universe is conspiring with us and they want us to work with awesome people. It just happened. We meet people and we’re like, “Hey we’re The Shears want to play together?”

Jon: It helps that people are excited about you, excited about what you’re doing.

Aaron: I think we just go out to shows, try to be a part of the scene and that’s a big part of it. You go and support the bands and you get to meet them and they support you and that’s how it happens. They’ll play a show one day and want you to play the show. Just been very lucky I guess.

O: We’ve been noticing some 80's metal 80's hard rock being weaved into your guitar solos.

Jon: That’s a taboo topic.

Aaron: Well, my first band in Austin was a cock rock band and yeah I grew up listening to all 80s music. Including the 80s cock rock or metal, whatever you want to call it. Even Billy Idol or whatever. Now that the 80s are back in fashion, we finally get to do those things again and it’s ok. In the 90s: “You can’t play guitar solos.” — alternative and grunge. We really don’t do that. I mean we have one song with a solo but it’s just that we try to refrain from doing that.

Inné: We get that 80s thing a lot, which is true. We’re coming out with 5 songs, but we have so many songs we have written and they’re all different. We’re always trying to do something different — always incorporating different genres. And you’re going to hear that more after this EP. We’re incor - Ovrld

The Shears have quickly broken out in the Austin music scene with their danceable pop rock. These guys have been playing together since the summer of last year, have played around 10 shows and were already named one of the top 10 Austin indie bands by the Austin Music Awards. Carter and I got a chance to talk to The Shears this past weekend at their rehearsal space in North Austin. They even played a couple songs for us. Private mini concert with front row seats — we’re loving the perks of being music bloggers. We talked to them about how they formed, where they’re going, how they feel about the nineties and more. Check out snippets of the interview below.

Ovrld = Carter and Dan

The Shears = Aaron – Guitar/keys Inné - Lead Vocals Jon – Drums Albert – Keyboards Tommy – Bass

Ovrld: So how did you guys come about?

Aaron: Well, I actually placed an ad on Craigslist. I had a lot of demo songs I was working on. I had gone through thirty or forty people … And then Inné responded when I was at work and she was like, something to the effect of, “You don’t know it yet but I’m the singer for the band your starting.” And I was like who is this crazy girl? And then I sent her “Defibrillator” and she turned around and sent it back to me with vocals in less than 24 hours. Then Jon called me a couple days later and asked me if I was looking for a drummer and I happened to be. And we had played in a previous band together. We just started writing a bunch of songs in the middle of summer last year, and we played a couple shows as a three piece. Then we needed more people so we didn’t have to deal with backing tracks and so forth.

O: You went through 30 or 40 people on Craigslist?

Aaron: Maybe more, actually including all the emails. Most of them were: “Hey man you want to play some Skynard?” Did you even read the ad? You know as a musician, you’ve experienced the terrors of Craigslist. It’s horrible. So we’re really lucky.

O: Some of you guys have been in bands around here before right?

Aaron: Yeah, I think everybody. We’re all veterans of the Austin scene.

O: How is this band different than some of the other ones you guys have been in before?

Inné: It’s amazing.

Albert: Yeah, it’s awesome.

Inné: We keep writing stuff that is just awesome. I don’t know if you guys have been in the situation where you’ve been in a band and are like, “Eehhh, this music is ok.” But this one’s like “Fuck. Yes.” Our music is awesome. It’s great everybody here is so talented and brings it.

Jon: Yeah, I think we were careful not to add anybody that might screw up the awesomeness. That’s why we started up as a three piece. We didn’t even know if we wanted to add anybody else. It’s like the mafia; we’re only gonna add certain people in it. It just started working from the beginning and then we met these guys and within a short amount of time we knew each other and it just worked.

O: With the new members of the band how did the sound change?

Aaron: When I was demoing songs, obviously I’m not a drummer and I’m just a half-ass keyboard player and bass player. So, now we have people devoted to that and Albert’s like a near virtuoso level piano player. And I can walk over to the piano and hack away at some horrible chords and he’s like oh you mean like this? (makes crazy virtuoso piano sound)

O: You guys have associated yourselves with a lot of hype-heavy bands like Speak and Fresh Millions. How did you guys do that?

Inné: I don’t know it kind of fell in our lap. I think the universe is conspiring with us and they want us to work with awesome people. It just happened. We meet people and we’re like, “Hey we’re The Shears want to play together?”

Jon: It helps that people are excited about you, excited about what you’re doing.

Aaron: I think we just go out to shows, try to be a part of the scene and that’s a big part of it. You go and support the bands and you get to meet them and they support you and that’s how it happens. They’ll play a show one day and want you to play the show. Just been very lucky I guess.

O: We’ve been noticing some 80's metal 80's hard rock being weaved into your guitar solos.

Jon: That’s a taboo topic.

Aaron: Well, my first band in Austin was a cock rock band and yeah I grew up listening to all 80s music. Including the 80s cock rock or metal, whatever you want to call it. Even Billy Idol or whatever. Now that the 80s are back in fashion, we finally get to do those things again and it’s ok. In the 90s: “You can’t play guitar solos.” — alternative and grunge. We really don’t do that. I mean we have one song with a solo but it’s just that we try to refrain from doing that.

Inné: We get that 80s thing a lot, which is true. We’re coming out with 5 songs, but we have so many songs we have written and they’re all different. We’re always trying to do something different — always incorporating different genres. And you’re going to hear that more after this EP. We’re incor - Ovrld

The Shears
Q&A about the band’s debut album
By Sarah Vasquez
Published May 11, 2011

The Shears are a fairly new band in Austin, but they have already shared the stage with local favorites such as L.A.X. and Freshmillions, and worked with producer Troupe Gammage from SPEAK on their upcoming debut album. The electro-pop band will release their self-title album on May 20 at the Parish. But before that, the band sat down with UWeeekly to give readers some inside scoop about themselves and the music.

UWeekly: How long have you been together?

Aaron: We met up in April and started writing a bunch of songs, demoing out songs. Then once we had a set together, we started playing live in August. Then Tommy and Albert joined up in December. That’s when we really started, I guess.

UWeekly: How did you come together?

Inne: Craigslist. (Aaron) put out an ad. That’s how I saw it on Craigslist and I heard his music. He only had the instrumentals too. But these instrumentals weren’t just shitty little mini tracks, they were full blown songs and I was like, I have to be part of this. I was in some other bands at the time and he specifically said on there ‘If you’re involved in other things, you should probably look the other way,’ but I was like no, I need to be involved in this. So we met up and then he sent me a track. I made up some melodies and vocals and sent it back to him. It worked after that. I was their singer.

Jon: Well, I had been in previous bands with Aaron, so I pretty much asked him if he wanted a drummer. He said sure since we worked together before. I guess it kind of works.

Tommy: I joined the band after the rest of these guys, but I was at one of their shows in the audience. I was just blown away by their songs and I was like I have to be up there playing this. The next day, I think I saw on Facebook that they needed a bass player so I jumped on it.

UWeekly: Why Craigslist?

Aaron: I’d been out of the Austin music scene for three or four years so I didn’t really know anyone. The few people I knew were wrapped up in something else. So it was the last resort, and it’s terrible going through Craigslist. I probably went through 30 or 40 people. Actually when I heard from Inne, I pretty much decided to stop looking, because it was such a terrible process. Then just like that, it all fell together, just out of the blue.

UWeekly: How did Albert join?

Inne: He messaged me actually. I put an ad on Craigslist actually as well. I think we may have been friends on Facebook. Facebook bringing everyone together, but he saw that and he said you know been in this sort of bands and ok let’s do this and he joined in.

UWeekly: Tell me about this album you’re about to release. When did you decide to start recording? Were the songs already formed when you started or were they written as you went along?

Inne: The material’s been collecting since we’ve been together. We’d been going through a process of writing new songs and filtering out songs that don’t stand out to us as much. It’s hard though because this guy (Aaron) writes like a billion songs each week.

Tommy: Aaron’s very prolific so there’s a constant stream of new songs coming to our emails.

Aaron: We already had three or four of those songs already picked out. For sure, we’re going to do those. We added a couple of songs at the last minute. The first person that came into my mind was Troupe. I gave him a call and see if he had time to do it. It was right before they were going to go to Brooklyn for their residency, and he did it so it just took off from there.

UWeekly: What was it like to record with Troupe?

Inne: Oh, it was so awesome. He’s wonderful. He’s a nice guy in general but as far as helping and making sure that everyone is comfortable and that I was comfortable. Actually he taught me a lot of new things to do with my voice. I was very excited about that. I was very excited about working with him.

Aaron: That’s why we chose Troupe primarily, because he’s such an awesome singer. I wanted somebody that understood vocals because that’s the most important thing to me is getting a good vocal sound. So that was a big reason we went to Troupe and he just did a fabulous job. He knocked it out and he’s so busy, but he found time. He did a great job so we were really stoked to work with him.

UWeekly: And you were number nine for Best Indie Band in this year’s Austin Music Awards. I read on Facebook that you only played eight shows when that happened?

Aaron: Yeah, we haven’t play very many shows. We were really surprised because the bands that we were on there with were bands that have been around for awhile. A lot of bands that have been around a lot longer than us. We were surprised but really happy.

UWeekly: Do you know that people were voting for you? Did you ever mentioned Hey guys vote for us?

Inne: We mentioned it on our page, but it was such a pleasant surprise to be part of that.

UWeekly: Wha - UT Weekly

The Shears
Q&A about the band’s debut album
By Sarah Vasquez
Published May 11, 2011

The Shears are a fairly new band in Austin, but they have already shared the stage with local favorites such as L.A.X. and Freshmillions, and worked with producer Troupe Gammage from SPEAK on their upcoming debut album. The electro-pop band will release their self-title album on May 20 at the Parish. But before that, the band sat down with UWeeekly to give readers some inside scoop about themselves and the music.

UWeekly: How long have you been together?

Aaron: We met up in April and started writing a bunch of songs, demoing out songs. Then once we had a set together, we started playing live in August. Then Tommy and Albert joined up in December. That’s when we really started, I guess.

UWeekly: How did you come together?

Inne: Craigslist. (Aaron) put out an ad. That’s how I saw it on Craigslist and I heard his music. He only had the instrumentals too. But these instrumentals weren’t just shitty little mini tracks, they were full blown songs and I was like, I have to be part of this. I was in some other bands at the time and he specifically said on there ‘If you’re involved in other things, you should probably look the other way,’ but I was like no, I need to be involved in this. So we met up and then he sent me a track. I made up some melodies and vocals and sent it back to him. It worked after that. I was their singer.

Jon: Well, I had been in previous bands with Aaron, so I pretty much asked him if he wanted a drummer. He said sure since we worked together before. I guess it kind of works.

Tommy: I joined the band after the rest of these guys, but I was at one of their shows in the audience. I was just blown away by their songs and I was like I have to be up there playing this. The next day, I think I saw on Facebook that they needed a bass player so I jumped on it.

UWeekly: Why Craigslist?

Aaron: I’d been out of the Austin music scene for three or four years so I didn’t really know anyone. The few people I knew were wrapped up in something else. So it was the last resort, and it’s terrible going through Craigslist. I probably went through 30 or 40 people. Actually when I heard from Inne, I pretty much decided to stop looking, because it was such a terrible process. Then just like that, it all fell together, just out of the blue.

UWeekly: How did Albert join?

Inne: He messaged me actually. I put an ad on Craigslist actually as well. I think we may have been friends on Facebook. Facebook bringing everyone together, but he saw that and he said you know been in this sort of bands and ok let’s do this and he joined in.

UWeekly: Tell me about this album you’re about to release. When did you decide to start recording? Were the songs already formed when you started or were they written as you went along?

Inne: The material’s been collecting since we’ve been together. We’d been going through a process of writing new songs and filtering out songs that don’t stand out to us as much. It’s hard though because this guy (Aaron) writes like a billion songs each week.

Tommy: Aaron’s very prolific so there’s a constant stream of new songs coming to our emails.

Aaron: We already had three or four of those songs already picked out. For sure, we’re going to do those. We added a couple of songs at the last minute. The first person that came into my mind was Troupe. I gave him a call and see if he had time to do it. It was right before they were going to go to Brooklyn for their residency, and he did it so it just took off from there.

UWeekly: What was it like to record with Troupe?

Inne: Oh, it was so awesome. He’s wonderful. He’s a nice guy in general but as far as helping and making sure that everyone is comfortable and that I was comfortable. Actually he taught me a lot of new things to do with my voice. I was very excited about that. I was very excited about working with him.

Aaron: That’s why we chose Troupe primarily, because he’s such an awesome singer. I wanted somebody that understood vocals because that’s the most important thing to me is getting a good vocal sound. So that was a big reason we went to Troupe and he just did a fabulous job. He knocked it out and he’s so busy, but he found time. He did a great job so we were really stoked to work with him.

UWeekly: And you were number nine for Best Indie Band in this year’s Austin Music Awards. I read on Facebook that you only played eight shows when that happened?

Aaron: Yeah, we haven’t play very many shows. We were really surprised because the bands that we were on there with were bands that have been around for awhile. A lot of bands that have been around a lot longer than us. We were surprised but really happy.

UWeekly: Do you know that people were voting for you? Did you ever mentioned Hey guys vote for us?

Inne: We mentioned it on our page, but it was such a pleasant surprise to be part of that.

UWeekly: Wha - UT Weekly

@LOVEat20 has birthed an amazing remix 4 @theShears.
The Shears are some bad ass cosmic argonauts— namely, Inné (Lead Vocals), Aaron (Guitar/keys), Jon (Drums), & Blake (Keyboards).
The remix is for a track called, “Blow u Up”. In its entirety— it flys off in a Chromatics meets Scissor Sisters, meets Lady Sovereign, sound.
I’m incredibly excited about this BRAND NEW group (4 months old?)—
They have 2 Austin dates cuming up on August 15th and September 2nd in Austin, Texas- check out their MySpace fer the deetz.
These guys are going to blow up BIG!! Join them on that journey into the skyyy.
Listen for this track at one of our WEEKLY parties, & prepare to get sweaty.
Download the Love At 20 remix of, “Blow u Up” here. - Glitoris