Revival Season and Shamon Cassette Catch Up About Formless

Producer Jonah Swilley and rapper Brandon ‘BEZ’ Evans are the Atlanta-based duo Revival Season; Shamon Cassette is a hip hop artist based in LA. Jonah, Brandon, and Shamon are frequent collaborators — last year, they put out the standalone track “White House Black” — and so with the recent release of Revival Season’s latest EP, Formless, the three got on a call to catch up. 
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music

Jonah Swilley: Have you been running, bro?

Shamon Cassette: Yes I have. The other day, I literally ran to the studio. I was like, Yo, let’s give the environment a little break. I’m gonna just jog to the studio. B, you be running too. 

Brandon Evans: I do run. When I was living in the middle of the city, I loved that you could just walk or run to a place. I’d run to the store.

Shamon: My dream is just being able to run somewhere, walk somewhere, and also pick some food off the tree on the way. Just a nice foraging walk or run.

Jonah: That’s how things are supposed to be, I guess.

Brandon: It’s the natural order of things. 

Jonah: I just feel lucky to be surrounded by trees all the time. I live around a bunch of nature. Living inside the city, I took it for granted. But I’ve got trees all around me now, so it’s a different ball game.

Shamon: Dude, that is different. You know about the forest bath, right?

Jonah: No.

Brandon: What’s a forest bath?

Shamon: The forest does this rinsing of its system. My first experience with it, it was like this jungle and every few steps they have these elevated logs, and it basically puts you into tune with all the frequencies of all the trees. It’s crazy.

Brandon: I’m on it. I’ll do it.

Shamon: You live in the middle of trees — you doing it, you just didn’t know you was doing it.

Jonah: I’m around some trees right now in Georgia, and I’m thinking the other day, These trees must have been here for hundreds of years. I mean, I’ve been in the Redwoods and those things have been there for, what? They think millions of years?

Brandon: They’ve got a tree out there in the Redwoods and it’s cut into a medallion, and they’ve got a timeline on the inside of the tree. Some of the shit that’s on that tree is fucking crazy, bro. It’s like, “Settlers arrive in America,” on one of the rings. “The end of the Ottoman Empire” — that tree was alive during that time. The Redwoods is my favorite place. I’ve been twice, but I want to go as much as possible. 

Jonah: It was a spiritual experience.

Brandon: For real.

Jonah: Especially when you’re with someone else, seeing how small they look in front of the trees…

Brandon: I gave up on trying to get good photography out there, besides personal shots. Because I just had my iPhone camera, and trying to get that shit into scale is impossible. 

Shamon: Might have to hit ‘em with that feature where you gotta spin around to take the picture. Knock the dust off the pano!

Jonah: Yo, Shamon, have you heard the tape?

Shamon: Of course, of course. “Slick Rick” is definitely the jam.

Brandon: It’ll put you in that mode, man.

Shamon: It’s definitely sultry riot music.

Brandon: I like that. 

Shamon: I’m just stuck to that one, because it’s very truthful. And the production, as well, is just so unorthodox, the way you placed the drums, and then have the bass just pouring like syrup throughout the thing. And then obviously, I’m always excited to hear B’s rhymes. I’m always blown away when I hear them, it’s never a miss for me. Honestly — not even just because we on record! [Laughs.] The things that I love the most, I describe as “beautiful chaos.” It has the message and the substance and it’s beautiful. You know what I mean?

Brandon: Yes, sir. 

Jonah: That’s amazing that you pick up on all that. There is chaos, man — I feel like every time the three of us record, it’s chaotic. In a good way.

Shamon: Exactly. It’s beautiful chaos.

Jonah: It’s never like, “Hey, my manager put me in contact with you to book this session.” It’s like, “We’re gonna make this happen by any means necessary. B’s in town for three hours, we’re gonna record a song and that’s what happens.” Or, “Shamon’s ready, let’s do the fucking the Zoom call and make a track.”

Shamon: I love that, man. Those are cherished moments. 

Jonah: Also, I feel like this whole record is our most smokable album.

Brandon: [Laughs.]

Shamon: I’d agree with that!

Jonah: B came up with the concept.

Shamon: Yeah, I was going to ask about the concept — how it popped off, the moment it clicked where you was like, “OK, this is the direction we’re going to go with it, this the sound layout.” Tell me about the process of materializing and mapping it out.

Brandon: For me, it was almost anti-game plan.

Shamon: Love that.

Brandon: I thought a lot about the way that people digest music, because a lot of people get it on their cell phone on the fly. You’ve got a 15, 20 minute car ride across the city to make a move or something. So to get a product that they can listen to while they’re doing that—

Shamon: It’s functional.

Brandon: It doesn’t take over the day. It melts into your day, becomes part of your walking around experience. 

Shamon: Right. It’s a smoke. Depending on how many times you need to puff it, you might make it through all the way.

Jonah: Yeah. It’s runnable, too. I had a run the other day — I started having a little crazy anxiety, and I had to run out the house. First thing I could think of was to put the fucking record on. The bounce is perfect to the running motion.

Shamon: OK, this is how I’m driving it: I got a bag of mushrooms. I’m eating those. I’m gonna walk in the forest, take a walk with the peacocks, and I’m gonna let y’all know how this tape went down.

Jonah: Share it with the animals in the forest, man. Let them hear it. 

Shamon: There’s goats and ducks. I’m about to be on top of the world… Another thing about [the record] is everyone thinks an album in the format of a cassette tape is a mixtape. How many people have said, “I like your new mixtape”?

Jonah: Shit. I mean, it’s half and half. I guess in the rap world, you just have to take it with endearment. Because for me, when I was coming up in high school, mixtapes were everything. We didn’t give a fuck about albums. That’s Drake shit. [Laughs.]

Brandon: Talking about what is categorized as mixtape, you go from an actual solid state tape with a whole bunch of patchwork on it to now, people call shit mixtapes either because they don’t want to commit fully to an album or motherfuckers is waiting for it to be received in a certain way. 

Shamon: It’s an excuse for an album. It’s a crutch.

Brandon: Right. So that it can get upgraded to an album later. There are mixtapes that are definitely albums, like [Kendrick Lamar’s] Section 80.

Shamon: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Brandon: That’s definitely an album, but it’s a mixtape. So now, with digital involved too—

Shamon: It’s undefined. But it’s interesting, though. And I love the fact that y’all have this on cassette.

Jonah: Well, we might need you for that.

Shamon: Oh, you say less. [Laughs.] 

Jonah: [Laughs.] We have a digital tape that spins, but as it stands right now, we need that that tape you can get at the merch booth. 

Shamon: Let’s get that cracking. That can happen immediately.

Jonah: For me, cassette tapes were the first form of music. I had the fucking album Alvin and the Chipmunks tape, brother.

Shamon: Dude, I had that same tape. Did you have the punk rock Alvin and the Chipmunks though? 

Jonah: Oh, hell yeah. I had all the Chipmunks.

Shamon: You had all the Chipmunk tapes! See, that’s our DNA. I just got the California Raisins tape the other day. My wife be on some, “What are you, some kind of tape supremacist?” I be like, “Yeah, fully.” Somebody asked me, “Can you make me a playlist?” And I was like, “Bro, didn’t I give you a Walkman?” And he was like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Bro, get five tapes and walk your ass around the block. There’s your playlist.”

Brandon: What I really love about cassettes is, it’s such a committed form of listening. You’ve gotta push the fast forward button for X amount of seconds if you’re trying to get somewhere on the recording. I had an old Toyota I used to roll around back in the day that had nothing but a tape player. 

Shamon: Hell yeah.

Brandon: I just got some tapes from my mom, her old tapes, and it was my soundtrack in the car. And a tape got stuck in the bitch — it would still play, but the tape wouldn’t come out. So I didn’t listen to nothing but Anita Baker inside the car. 

Shamon: [Laughs.] Which tape? 

Brandon: Rapture.

Shamon: Bro, that’s a vibe. 

Brandon: Hey, man, if you gotta have one stuck, that ain’t a bad one.

Jonah: My buddy made me a mixtape for my birthday, and it felt like the most special thing.

Shamon: It’s a love language.

Jonah: He went through the trouble of really making this shit happen, man. 

Shamon: Yeah, because you’ve gotta take the time and the effort to roll stuff up.

Brandon: Absolutely. The love and the care is in it, man. When you’re putting it together, it’s there, and then every single listen it’s there. 

Shamon: Right. And for me, it’s so nostalgic because a part that I miss about growing up was when you’d trade tapes with the homies. I really miss when everybody had a tape deck. I find a lot of tapes around offices being used as paperweights with the plastic still on them.

Brandon: They do be looking cool as fuck though on my desk in here. You remember that band the Jets? 

Shamon: Come on, bro, are you kidding me? The Jets?

Brandon: I’ve got an old Jets tape, and it’s got this yellow and red cover…

Shamon: I need a dub of that, man. My aunt used to try to dress like the Jets. It was lit.

Brandon: My auntie too, bro. She was on that Lisa Lisa shit. 

Shamon: That’s what I’m saying! The whole rectangular color vibe. Jheri curl music.

Brandon: [Laughs.] 

Shamon: They didn’t even know about that subgenre back then. 

Brandon: They was too deep in it. They couldn’t know. 

Shamon: Exactly, bro. They was living it.

Brandon: That shit wasn’t defined yet. They molded it.

Jonah: Yeah. There’s no clout chasing with the Jheri curl.

Shamon: Nah, bro. None whatsoever. That’s a commitment. Imagine having that on your shoulders…

Brandon: Keeping a spray bottle on you, just for yourself.

Shamon: I remember an uncle playing hoops with the Jheri curl, splashing it on fools… Me and Jonah about to bring back the Jheri curl, bro.

Jonah: [Laughs.] Hell yeah we are.

Shamon: So, I was literally in the closet writing music from the time I was probably eight, and I didn’t come out of the closet with it at all until, I want to say, freshman year of high school. Did y’all do anything like that?

Brandon: My older brother was rapping, so I think the first time I rapped was in front of people. I wanted to be like him.

Shamon: You didn’t have to get over no hump.

Brandon: I was like, “I can rap too!” I was trash, but…

Shamon: You had the confidence.

Brandon: I shouldn’t have had it at that point. I was willing to jump out in the street.

Shamon: And that’s early on, so no wonder why the bars be so precise.

Jonah: Both of y’all are two of the best live [rappers]. I mean, on record, too, but live rapping is to me how you really see somebody’s skill. When it hits the stage and the shit just elevates — that takes that rapping with your brother type shit. It really takes some trial and error.

Shamon: Yeah. I will definitely say, B is absolutely one of my favorites that does this. It’s spectacular, straight up.

Brandon: All praises to you man. You a scientist with the shit. And the ease of your flow — when you talk about rappers who got a flow, that’s always my favorite because I fuck with people who stay inside of bar patterns. Like Method Man type rappers, where you catch the feel in every bar. You’ve got so much of that in your style. That’s super admirable, because that comes from a place that you can’t train for. That’s soul shit. 

Shamon: That takes time. 

Jonah: Yeah, Shamon’s bars will bud another bar. He’ll start you somewhere, and then bud into some other shit. 

Shamon: Y’all are truly a blessing. I’ll never forget the day we met and the love that was already there. Y’all make me stronger, bro. For real. 

Brandon: Likewise, man. And that’s something that’s ongoing — we ain’t even seen the best of that yet.

Shamon: I agree. 

Jonah: It’s what it’s all about, man. It’s why we even make music: having people to hit up and chat about the things we love about making this stuff.

Shamon: It’s to push ourselves as creatives and as humans. With y’all, it’s a real brotherhood. It’s not just music, it’s a spiritual thing. It’s a family thing. 

Jonah: Well, guys, I gotta hop off the call. But we should make some more music. 

Shamon: We’ll get back on the computer meet up. 

Jonah: Shamon, have a good trip on the farm. 

Shamon: I’m gonna hug the shit out of a goat, man. Sending you all the love!

Jonah: We’re sending it right back!