Leah is featured about 28 minutes in:
“In this episode we are proud to bring you a huge special on the upcoming Under The Southern Stars Tour. We are only weeks away from seeing Cheap Trick, Bush, Stone Temple Pilots, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Rose Tattoo and Electric Mary, together on one bill. This has been a gargantuan effort by the entire UTSS Team, and we are proud to bring you conversations with
Rusty from Electric Mary
Leah from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Jeff and Eric from Stone Temple Pilots
Gavin from Bush
Rick from Cheap Trick
and to close it out we chat with promoter Andrew McManus”
There aren’t many bands I’ve followed as much as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. My history with BRMC as a fan is a long one, with miles of travels, stories and friends made, and lost acquaintances in between. Over the years, the band has evolved with the addition of Leah Shapiro replacing original drummer, Nick Jago. Joining guitarist Peter Hayes and bassist Robert Levon Been, Leah helped write a new chapter in their rock n’ roll story.
I was offered a last minute zoom interview with Leah Shapiro in conjunction with Under the Southern Stars festival tour happening in Australia later this month. Of course, I jumped at the chance to interview the drummer of my favorite band. Our conversation touched upon current events and unfortunate passings, life during the pandemic, and what it’s like touring Australia in the past and how it might be in this coming month.
What have you been up to in the downtime of the pandemic?
Leah Shapiro: Oh god, that’s the question that everybody asks and I will say again that I have not been within that group that has been able to learn new languages and all kinds of skills and been hyper productive at all. I had a hard time focusing on anything throughout this. Managed to get a couple things done, a couple of recordings here and there. But a lot of it was staring at walls, as well, and questioning my sanity.
I remember hearing a couple of your podcasts, they were very long-form so those were interesting.
LS: Oh my god, yeah. I think I know which one you’re referring to, was that the one with me and Pete and Jared and Brian – the Vacant Lots guys?
Yes, I think so that was like 2 hours or so of interviews. It was an interesting conversation.
LS: Yeah, I don’t know how that happened. I don’t think any one of us would be able to talk for that long alone.
I mean who wants to talk about anything for two hours.
LS: Yeah, I don’t know.
What did you think of Rob’s solo album debut and the Card Counter soundtrack?
LS: I think he did a great job, yeah, that’s such a huge task to take on. I think he did a great job. Yeah, I’m happy for him.
Yeah I think so too, it was a pretty impressive undertaking in a time where most people are…
LS: Impressive undertaking under normal circumstances, with everything else going on, extra impressive.
Has the passing of Mark Lanegan affected you or anyone in the BRMC camp much?
LS: Yes, of course. We have mutual friends, and I’ve been reaching out to friends who personally know him that have obviously suffered a huge loss. I don’t feel like it’s my place to talk about. It’s incredibly sad, I’m sure it’s really difficult for his family, his wife, and loved ones.
You’ve been to Russia and Ukraine before, what are your thoughts on that current situation?
LS: A year or two ago, I wouldn’t imagine this happening. My heart is absolutely breaking for everyone there, it’s fucking awful. I don’t think there’s much that I have to say about that.
I hear about this stuff secondhand, so it’s hard for me to really imagine everything going on there.
LS: Yeah, I’m sitting over here in LA. Aside from seeing the news, it’s hard to imagine what’s going on. The last time we were there was June 2018. It’s sad and heartbreaking and I hope it gets resolved in some way, shape, or form sooner than later.
How many times have you been to Australia now and how is it different from the other world tours?
LS: This will be my third time, I know the guys for sure were there a couple of times before I was with the band. I remember the first time we went there, we went to both New Zealand and Australia, we went bungee jumping in Auckland, rented motorcycles, and did all kinds of fun stuff. It’s so far away and it’s really hard to get there, so we make the most of it when we do because you never really know if you’re going to get back there again because it’s quite an undertaking to get there.
From what I remember, tours and stuff over the course of the years, get mixed together. I always remember the shows being really great and I’ve always enjoyed every time we’ve been there. Last time we were there, our routing was chased by Hurricane Marcus, kind of messed with our flights a bit. Our gear showed up way late for one of our shows. It’s like little weird things like that I remember very clearly.
Of course, this run will be a little different due to the circumstances and we will probably not be able to go out and about as much as we normally would, which is completely understandable especially with a traveling festival. That’s a big thing to put on in the best of times, it’s a big undertaking now.
Yeah, I’m sure. (Australia) It’s a huge country and the tour is kind of all across it.
LS: Yeah, we usually play bigger cities and I’m definitely seeing a bunch of places on the map that I have not been to before or necessarily heard of so that’ll be cool to get to see some new parts. There are a couple long drives, which I don’t mind – I get to see stuff out the window since we normally fly from city to city. Yeah, we’ll get to see something new on the drives.
Yeah, a real road tour again. That’ll be exciting.
LS: Kind of like going back to van tours.
Do you have any future tour plans or possibly albums or is that secret?
LS: No there’s no big secrets going on right now, we’re just playing it by ear. I’m sure you probably know this is the first touring we’ve done since 2019, so I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous to get back onstage after having been sitting around in sweat pants for way too long. We’ll see where the world is at once we get back from this, and where things are at, what’s possible to do and whatnot.
It’s been really difficult to try to plan anything. As you know everything is so unpredictable, and every time things seem to be going all right then they go sideways again. It seems like a better idea to just kind of roll with it and see where things are at.Once we’ve been able to do this, then we can figure out what we want to do after that.
I’ve seen a lot of tours being canceled still.
Yeah. That can be really scary. It can be really financially difficult to cancel shows if someone gets sick. That’s a bit of a rough one
Hopefully everyone stays safe and things go as planned for this tour.
The organizers are definitely doing a good job with that and we’re going to be staying on top of things on our end as well.
Did you know (March) is Women’s History Month?
LS: I think I’ve been running around like crazy since I woke up around 5 AM, and I’ve been running around, but did I see that in passing while I was waking up and having my coffee. Yes, it is Women’s history month.
Do you see there’s any kind of change in the world of rock for women?
LS: You know what, I do. I’ve been seeing more and more female musicians in bands, I don’t necessarily love the sort of differentiating between female drummer and male drummers. It gets a bit frustrating. I’ve seen more and more great female musicians both in their own bands and session players. It seems like there’s more of a community of women (not just musicians) in all areas in the industry. How about you, have you noticed?
Yeah, there are a lot of female musicians lately, and it does seem like a positive change. Things have been going well, not just in rock, but in all types of music.
I have some questions I’ve gathered from fans, they might get a little silly.
How’s Poof and does he have an instagram yet?
LS: I wanted to post about this when it happened, but I just haven’t been able to do it yet. So I guess you are going to be the first person that I tell. Poof passed away last year at the end of March, which of course, was completely fucking heartbreaking. So that happened, the first part of when lockdown happened, I spent literally every day with him aside and he was aside from Pete, I was going to say the only person that I talked to. For well over a year, I would do whatever Poof wanted to do, so it was nice that I got a good dose of quality time with him before that happened.
On that note, I want to say thank you to a lot of people who brought Poof presents over the years on tour. I still have a lot of things that weren’t edible, obviously he ate that. I have like pillows and clothing that people made him, and I want to say thank you so much for that for people that brought that. He was a sweetheart and a very special guy.
I’m so sorry to hear that and bring it up.
LS: I thought about posting, but at the time I couldn’t do it.
I know that’s too tough, I lost my cat of like 18 years.
LS: I’m so sorry. It was a lot harder to deal with than I – I had anticipated it would suck a lot – but it was a lot worse than I thought it would be.
Nothing prepares you for that kind of thing.
Sabrina wanted to know how your jam sessions happen and if they come together separately or all at once.
LS: Both ways, there’s been instances of… “Funny Games” is an example of like, I was in a rehearsal studio playing drums on my own and I’d been messing around with this beat and I recorded it on a very crappy Blackberry, because of course the microphones are not equipped for that, it was super distorted and had a melody to it, and I brought that to Rob and I think he kind of built the bass line off of the distorted melody that existed in that, so that’s one way that happens. Most of the time we’re in the room together. So it comes in every shape or form. A lot of weird accidents…
Shelley asked if you listen to a lot of music aside from BRMC and what are your favorites?
LS: Humanist is my favorite record of 2020. That’s one of my more recent favorites. Depeche Mode, Black Ryder, newer records Humanist is incredible, Mark Lanegan who you mentioned earlier, his solo records, and albums with Soulsavers are incredible.
Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today.
Leah Shapiro and Peter Hayes have been doing a few long form interviews in podcast form, check out this one with Sent to Destroy!
Chris sits down with Leah Shapiro and Peter Hayes – two thirds of the rock trio Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. For those not already familiar with the band, BRMC has been cranking out dark, gritty, authentic rock and roll for over 20 years. If you’re a fan of the band and you ever wanted to hang and really get to know the incredible musicians behind the music this is your day. It was a great conversation.
Pre-order a signed copy of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s record, ‘Wrong Creatures’ in a clear double vinyl box set with a 52 page lyric/photo book, a custom harmonica, a cassette of unreleased tracks and some killer art prints and drown into the sound. http://pmusic.co/3geLvE
If you’ve pre-ordered “Live in Paris,” you may have already gotten your digital download of the audio. Unfortunately, we will have to wait a little longer for the DVD. BRMC sent this update on Thursday with a mention on how Leah is doing:
Hey, we wanted to give everyone a quick update on the Live In Paris DVD.
So last month, when we first received the Master Copy of the DVD to approve, we noticed this strange little digital glitch in the audio (it wasn’t anything too serious, but it was like nails on a chalkboard to us). I guess the good news is that we caught the problem in time, and it has since been fixed. The bad news is that it has caused the release date to be pushed back about a month. It was a hard to call to make, but we didn’t feel right shipping the DVD out like that.
In the meantime, we want to apologize to you by sending you a link where you can immediately download mp3’s of ALL of the songs on the album.
In other news, we’ve begun rehearsing again with Leah (post surgery) and she is beating the living hell out of the drums again. She still needs to take it easy for the next couple weeks though and not hammer a hole through her snare drum, but so far all signs seem to be pointing towards a fairly strong recovery.
The bionic girl returns +
You will be receiving information from Firebrand with a link to download the MP3s.
A few days ago, BRMC posted this to the email list:
‘We have been overwhelmed by the concern and support from everyone out there with regards to Leah’s medical condition. We just wanted to let everyone know that surgery has been scheduled for late November with one of the top neurosurgeons in Los Angeles (who is coincidentally also a very big BRMC fan). This is a relatively safe procedure. However, there will be a considerable recovery time needed with physical therapy. We will keep everyone updated though in the months ahead, as we know there is so much genuine concern and support all around us at this time. For those of you who have been asking how to help, there is a donation link below. As well as an exclusive BRMC t-shirt, of which all proceeds go towards medical expenses.’
“I Want to BeLeah” T-Shirt
“All proceeds of this t-shirt will go towards Leah’s surgery and recovery. We thank you for your help & support” – Robert & Peter
Get the shirt here: http://bit.ly/brmcleah
(This is a pre-order, your order will ship in 3-4 weeks.)
Fan Donation Page ‘Pass The Helmut’
This GoFundMe page was created by the fans, Click HERE to send your donations to Leah’s GoFundMe page created directly by the fans. All donations will go towards supporting Leah’s surgery and recovery.
Earlier today, Leah of BRMC posted an announcement on the band’s website and Facebook page about having a personal medical issue called Chiari Malformations, a structural defect found in her brain and skull that affect her balance and other functions, which will require emergency surgery. Unfortunately, this means BRMC have to cancel their upcoming performance at Moon Block Party:
Dear Moon Block Party Fans,
We are sad to announce that BRMC have cancelled their performance at Saturdays Pomona Fairplex show due to a serious illness within the band.
Please follow this link for the bands offical statement: http://blackrebelmotorcycleclub.com/news/a-message-from-leah/
As a team, Moon Block Party are beside ourselves and wish Leah a swift recovery. We would urge you the fans to come out to the festival and enjoy the amazing line up we have still performing. At this time we are trying to find a replacement band but we know you will appreciate that we are a day away from the show and perhaps this will not be possible.
We would like Moon Block Party to act as a conductor of positive energy in which thousands of us will come together, through music and focus our energy towards Leah in this unsettling time for her. We understand that this totally sucks for all those who were excited to see BRMC, but it sucks even more for Leah. This is bigger than the festival. Our thoughts are with you Leah. We are staying positive and hope to have a great show with you in our hearts and minds.
We’re still waiting to see if there will be a last minute replacement, until then please send all your love and support to Leah during this time and let’s hope she has a fast and full recovery!
The LIPGLOSS 13th Anniversary | Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (DJ Set) X The Black Ryder (DJ Set) feat. Leah Shapiro & Scott Von Ryper | Hollow & DJ Tower
Pre-sale is highly recommended for this event and is available at www.denver3.com.
Established in 2001, Lipgloss is the country’s longest-running indie dance party, featuring only the finest in indie, rock, soul & retro.
This kind of pairing doesn’t happen at just any dance party. In fact, this particular one has never happened before. So come be a part of history as two of our favorite rockstars take over your Lipgloss dance experience. It’s going to be a gritty, rock-infused dance party.
Lipgloss founder Hollow aka boyhollow & resident DJ Tower will also attend the DJ booth to round out all your dancing needs.
Music by Leah Shapiro of BRMC & Scott Von Ryper of The Black Ryder, Hollow & DJ Tower
Photos by Sam Nguyen
Video by Caleb
Door by Aimee
The love of music by you
To RSVP and purchase tickets, check out the event page on Facebook.