Rylie Shadow: Interview and Feature

by Ezra Smith

Rylie Shadow will be one of the first people in the Utah scene to tell you that there is no money to be made in music here. Venues across the valley post-COVID have dropped like flies, caving under the financial pressure of increasing overhead costs and declining attendance. Venues like Jazz Cats, The Boiler Room, The Boardwalk, Addychella/SodaBoba, and The Loading Dock, have all shut down over the last two or three years. Despite Shadow’s matter-of-fact stance on Utah’s scene, he certainly is not a pessimist; As a matter of fact, when I interviewed him on his apartment balcony on a particularly sweltering Fourth of July, he was as optimistic as ever about the scene. It’s the sort of stance I envy in a concert promoter and live sound engineer.

Shadow started out working doors at the hardcore venue Black Lung Society before they had shut down their Salt Lake City venue and moved operations to South Ogden. From there, Shadow climbed the corporate ladder of sorts; Moving from doors, to setups and tear-downs, to learning the ropes of live sound from Black Lung owner Julius Gray, to eventually booking and operating entire shows on his own. Now, Shadow has founded his own local booking agency in Found Dead Booking, and has graduated from Black Lung to booking shows across the valley.

Smith: “Are there any favorite bands of yours in the Valley right now?”

Shadow: “Oh dude, It depends on the scene… Sleep Cult will always be one of my favorite bands, they’re like a garage-punk band… And then… Hardcore, I have a lot of favorites. Obviously I have to mention Forever War, because as a straight-edge man, I have to mention that they are fucking pioneering what Salt Lake’s straight-edge sound should be… But my favorite Salt Lake hardcore band is Spent, I love that fucking band. It’s just classic good hardcore… It’s like Trapped Under Ice, Backtracks, stuff like that.”

Smith: “Do you have a particular favorite venue?”

Shadow: “Um, That’s hard. Obviously I’m really inclined to say I do really have a special spot for Black Lung, I love that place… [but] See, other than that, it’s hard because there’s not a lot of good all-ages venues, I mean One Love is sick. One Love is really fucking cool; That’s a great spot for hardcore, that’s a great spot for local shows in general.”

Smith: “...Yeah, I think Black Lung at this point is the only strictly all-ages independent venue [in Ogden] … In Salt Lake, I mean you’ve got The Beehive, which is shutting down soon.”

Shadow: “Yeah… there’s a lot of venues, but it’s just … a lot of them are super unwilling to be cool and work with the local scene in a sustainable way. Venues like The Pearl will shut your show down if you don’t sell enough online tickets.”

Smith: “So would you say the Salt Lake scene is sorta going down?”

Shadow: “I wouldn’t say that.”

Smith: “Would you say it’s changing?”

Shadow: “It’s definitely changing… Which is not a bad thing. It goes through phases where certain genres are leading the scene and right now it’s bands like MyPetSpider and Save Me From My Room Booking that are leading the way with the Emo… y’know that certain kind of metalcore and stuff… There’s not many bad bands in that scene to be honest.”

Smith: “What was that one band [my band] played with… They had the guitarist who did just tapping. The Plini thing.”

Shadow: “That’s Mutilated Perception! That band was fucking cool! That kid is interesting, yeah I wasn’t expecting that.”

About 42 minutes into our interview, Shadow stopped me mid-sentence and pointed into the parking lot below at a white Mazda:

“This neighbor of mine that just pulled up… he’s in a fuckin’ local band! Yeah, I ran into him, I was leaving for a show… and he’s carrying his fucking guitar and shit and I was like ‘Dude, are you in a band?’, and so he told me and I told him that was sick. So yeah [The Utah Scene], it’s just everywhere bro.”

Sure enough, the man driving the Mazda pulled a Gibson hard case from his trunk, and walked towards the building.

I shouted down: “I dig the Gibson man!”

He responded: “Hey thanks!” and redirected his attention to Shadow. “I think I talked to you the other day, right?”

Shadow: “Yeah! ...Dude, remind me of your band’s name!”

The man: “Uhh… No Need to Whisper.”

Shadow: “Yeah I checked you guys out! You guys are fucking sick dude! ...I wanna put something together with you guys for sure.”

Shadow shouted back and forth a bit with the man regarding logistics, and ended the conversation with a promise to book No Need. I joked a bit about the hustle of booking a show mid-interview.

Shadow laughed and replied quite succinctly: “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”